Downloadable version of Enterprise 2.0 now available!
It’s taken a while, but getting both timing and pricing right has been unbelievably difficult. However, for all those without corporate expense accounts that baulked at the price of the hardcover version, I’m relieved to announce that a downloadable PDF version of Enterprise 2.0 is now available from lulu.com for just £9.99/$14.03/€11.15.
This is a complete electronic replica of the printed book in PDF format. None of that anti-social DRM involved - in this hyper-social age I hope I can trust people to respect my copyright.
To buy, you can go directly to: http://bit.ly/enterprise20
For more information, go here: http://bit.ly/enterprise20info
Why I love Yammer’s business model… and why it needs to change
The enterprise Twitter clone, Yammer, has a great business model that exploits the desire for grassroots social computing from employees and preys on the security fears of their employers.
The way it works is simple: any employee can sign up to Yammer for free. If they are the first to use their corporate email domain (e.g. acme.com) then they automatically create a private micro-blogging community for their organization. Any subsequent employee who signs up with the same email domain becomes a member of that private community. In fact, they disguise an “invite a colleague” recruitment feature by asking new users to provide the email addresses of people they work with (including their manager).
Even if 10,000 employees sign up, it doesn’t cost a cent. The desire for low-cost social computing from normal employees has been met. It’s a smart move on Yammer’s part, as these employees are unlikely to have the budgets required to pay for the service.
Obviously Yammer isn’t going to get rich doing this. So they’ve come up with a cunning ruse to open the corporate coffers. They’ve worked out the one thing that companies discovering these “unauthorised” communities will pay for: control and ownership. So all the security features (like IP restrictions, password complexity and session management) are “paid for” features that cost the company $1 per user per month. At this point the employer also owns all the updates posted by employees to Yammer. Effectively Yammer is holding employers to ransom: “Your employees are using our system, and we want $1 a month per user to give you control and ownership of the space.”
And that’s why their business model has to change.
Firstly, I doubt that a company with 1,000 employees on Yammer - let alone 10,000 - is going to pay $1 per user a month for this service. Sooner or later Yammer is going to have to introduce volume-based pricing and/or a behind-the-firewall version of Yammer for a one-off fee.
Secondly, the majority of those employees who sign up for Yammer do so out of curiosity or because they’ve received one of the cunningly disguised invitations. Yet the employer still has to pay $1 a month for every member, not just the active ones. I’d like to see Yammer charging based on “active” usage, not total membership.
Thirdly, once they do start paying, the Yammer business model actually discourages companies from encouraging adoption. Let’s say there are 30 members of a Yammer community when the company takes control - that’s $30 a month. It’s in the company’s financial interests to limit the rate of further adoption. If numbers rose to 1,000 say, a hike of $30 to $1,000 would take a lot of explaining to most bean-counters. It will inevitably lead to internal cross-charging for most companies, which will further limit adoption and value. Yammer needs to let companies to put a limit on the number of users in order to limit their monthly budgets.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Yammer and I congratulate them on a very clever business model. But they need to be very careful not to bite the only hand that feeds them.
Enterprise 2.0 Investment Opportunity
Not a usual theme for this blog, but thought it might be worth a shot given the types of people reading. Who knows, maybe this blog can be the home to some Enterprise 2.0 deals?!
I’ve been asked if I know anyone interested in buying a majority stake in a growth-stage Enterprise 2.0 company - would probably appeal to an existing software company looking to expand their product suite or get a foothold in Europe.
Ping me a private note at niall@tiggi.com if you want to know more.
Enterprise 2.0 Presentation Slides
During my Canadian tour last week, I’m proud to say that I used slides just once at the breakfast for Hill & Knowlton clients. The rest of the sessions were all off the cuff.
In response to numerous requests, I put my slide deck on Slideshare.net. Here they are:
I’m afraid they lose a little without my talking over them. If you’d like me to come explain them to your company, please contact me.
Nosco: Prediction Market Software for Companies
At the Enterprise 2.0 breakfast I held for Hill & Knowlton clients in Toronto last week, someone ask me about tools for capturing ideas from sales people with voting and commenting capabilities. Nothing sprang to mind, but I promised I would do some research.
Seems like a bit of an untapped market to be honest*, but one that hits all the buttons is Nosco (www.nosco.dk) from a Danish firm.
Not only does it allow voting and commenting, but it also allows participants to buy and sell shares in the best ideas and run competitions. For sales teams, I think these kinds of features could be ideal. The software can be hosted securely externally (so up and running quickly) or installed on a customer’s own servers.
* Since posting this, Noam Danon left a comment pointing me to QMarkets, another potential candidate. Any more out there I’m missing?
** Add Consensus Point to your list as well. President David Perry informs me that they “actually started developing prediction markets 15 years ago but things *really* started heating up with The Wisdom of Crowds came out.”
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