Half the cos to start tweeting in 2 yrs: Gartner
February 4, 2010
Source: REUTERS

NEW DELHI: Social networking will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for communications in one in every five businesses across the world, IT

research major Gartner, said on Tuesday. The research firm also said nearly half of companies globally will start using microblogging streams like Twitter in two years.

The forecasts were part of a Gartner report that tries to predict the realm of social networking in companies for 2010-2015. The huge popularity of the microblogging service Twitter has led many organizations to look for an "enterprise Twitter," that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features.

“However, it will be very difficult for microblogging as a standalone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise. Twitter's scale is one of the reasons for its popularity,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice-president for Gartner.

Enterprise users want to use microblogging for the same reasons as consumers do — to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on. Gartner also predicts that by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and location, adds Gartner.

“Rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities,” predicts Matt Cain, research vice-president at Gartner. “While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of cloud-based social networking services,“ he adds.

The shift will also be marred of challenges. Through 2013, IT organisations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70% failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives inside companies, says Gartner.

While Bharti Airtel has already switched to SMS instead of email companies like Oracle and SAP offer social networking applications inside their ERP systems.

Microblogging may replace email: Gartner
February 4, 2010
Source: ET AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Social networking will replace email as the primary vehicle for communications for one in five businesses across the world, IT research major Gartner said on Tuesday. The research firm also said that nearly half of the companies globally will start using microblogging streams like Twitter in two years.

The forecasts were part of a Gartner report that tries to predict the realm of social networking in companies for 2010-2015 . The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter has led many organisations to look for an “enterprise Twitter,” that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features.

“However, it will be very difficult for microblogging as a stand-alone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise. Twitter’s scale is one of the reasons for its popularity,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice-president for Gartner.

Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.

Already, Indian companies like Bharti have switched to SMS instead of email. Almost 90% of internal communication in the company happens through an SMS intranet developed by IBM. Gartner also predicts that by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and location , adds Gartner.

“Rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. Email will take on many social attributes such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities,” predicts Matt Cain, research vice-president at Gartner. “While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of cloud-based social networking services,” he adds. The shift will also be marred of challenges. Through 2013, IT organisations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70% failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives inside companies , says Gartner.

During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Companies like Oracle and SAP already offer social networking applications inside their ERP systems.

Promotions may follow pay hike plan at Wipro
February 4, 2010
SOURCE: REUTERS

BANGALORE: Close on the heels of announcing salary hikes, the country’s third-largest IT services exporter, Wipro Technologies, is likely to go

ahead with promotions in April. And expectations are that the promotions this year would be much more broad-based unlike those in 2009.

An internal e-mail to employees by Wipro’s joint CEOs, said: “We had announced during Wipro Meet (a town hall event) that we will have salary increases in February and this is already under way and we hope this has brought a measure of good cheer. There are more changes coming our way in the near future and these include a progression cycle after the completion of the annual appraisal cycle.”

The internal mail further stated that “...with all our high investments into new technologies, we have over 4,000 open positions now. This means there are more opportunities for Wiproites to grow and get trained in best-in-class technologies.”

Wipro Technologies follows a two-cycle promotion policy that usually happens in April and October. During 2009, it was selective in promoting people.

However, with the hiring momentum picking up and attrition rates rising, industry observers feel that Wipro would be more liberal this time. When contacted, Pratik Kumar, HR head-Wipro, said: “We have already said that we would go ahead with our promotions in April and it would be as selective as in the past.”

A Wipro employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said while promotions are likely to be across-the-board in April, it is unlikely that the people at the very junior level would be considered.

Yet another employee, who also didn’t want to be identified, said they have seen quite a few colleagues leaving the organisation and this e-mail is a step to shore up staff confidence.

Wipro Technologies had 102,746 employees at the end of December quarter with voluntary attrition rate touching 13.4%. The overall attrition rate at the end of December quarter had risen from 10.5% reported at the end of September quarter.