Social networking continues to arouse mixed feelings among IT leaders. On the one hand, IT managers may feel obliged or pushed into banning such applications because of the perceived time-wasting effect that they have on employees. But on the other, they are faced with new products from software vendors that suggest that Web 2.0-style tools are the future of enterprise IT.

Jeremy Burton, chief executive of Serena Software, certainly thinks there is a place for social networking in the enterprise. In fact, when he first joined the company he spearheaded a push for its use, recommending that all employees adopted Facebook, and shared as much of their business and personal information on it as possible.

The reason for this was simple, according to Burton: people like to feel informed. “The most popular tool at the place where I worked before Serena was the office organisational chart. People like to know what is going on, and who works where,” he explained.

The very nature of these online, use-from-anywhere social sites and applications was another factor behind Serena’s decision to embrace the technology, added Burton.

“Facebook was a free tool for us to use and we could get going with it right away. It let us expose our interests to other folks in the building, and find out things we might have in common with them,” he said. “One per cent of staff might abuse it, but why stop everyone else from using it? There are millions of other ways that people might be wasting time in the office. Banning it is very short-sighted.”

Alistair Mitchell, chief executive of Huddle.net, which develops enterprise-oriented social networking and collaborative tools, said that this type of package appeals to many business customers.

“People at home use social networking tools, but what happens when they go
to work? They want to try to carry that on. We combine productivity tools with social networking techniques, and we do this in a very business-focused way.
We are helping to make people work better,” he said.

The influence of Web 2.0 technologies has become increasingly apparent at business management software developer Managed Objects. “Someone suggested we try applying social networking, and having got over the initial repulsion we really started to think about it, and could see that it would work,” said Managed Objects business technologist Jim White.

One of the firm’s most recent beta launches, myCMDB, has a very obvious Web 2.0 look and feel. “We haven’t replaced the interfaces, just added new ones that people can use if they are more comfortable with the format. It’s a very good way of broadening out the number of users of an application,” said White.

Oracle is also pushing the social side of enterprise applications. Earlier this month, the software giant launched its first “social CRM application”, Oracle Sales Prospector.
According to Mark Woollen, Oracle’s vice president of CRM, Sales Prospector brings Web 2.0 social networking capabilities into the traditional enterprise applications space.

“The overall user experience is not that of an enterprise application, which typically will have lots of tabs, views and sub-views,” Woollen said. “Sales Prospector is about prospecting for new sales opportunities without having to scroll through a lot of lists and forms.”