In a number of recent conversations I’ve heard the viewpoint that the market for Collaboration software is going to owned by either Microsoft or IBM.  The reference was both to the enterprise and SMB segments.  What was surprising to me is that this view was held by Office 2.0 startups – that is startups offering SaaS collaboration applications.  What then was the point of their existence, I pressed? 

The clarification was that certain collaboration functionality could be viewed as a platform – basic, well understood, and readily available to integrate with.  Examples given were document libraries and instant messaging.  My conversation partners felt that these functions, unless core to their business, was not worth re-building.

Of course, not all Office 2.0 startups feel this way.  Many do go to the trouble of building from scratch, or modifying and improving available open source applications.  For others, use of Microsoft’s or IBM’s collaboration software as a platform for additional innovation may make sense.

An example of such a startup is Clarizen.  This SaaS project-management company has recently launched in beta and is receiving its first orders from paying customers.  While in alpha, feedback from customers showed a demand for functionality like document libraries, document-oriented workflow, and instant messaging.  As a developer of a collaborative project management solution, Clarizen views this functionality as an important part of its offering, and decided to check what elements of Microsoft platform could be utilized.  At this point, a good portion of the Microsoft collaboration platform is not geared for hosted multi-tenant deployment.  Windows SharePoint Services is an exception that, if chosen by Clarizen, may allow them to easily add document management and wikis to complement its service.