Forrester predicts that the enterprise social software market will reach $6.4 billion in 2016

On December 5, 2011, market research firm Forrester published a report predicting that the enterprise social software market will grow strongly in the next few years, reaching US$6.4 billion by 2016, eclipsing the demand for traditional communication and collaboration products.

The enterprise social software market size will grow from $600 million last year to $6.4 billion in 2016, with a compound annual growth rate of 61%.

Forrester said in a report that the market for unified communications and collaboration products will shrink starting in 2014 because, unlike enterprise social software, they do not help employees communicate with people outside their workgroup who have the skills they need. "Enterprise social software overcomes the shortcomings of unified communications and collaboration products by building a social layer between information workers and the applications and communications infrastructure," Forrester analyst Henry Dewing said in the report.

The report pointed out that over the past few years, enterprises have invested in a variety of tools in the hope of improving work efficiency, such as email, instant messaging, VoIP, video conferencing, collaboration software platforms, and unified communications and collaboration tools, but none of these tools have been able to meet the expected needs of enterprises.

David said, "Forrester believes that enterprise social software will provide the productivity that enterprises require by systematically organizing the people, information, and processes they need."

The report said that although enterprise social software products have been available for about five years, only 12% of information workers have used enterprise social collaboration software, and 8% of information workers use enterprise social collaboration software at least once a week.