Open Source Tools for Enterprise 2.0: A Feature-Based Adaptable Analysis

When introducing Enterprise 2.0 tools to support knowledge workers working together on cognitive tasks and sharing information, companies and organizations face the problem of choosing the right tools from a huge market of systems. In particular for SMEs, open source tools for Enterprise 2.0 offer a good alternative to commercial systems, but the diversity of systems makes this marketplace quite confusing. Therefore we present a study of the growing market for Enterprise 2.0 systems that focuses entirely on systems available under an open source license. We use a set of 97 individual features and criteria that are grouped around the central functionalities of communication, coordination, collaboration and connection, to analyze the suitability of a representative sample of open source Enterprise 2.0 tools for the average knowledge worker. The evaluation matrix can be easily adapted to get more specific evaluation results for more particular company requirements. Our results show that there are many technically mature solutions with a broad range of functionality available from the market of open source tools for Enterprise 2.0.