Data Management Holds Back Web 2.0 in Enterprise

The biggest dangers to extending Web 2.0 capabilities to the enterprise are information overload and lack of information accountability, experts attending and speaking at Microsoft Corp.'s IT Pro Town Hall Event in Redmond said on Wednesday.

"Today, people are drowning in data and [Really Simple Syndication] is another source to drown them," said David Lifka, director of high performance and innovative computing at Cornell University. "What will drive the next generation is to seamlessly make sense of the data sources out there." Enterprise users want and will need tools that can filter information coming in, from sources such as RSS and blogs, flagging relevant data and filing away others, he said.

The volume of data that business workers receive only promises to grow, exacerbating the problem. Companies like Attensa Inc. are offering RSS platforms to businesses that allow end users to receive information from CRM (Customer Relationship Management) databases through RSS, said Craig Barnes, founder and until recently CEO of Attensa. Such capabilities can easily lead to 1,000 RSS items directed to individual enterprise users each day, he said.

In addition to information overload, another key component missing in services and products bringing capabilities like RSS and blogs to the enterprise is a trusted system that vouches for the credibility of information, said Michael Cherry, lead analyst, operating systems for Directions on Microsoft.

Users should be able to find both exactly where the data came from and be able to examine the credibility of the source, attendees said. But tackling both of those issues won't be easy.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Energy offers identity certificates, but the IT industry may not want to ultimately rely on a government system for such certificates, Lifka said. However, it doesn't appear that any vendor is attempting to take a lead in setting standards and policies for such a system, he said.

He also suggested that enterprise users would like to have access to a mechanism allowing them to trace the origin of information.

Others agreed that the lack of such a mechanism is slowing down the uptake of Web 2.0 services by enterprises. "Users don't know if it's the right data or interpreted correctly or is it pulled from the right database," said Cherry.