I completely agree with the idea of an intranet-based enterprise-sharing system, I would be quite surprised if not every company had it already, it's called a folder you put on a server which everyone has access to. It's not so easy to have software interact with this, at least I haven't seen great software that does. The software that does work best seems to be "enterprise 1.0" ware like MS Office, which then interfaces with files that are shares across the intranet.

The more advanced software which uses a web-interface or some other kinds of interfaces, e.g. there's Windows (small) business server that includes some interesting collaborative software is still problematic because a. it's slower to load and update, also often depending on web-interfaces, which aren't that great usually, and also doesn't interact well with "enterprise 1.0 software." There's plenty of other software vendors also of course, who produce e.g. accounting software that is connected, but there it's also often a trade off between that connectivity and functionality in general.

While e2, as long as it's not too open, is great in principle, I'll have to see some working examples of a software that works as elegantly as desktop software.

But I'm thinking as I'm writing (as usual)… so don't expect this to be my final answer

Back to your metaphor : the Enterprise is more like your neighborhood and all houses (workers PC) are on the same network and share the data. The problem with E1.0 is that there are secuiry barreers all over the place which prevent people from accessing data they would need and don't offer practical tools to search and find the appropriate information.

So it is just common sense that rather than everybody keeping their own GigaBytes of data for themselves, they all share it. It is just a matter of common sense not to expose your dirty laundry or rather sensitive information you don't want to share.

With the collaborative platform they have a powerful search tool which allow them to
- search the information,
- add Tags in order to metadata-ing the information and find it more easily,
- find people with skills and experiences your interested in (eg experts in DIY and gardening that can give you useful advices or give you a hand),
- exchange information regarding the best school to put your kids in / shops to find the best food in etc …. and
- meet people.
At the end of the day all the neighborhood resident can find new ideas for their home / kids / professional carreer / activity, community occupation etc … It can just transform their life

I have a friend blogger and tell you what : thanks to her blog she met 2 neighbors, 2 other girls living down the same street.

When you say online do you mean on the WWW ? Again when I say online, mean on the company LAN. I don't believe in completely opening every apps/sites of the enterprise to the outside world. So the e2 platform is a set of tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs/Wiki on the company LAN, not the actual WWW apps.

Last thing : when I'm saying upper management, it's because (in France at least) these people don't really understand what is at stakes right now with e2.0. They underestimates the paradigm change which is ongoing while the people down the ladder do and use these tools. And the former are the ones that decide – there is no such thing as bottom-up here.

You write in your comment that e2 doesn't mean that all data needs to be put online. Fine. But then you say the technology of locking the information and keeping control/power is gone. You're not selling e2 to me here, because some of us want to keep control over our data. I'd say, with the exception of Facebook/Flickr/Blogging users, all of us want to keep control. How do you speak to those people? Just increase your privacy settings in your social network?

A good analogy to how companies think is a house. We can choose to put our belongings on the street or we can put it behind a locked door and make sure no one gets to it.

And, just FYI, I'm (always) playing devil's advocate in these discussions. Sell e2 to me like I was the devil that only wants to live in PC-land, with my McAffee firewall, Office 2009, and a terrabyte hard-drive to back everything up on.

I guess there is a misunderstanding here : Enterprise 2.0 does not necessary mean to put your data on the web. You can have most Enterprise Solutions from the market installed on your servers in your IT Center and run them inside your firewall.

I think this is more a cultural thing than a business or marketing one. Simply because the management techniques to manage manual workers have to be different from the ones used for knowledge workers. Especially if you consider that the latter have higher degrees and are more informed, entitled and assertive as Jean Twenge put it in her great book : Generation Me. Entreprise 2.0 is just as much a question of Trust over Control than Blogs/Wikis over Microsoft doc. And this is a massive change.

Besides, the technique of locking the information and manipulate it to keep control and have power is now long gone with internet : jon husband explains it very well in the Wirearchy essay. This is how politics has worked behind the firewall in the XXth century. This won't work anymore.

The worst problem Enterprise 2.0 is facing now iis how all the consultants and Enterprise 2.0 zealots are scaring upper management out with their buzzwords, trendy technologies and flashy presentations. Kinda "Killed by bullet points killers" if you see what I mean.

It's quite a patronizing marketing approach if you ask me. As long as they don't provide sense with these technologies, they don't explain which existing problem of the enterprise they address, they won't have people implementing it in the enterprise.

In terms of drivers, we've seen 4 big trends: software development (e.g. web2.0), infrastructure development (e.g. mobile internet), consumer development (e.g. user generated stuff), and company development (e.g. online banking).
EDIT: forgot another driver: lowering hardware costs. Which is a driver for keeping things like servers and general processing power inhouse.

Company developments, which I what I understand enterprise 2.0 to be about seems to be mostly *positively influenced* by cost savings (e.g. to deal with the recession & globalisation) and *hampered* by security concerns and the simple irrelevance of online to some, perhaps many businesses.

Without a doubt, most companies benefit from marketing presence and delivering certain services to companies. But there is little reason, except if you run a office/company of people spread across the planet to put your productivity software online too.

Just my opinion, would love to hear your thoughts.