CIOs steer clear of web 2.0 upstarts

Corporate buyers want web 2.0 technologies but they'd rather buy from bigger vendors, according to a report this week from Forrester Research.

The IT research company surveyed 119 CIOs at companies with more than 500 employees and found a strong appetite for web 2.0 technologies, including software for blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networking and content tagging.

The preferred delivery for these web 2.0 technologies, however, is through integrated product suites, the CIOs said. That's because these corporations are concerned with integrating new tools with the software from their existing suppliers.

The study, written by G. Oliver Young, said: "When asked if they would prefer offerings from major incumbent vendors like Microsoft, IBM, or Oracle rather than from smaller pure play firms like Socialtext, NewsGator, or MindTouch, the vast majority of CIOs indicated a preference for large vendors."

IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, BEA Systems and other incumbent software vendors have each sought to incorporate web 2.0 technologies into their applications. Nearly all the respondents in the survey said they were using at least one kind of web 2.0 technology, largely because it makes their businesses more efficient.

Forrester said: "CIOs were most likely to view social networking and blogs as unnecessary, with a little more than half of respondents reporting as such. The web 2.0 technologies that had relatively clear user benefits, RSS, wikis and tagging, were less likely to be viewed as unnecessary."

Forrester recommended that smaller web 2.0 companies partner with established firms. It also predicted that consolidation in the web 2.0 market will continue.

Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com