Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, The Wiki Workplace, no matter what buzz you call it, there is no question the affect it’s having on the business world and it’s creating a real dilemma for large organizations. It has always taken longer for big business to change gears and switch strategies, but the rapid growth in popularity of wikis, blogs, tags, social networking and a variety of other Web 2.0 tools have made organizations take notice. Not to mention the popularity of these tools with employees has put pressure on companies to begin to experiment and implement them internally.

However, unlike most IT roll-outs, Web 2.0 brings an interesting dilemma to organizations. They are moving to a set of agile, lightweight, open, collaborative applications and must decide whether to build their own solution in house, buy a solution, or venture into the world of open source. With all of the options there are pros and cons, and I take a quick look at some of them below.

Build – In the early stages companies are often looking to pilot a number of solutions to find what works best for the organization. Even though most of the technologies are very light weight, building can be lofty goal for most company’s right out of the gate. Building is a tempting option for large organizations looking to implement customized functionality into their solutions. However, companies also need to be wary of creating their own legacy nightmare down the road. Once an organization has had time to figure out how their internal culture and corporate strategy fits in with their vision for an Enterprise 2.0 solution there very well may be some advantages for very customized solutions.

Buy – If you decide to buy a solution you need to decide if you are going to buy a suite that has integrated Web 2.0 tools and applications or whether you want to create your own mix of best-in-breed applications (e.g. the best wiki, search, blog, etc) which ultimately will lead to some integration. When making the decision to buy software companies will also have to decide whether to go with their existing large vendors, or experiment with a smaller startup. This forces an organization to weigh the value of having a stable solution they know will be supported 5 years down the road, against using best-in-breed solutions from young, innovative, agile companies. The question is will small vendors be able to offer the level of support a global organization needs and still remain innovative? If you integrate and base your collaborative strategy around a specific product, will they still be around in two years? On the other hand, can large vendors innovate fast enough to make their solutions relevant?

Open Source – There are a number of open source Web 2.0 solutions available to organizations such as TWiki, Drupal, bBlog, etc. For companies considering open source solutions they will need to think about intellectual property, integration and upgrades. Using an open source solution gives you access to not just a software product, but a community of users who are constantly innovating and improving upon the solution. For companies choosing to go this route the will need to carefully examine how IP rights are managed, if they are going to benefit from a community they will also need to give back. Is the organization willing to share their innovative changes and modifications with the community, especially on that could include competitors. There is also a considerable amount of integration needed with an open source solution and managing all of the connections as versions are continually updated could be challenging.