By Melanie Turek, Nemertes SVP & Founding Partner
Wednesday, 16 March 2005, Collaboration Loop

At Microsoft's launch event for new-and-improved Real-Time Collaboration solutions earlier this month, master of (virtual) ceremonies Bill Gates made it clear that real-time collaboration is a top priority for him and for Microsoft. That's not surprising—the notion of PCs bringing people together around the globe fits well with his ongoing vision of what computing can do. I like where he's headed, but Microsoft—already late to the table—always has the potential to fly or flail with equal force.

In this case, I'm betting they get it right. IT executives want what Microsoft is offering—my most recent benchmark for Nemertes Research shows that 77% of companies currently use real-time collaborative communications, including instant messaging, Web conferencing, and presence-based applications. Although they might not need the technology from Redmond, Microsoft's muscle should be enough to succeed where others (IBM, anyone?) have so far failed.

The launch itself was not a total success: Bending over backward to make it virtual by strategically placing Microsoft execs around the country so that they could participate in the event remotely (using Microsoft's Live Meeting conferencing application, of course) just served to showcase the technology's limitations. The Internet audio broadcast went poorly (as evidenced by the many "how come I can't hear this?" questions). And doesn't dispersing execs who would otherwise all be in the same place kind of defeat the point? (We won't even discuss the inclusion of so-called "stars" from TV's The Apprentice using Live Meeting to brainstorm new ideas for the show; suffice it to say that Mark Burnett should stick to TV.)

That said, the news is fundamentally good for IT executives eager to enable collaboration among virtual workers. That's not a small group: The number of employees who work in locations separate from their managers and/or regular co-workers has grown by 800% over the past five years, according to research I've conducted at Nemertes. Fully 58% of IT executives describe their companies as a "virtual workplace"; another 9% say they're "almost there."