Microsoft recognized as a Leader in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace

Research firm Gartner has now recognized Microsoft as a Leader in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace for the seventh year in a row. Microsoft is positioned furthest to the right for Completeness of Vision and highest on Ability to Execute in the 2015 report. Microsoft has several products in Social Software in the Workplace market like Office 365, Yammer, Office Delve and more.

From Garner report,

Microsoft is in the Leaders quadrant. Microsoft has focused its social efforts on its online offerings Yammer and Office 365 (through closer incorporation of Yammer with the rest of Office 365), while focusing SharePoint on related capabilities — including document management, portals and websites.

Strengths

• Product: Microsoft has targeted a wide audience with a broad product platform incorporating social capabilities. While not every component is best in class, they are good enough in sufficient areas that most enterprise users can find the functionality they need, with some parts (such as Yammer) providing compelling functionality.
• Roadmap: Microsoft has increased its pace of innovation with a slew of new products and capabilities released under the Office 365 banner; plus interesting developments described for capabilities such as the Office Graph, and incorporation of smart machine virtual assistant technology from Cortana.
• Adoption: The level of interest and firm plans for organizations to move to Office 365 and related Microsoft products are growing quickly. Microsoft can measure its social and collaboration business in billions of dollars. It would take highly disruptive events or serious missteps for Microsoft to lose its leadership position in this market.

Cautions

• Architecture: Microsoft’s move toward the cloud, in the form of Office 365, and its de-emphasizing of SharePoint as a social software platform have triggered significant changes for many existing customers. Some mismatches between Yammer and other Microsoft products have caused confusion: for example, Microsoft implemented the “group” concept differently in Office 365 and Yammer (slated to be fixed in 1H16).
• Complexity: As Microsoft introduces new products and ways to access Office 365 capabilities, the overall product offering becomes harder to navigate and understand. For example, the SharePoint news feed functionality overlaps with the Yammer activity stream; Yammer Now offers largely the same functionality as the IM component of Skype for Business; Delve offers a different and more social way of searching, but users can also search content using SharePoint.
• Focus: As Microsoft’s collaboration, communications and social offerings continue to expand, it will be difficult for even this sizable organization to sustain the required level of attention across all of its new products — as well as the ones that IT organizations have come to depend on — while maintaining quality, compatibility and a clear vision. IT managers are already finding it difficult to navigate Microsoft’s offerings. Microsoft is managing many moving parts as it expands with new titles (such as Clutter, Lens, Sway, Send, Cortana and Delve), and coordinating its focus will be a challenge.