2009 may be remembered as the year that enterprises truly understand the importance of social software. This manifested with the rise of enterprise collaboration services, cloud computing technologies and the growing importance of mobile technologies for the enterprise. Web-based services are moving fast into the enterprise, raising questions about document-based environments in a world increasingly influenced by real-time information. We saw this time and again as the year rolled on. It played an important factor in how we developed our top ten list. Sponsor ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009: Our list includes three companies that made the list last year. We expect that this list may have some surprises. We welcome your feedback on the products that made the top 10 and your thoughts on ones that didn't make it. Microsoft Windows Azure and Sharepoint Microsoft has made huge strides with Sharepoint 2010. It is expected to continue its march into the enterprise this coming year. It may not be a best of breed application by any means, but its API is attracting a healthy number of third-party vendors. These companies are developing services to bring a level of transparency to enterprise data, which has historically been trapped in data silos. But Windows Azure is Microsoft's most exciting development. Ray Ozzie unveiled the cloud-based platform at the Professional Developers Conference last month and it is living up to its promise. It supports Ruby on Rails and MySQL, another sign that open-source is welcome on the Azure platform. Dallas, its mashup service, embraces the computational power of cloud computing, giving developers the ability to create their own applications that they may sell via the Azure platform. All in all, the services Microsoft is providing makes it a natural fit for the Top 10 list. Jive Software SBS 4.0 This Portland-based company continues to make strides into the enterprise. Earlier this Fall, the company unveiled Jive SBS 4.0 , its most significant update to date. SBS 4.0 is Jive's latest version of its enterprise collaboration technology. Jive may be the most threatening competitor to Microsoft Sharepoint. Its platform integrates with Microsoft Office, the iPhone and provides a social layer that users find compelling. Jive recently raised $12 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital. Salesforce.com Salesforce.com took a deep dive into the social space this year, culminating with Salesforce Chatter , a real-time service that acts as an internal social network for its customers. It was the culmination of a big year for the cloud-based service. Force.com, its application platform, saw significant growth. To date, developers have launched 135,000 applications on the platform. Further, a growing number of third-party services are integrating with the platform, showing again how important Salesforce.com has become in the Enterprise 2.0 space. SocialCast Social Business Intelligence One of our favorite companies in the web space, SocialCast is one of those services that just seems to understand the market and execute accordingly. What sets it apart is the user interface and SocialCast Social Business Intelligence , its sophisticated analytics environment, which will be a critical aspect to any service providing a real-time feed in an enterprise environment. Google Apps Google is making a clear move into the enterprise in a number of ways. Most recently, it enhanced its integration with the Blackberry. Google Sites recently had a major upgrade. Overall, Google is investing heavily in features to give enterprise customers more incentives to switch from Microsoft Office. We'll see how 2010 turns out for Google, but the path looks pretty clear for Google Apps to make further gains in the enterprise. Next page: Top Enterprise Products of 2009, 6-10 MindTouch MindTouch continues to find traction with its open-source services. Its most recent offering, MindTouch Cloud , is an open-source alternative to Sharepoint. Its ability to stitch together different data elements gives MindTouch an advantage in the enterprise, as customers seek additional ways to create dashboards that provide views into their internal systems and external environments. Cisco Collaboration This choice may be a bit of a surprise, but we feel that Cisco's investments in VOIP and collaboration services position it as a major player in the market. The company is acquiring Tandberg, it launched a social network service for internal use in the enterprise, and its VOIP service is now integrated with Salesforce.com. We see 2010 as the year that Cisco must tie it all together. It needs a glue to connect all of the services that it offers. Unlike Microsoft or IBM, Cisco lacks an underlying data structure. Still, the company's deep commitment to collaboration technologies in 2009 shows how it is transitioning to a new market that is built in many ways upon a social fabric. Socialtext The Socialtext story dates back to the days before Web 2.0. It began as a wiki provider and has since transformed itself into a collaboration service with real-time, microblogging integrations. In the past year, the company has continued to innovate - most recently with SocalCalc , the spreadsheet service that allows for multiple users to collaborate simultaneously across multiple documents. The challenge for Socialtext is to move past its perception as a wiki provider. The market is far larger for a collaboration platform and Socialext knows it. It will face steep competition in the enterprise against entrenched players like Microsoft and newcomers like Jive Software. present.ly Another company that may be flying under the radar to most, but is taking a smart approach with enterprise customers. Present.ly is an enterprise collaboration service that provides a real-time activity stream. It is profitable and growing, by taking the steps required to gain the trust of enterprises. Its security is tight and it offers the choice of an on-premise solution. present.ly is one of those elegant services that we admire for its smart fit with services like Twitter; and its compatibility with an array of mobile and web-based services. Apple iPhone Perhaps one of the mist revolutionary consumer products of our time, the iPhone is now also having a dramatic impact on the enterprise. Waves of business users have adopted the iPhone, creating demand for a new generation of enterprise applications. It's the Web that matters. Apple understands that dynamic far more than RIM and its Blackberry, which has a tough fight on its hands in 2010. There is no slowing down the iPhone - it's quickly becoming the app of choice for the enterprise. In Conclusion In 2009 we saw the rise of collaboration services, the maturing of cloud computing and advances in SaaS platforms. The rise of mobile technologies will continue in 2010. And social technologies in the enterprise? Well, they're here to stay. ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009: Discuss

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Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009

Unified communications was a notable absent In Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies for 2010. For years, the idea of a common platform for seemingly all communications seemed bewildering. Cisco CEO John Chambers said that even CIO's were unsure what unified communications really meant. But now here it is raising its flag once again with predictions from ABI Research that the unified communications market will jump from $302 million in 2008 to $4.3 billion by 2014. Seems like a big jump? Not really if you compare it to what at least one other analyst group is predicting. Sponsor Interestingly, the reason for the growth may be in part due to cloud computing, which not surprising is the number one technology on Gartner's list for 2010. For years, unified communications has held promise as a product or suite of products that had a unifying user interface that, according to Wikipedia , would integrate real-time communication services "such as as instant messaging (chat); presence information; IP telephony; video conferencing; call control and speech recognition with non real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax)." Over the years, camps divided as people grappled with the idea of how all these technologies come together. Cisco recently dumped the term "unified communications," in favor of "Cisco Collaboration." They are smart over at Cisco. Collaboration is definitely the new black . There's not a lot new behind the curtain but collaboration has an edge to it that is getting the attention of the enterprise. But now comes along cloud computing and the vendors seem to be learning that perhaps unified communications should be treated as a service. Vendors like Cisco are teaming up with SaaS services like Salesforce.com and VOIP providers such as Skype. The potential proves to In-Stat that the market for unified communications will jump to $39 billion by 2013. It may be easy to poke fun a the hype around cloud computing these days. But there is actual proof that whatever you want to call it, cloud computing is playing a significant part in the growth of unified communications. Services that interconnect across devices and provide the capability for collaboration are emerging in a variety of flavors. More proof of what is to come? Aire-Spring represents a new breed of telecommunications companies. They are also one of the fastest growing operators. The comany has built an IP network from scratch. The company is processing 4 billion calls annually. Those are big numbers fitting for a market that is just about to burst. Discuss

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Unified Communications: Saved by the Cloud?

Skype's litigation woes with eBay had businesses a bit worried. Funding Skype in the enterprise looked risky with the potential that a judge could at some point pull the code base out from under Skype and leave businesses stranded. But that's not an issue anymore. According to Network World , Skype now has rights to the code that is essential for the service to run. That means Skype for business is a green light for the companies seeking to use the VOIP service. Sponsor Last month, eBay agreed to sell Skype to a consortium that included the founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. As part of the deal, Skype retains the technology that would be required to service business users. Using the Skype network can save companies and organizations millions of dollars per year in telecommunications costs. Call centers, international calls and a host of other services can be transferred to the Skype VOIP network. Skype is making a big play in the corporate market. Earlier this year, the company announced Skype for SIP , which gives businesses the capability to hook a company's SIP infrastructure into the Skype network. The beta program is underway with several PBX providers, including Cisco and Shoretel. Still, the biggest issue is better integration. As one analyst said to Network World: "It's a game changer," said Irwin Lazar, an analyst with Nemertes Research. "The level of frustration trying to get SIP to work can be enormous." Discuss

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Skype For Business Is a Go Now That Litigation Settled With eBay