A rant about suffixes, especially numeric ones with decimal points.

For sometime now, the little corner of the blogsphere that writes about enterprise software has been going on about Enterprise 2.0, either in defence of its wikipedia status, or discussing what it “means.” Dion Hinchcliffe provides a useful summary of enterprise 2.0 here. I’ve written about it too, as have most of the irregulars.

Putting the wikipedia stuff aside, there are two camps, one that thinks the term should be narrow, and another camp that thinks it should be broad. For the sake of simplicity I label them Camp V and Camp A. If I have placed anyone in the wrong camp, apologies.

Camp A: (McAfee, Boothby, Mayfield+others)

Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers

Camp V:(Mirchandani , Rangaswami, +others)

Enterprise 2.0 is the synergy of a new set of technologies, development models and delivery methods that are used to develop business software and deliver it to users.

The English language is bountiful, dynamic and often beautiful.  It has no committees like French has, deciding which words are allowed.

I wonder why we can’t think of two terms, one to describe the use of emergent  software in an enterprise software, and the other to describe a broader shift in Enterprise technology.

I could understand it if the argument was over a really fabulous word, like cyberspace, or the Internet.

The car isn’t called horse 2.0.

The lightbulb isn’t called candle 2.0

Fax (Facsimile) isn’t called letter 2.0

If we are so innovative in the 21st century, the least we can do is to think of some new terms that inspire. Think ROBOT, Television, Velcro, Radio, even scuba (Self-Contained Underwater-Breathing Apparatus)

I propose that we bury the term, and boycott all use of 2.0 from now on (well after the office 2.0 event)

 If this stuff is really that innovative then it deserves a proper word. (I’ll save my rant on dropping vowels for latr) Dust off those thinking caps, and like inventors of yore, come up with something that one day we could use in a scrabble game.

Technorati tags 2.0 Enterprise2.0