Au Revoir, blueKiwi?

Official word is not yet out (weekends in France start early, right?) but the co-founder & ex-CEO of French social software vendor blueKiwi confirmed its acquisition by systems integrator Atos, also of French Origin.

Now, you may remember that Atos is the largest enterprise to have publicly declared war on evil email (Imagine Atos top gun Thierry Breton, charging a la Popeye in The French Connection and thundering, “Get off the email and get on the Wall”). Atos wants to transition to email alternatives for all internal communications in three years.

As an aside, while debates continue about the wisdom of this zero-tolerance-for-email policy, I think it is pure marketing genius. Atos may have been Europe’s second largest IT Systems Integrator (behind Capgemini) and the IT partner for the Olympic games, but trailed its peers in brand awareness outside its core European markets. The no-email initiative has become a conversation starter;Atos gets free publicity and gains mindshare.

Back to blueKiwi. In last month’s update to our Enterprise 2.0 vendor evaluation research, we said “blueKiwi’s offering lies between the social platform Socialtext wishes to offer, and the ever-enticing notion of a modern replacement for email.” Done with explaining the acquisition rationale.

I am usually circumspect about M&A outcomes and certainly not a cheerleader for every deal that happens. Also, one can expect culture mismatches and different DNAs in integrator-vendor deals, but perhaps there is some merit to this particular marriage. It is a sign of Atos putting its money where its mouth is, if nothing else.  We can expect that Atos will put blueKiwi to work internally (seems the current Atos E2.0 arsenal consists of Office Communicator and a wiki).

In addition, blueKiwi could boost Atos' Smart Organization offerings (which are a mix of ECM + Collaboration software implementations with some consulting services on top). Don't be surprised though, if enterprises end up paying more (the overheads, consulting services) for any such offerings. So it's not quite au revoir. We can expect blueKiwi to have a semi-autonomous existence for a little while if only to honor existing customer commitments.

Existing customers should not have to head to the exit door right away but are well advised to have their plan B ready.

Of course, there will be a greater sense of urgency and a bigger question mark for SIs who either use blueKiwi (e.g. Capgemini, Atos biggest competitor) or have built offerings around blueKiwi (e.g. Logica who has an offering called Logica Integration built with the help of blueKiwi). Dassault Systems, blueKiwi's first client and early investor is said to have sold its stake and has launched its own social networking product now. You can expect some changes in the social software pecking order in Europe in the coming years.

Social software usage and adoption is innately tied to organizational culture and ethos. blueKiwi used to say that one of their successes has been to get even the reticent French to start using social networks. Two French proverbs perhaps provide a glimpse of the psyche

  • "I have often regretted having spoken, but never for having not." - Philippe de Commynes
  • "We were given speech to hide our thoughts." - Talleyrand

Though blueKiwi’s reach was strongest in native France and neighboring Germany, it was still the leading European vendor for social software. The likes of Jive software, which are hoping to expand globally, will now sense an opportunity but it won't be easy sailing as they have to crack the culture coda.

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