As a co-founder of GroveSite, I am pleased to say how honored we are that GroveSite was selected (for the second year in a row) for inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant industry analyses, the "Gartner Magic Quadrant for Social Software, 2008." GroveSite was one of only 38 vendors, including giants such as IBM and Microsoft, selected for inclusion. In its comprehensive study, Gartner evaluated each vendor's ability to execute and its completeness of vision. In its comments about GroveSite, Gartner again mentioned GroveSite’s strength in “easily customizable workspaces that blend wiki-style text information with more structured file and data exchange" and its “innovative use of "online web-native databases."
GroveSite's hosted collaboration software has been offered since 2003 in the 'team collaboration software' category. We have chosen to offer only a hosted (software-as-a-service) version, as our niche is helping clients collaborate with their vendors, customers, and other external partners. Gartner first developed a Magic Quadrant analysis of this market in 2007, at which time the title of their study was, "Gartner Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration and Social Software." So it is interesting that in 2008, they have attempted to group vendors such as GroveSite -- whose emphasis is online team workspaces -- with vendors who offer 'Facebook'-style social software all under a Social Software moniker.
Back to the 'web-native database' feature mentioned in the study: GroveSite’s clients are increasingly using this web database feature to support day-to-day workflow between a company and its overseas suppliers. Our database feature is somewhat unique as it incorporates discussion logs, multiple file attachments with thumbnails, and granular security. For these clients, GroveSite moves from ‘social community tool' to 'secure web system for vital day-to-day business operations’. We love it!
