According to Shaun Nichols of vnunet.com, a new Forrester Research survey reports that 70% of firms may be looking to adopt collaboration tools in the next 12 months. Forrester analyst T.J. Kiett says reduced travel increases the need for knowledge sharing and collaboration tools:

The tough economy is forcing companies to restrict travel while keeping distributed teams in touch. In addition, changes in the composition of the workforce mean enterprises must find ways to capture the knowledge of retiring Baby Boomers and provide Gen Yers with their favored tools to work efficiently.

That quote comes from Forrester’s summary of the report. The full report is behind a pay-wall, so I can’t get more details on how they got the 70% figure, what industries, organization sizes, and specific tools it includes, etc. If someone from Forrester is reading, could you add some details?

In a related report, Kiett comments on the effect of tech populism (business users vs. IT) on collaboration software vendors:

The collaboration vendor landscape today is polarized, with most mega-vendors selling through the IT department while smaller vendors — including some in the Web 2.0 space — tackle selling through the individual user. What model will win?

Both. Collaboration will be a technology that will seep in through individual users’ preferences as well as IT-sanctioned solutions.