The supply chain is becoming the focus of collaboration and by 2009, 60 percent of key collaboration projects will include suppliers, partners, customers personnel, compared with 10 percent today according to Gartner research. "We are in an age when every company operates in a complex business ecosystem, where the success or failure of each member of the ecosystem is dependent on, affects and is affected by the success of other members of the ecosystem." said a Gartner report: "Collaboration Comes of Age," November 2005.

There are many other suppliers for collaboration software. Where specialized tools from niche vendors are needed, they are generally standards-compliant and compatible.

Market merge

Networking providers like Alcatel, Nortel and Cisco are all integrating their communications platforms with IBM and Microsoft to complete the unified communications toolset.

Increasingly networking vendors will enter joint development of collaboration-driven products, which will include call-center applications, telephony and mobile access systems, and data-networking infrastructure.