Facebook?s reported plan to follow Google into the enterprise space by launching a business-focused social network raises questions about how the social networking giant would fare against a slew of companies that are already established in the sector.

Facebook?s service, called Facebook at Work, would let users separate their personal social network from their work network to chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents, the Financial Times reported. The move would continue what has been a blurring of Facebook?s audience as the world?s largest social networking site continues to pursue revenue-generating strategies.

?The go-to-market for Facebook could be the same as Google with google apps, that is, free services,? she said. ?However, it has taken a long time for Google to become relevant in the business applications market.?

Facebook did not respond to media inquiries.

Facebook at Work has been adopted by a number of organizations after months of tests, the Financial Times reported, adding that no fee would be charged at first. Facebook?s challenge would be establishing users? privacy and security.

By retaining the Facebook look and feel, including groups and a newsfeed, Facebook at Work could pose a direct threat to LinkedIn.

Its ability to enable users to collaborate on shared documents could also let the Facebook enterprise site present a challenge for Google Drive and Google Docs, and Microsoft?s SharePoint collaboration site.

Facebook?s access to a huge storehouse of user data also points to its potential to become a rival to Twitter, which has launched an analytics feature.

 

The social-network?s reported foray into enterprise comes a week after Apple began to move deeper into enterprise, part of a plan to challenge Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Oracle in work applications and offset a slide in sales of iPads. Apple has hired a dedicated sales force to talk with potential clients like Citigroup and is working in concert with a dozen developers, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the plans.

Facebook?s following of Google into enterprise would be only the latest example of Facebook styling itself after the big Web portal company.

Facebook?s growing ability to monetize on mobile is transforming it into a generator of mobile advertising revenue with a prowess that may only be matched by Google.

In the third quarter, mobile-advertising revenue represented about 66 percent of ad revenue, up from roughly 49 percent a year earlier. The results pointed to Facebook?s gradual evolution into an online-advertising juggernaut, benefiting from a growing number of mobile users.

The move into enterprise also fits with Facebook?s taking aim at opening its resources to app developers. 

During a conference call held to discuss third-quarter financial results, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that over the next few years, Facebook?s goal is to become the cross-platform platform for app developers to build, grow and monetize their apps across every major mobile platform.

Forecasts for the growth of enterprise social software have fallen by roughly 50 percent during the last two years. 

In 2012, market researcher IDC said the sector had a five-year compound annual growth rate of 42 percent, and would reach about $4.5 billion in 2016, Vanessa Thompson, a research manager at IDC, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. This year, IDC said the market had a five-year, compound annual growth rate of 23 percent and would hit $2.3 billion in 2018, according to Ms. Thompson.

In August, a Vision Mobile survey found that just 16 percent of worldwide developers are building mobile apps for enterprises, despite this market being the most lucrative of all to serve. 

Vision Mobile found that Apple?s iOS operating system was adopted by 98 percent of Fortune 500 companies, with iOS developers targeting enterprises being about 2.5 times more likely to be earning over $25,000 per app per month compared to their Android counterparts. 

Facebook will have its work cut out making inroads against already-entrenched rivals in the enterprise arena.

?The company's social mobile tie isn't even unique,? Ms. Kingstone said. ?While they did acquire a chat company, going from a chat service to an integrated collaboration tool offering is still a small piece of the pie. The mobile social metric and ad network model is an area they should continue to strengthen building out the next generation social tool analysis,? she said. 

?However, again, social sentiment and social graphing is also an already mature market. Good luck to Facebook, but in the short term it will be probably only be adopted by small businesses that don't have the capabilities of using these larger enterprise focused collaboration tools,? Ms. Kingstone said.