The Forrester Wave: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
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Licensed for individual use only
The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms,
Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
by Cheryl McKinnon
June 16, 2020
Why Read This Report Key Takeaways
In our 26-criterion evaluation of intranet Igloo Software, LumApps, And Simpplr Lead
platform providers, we identified the 12 most The Pack
significant ones — Akumina, Atlassian, Aurea Forrester’s research uncovered a market in
(Jive Software), Igloo Software, Interact, Liferay, which Igloo Software, LumApps, and Simpplr
LiveTiles, LumApps, Microsoft, SDL, Simpplr, and are Leaders; Akumina, Liferay, LiveTiles,
Unily — and researched, analyzed, and scored Microsoft, Unily, and Interact are Strong
them. This report shows how each provider Performers; and Atlassian, SDL, and Aurea (Jive
measures up and helps application development Software) are Contenders.
and delivery (AD&D) professionals select the right
Personalized Communications, Design Tools,
one for their needs.
And Dashboards Are Key Differentiators
Aging on-premises intranets are dying.
Cloud platforms with flexible content and
communication creation and delivery options
will lead the pack. Vendors that provide granular
personalization, design and templating tools,
and integration with top productivity suites are
revitalizing this market.
This PDF is only licensed for individual use when downloaded from forrester.com or reprints.forrester.com. All other distribution prohibited.
forrester.comFor Application Development & Delivery Professionals
The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
by Cheryl McKinnon
with Daniel Hong, Sara Sjoblom, Peter Harrison, and Madison Bakalar
June 16, 2020
Table Of Contents Related Research Documents
2 Personalized Experiences And Cloud The Employee Experience Maturity Assessment
Delivery Drive Intranet Renewals
Now Tech: Intranet Platforms, Q1 2020
3 Evaluation Summary
Your Intranet Is Dead: Reboot Communication
8 Vendor Offerings And Collaboration With Employees At The Center
9 Vendor Profiles
Leaders
Strong Performers Share reports with colleagues.
Enhance your membership with
Contenders
Research Share.
15 Evaluation Overview
Vendor Inclusion Criteria
16 Supplemental Material
Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA
+1 617-613-6000 | Fax: +1 617-613-5000 | forrester.com
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
Personalized Experiences And Cloud Delivery Drive Intranet Renewals
Intranets remain the least loved of the typical applications provided to employees. The 66% of global
information workers who are satisfied with their intranet pales in comparison with the more than
80% who are happy with their calendaring, word processing, spreadsheet, and email tools.1 Aging
on-premises and homegrown systems are poorly equipped to serve mobile or remote workforces.
These systems are not nimble enough to handle shifting business models, frequent organizational
changes, or the unanticipated work-from-home imperative driven by the pandemic. This must change.
Organizations that value their employee experience understand that technology choices matter.
Forrester’s Employee Experience (EX) Index reveals a relationship between technology satisfaction
and employee engagement. Employees who are the most engaged in their workplace are also highly
satisfied with their collaboration tools and their ability to access the information they need to do their
jobs.2 Today’s demands include timely delivery of relevant content via users’ preferred consumption
channels — web, mobile, or expressed in the context of other essential enterprise applications.
No longer can content be bottlenecked by inefficient processes dependent on developers or
webmasters to format and publish.3 Newer processes focus on subject matter and communication
experts as primary content creators. Architectures are shifting to cloud, and integration with today’s top
productivity suites and enterprise applications are essential.
As a result of these trends, intranet platform customers should look for providers that can:
›› Personalize the communication and content delivery experience. Personalization capabilities
must be two-sided. Content creators need to tailor information to precise audiences, but employees
should also be able to set their own preferences. Content and communication creators want to
define groups and personas that go beyond standard directory services groups. For example, a
group of retail store managers in a region will pay attention to local and specific information and
not send scattershot email blasts to all management job types. Employees want to subscribe to
announcements relevant to their role, region, or skill level and set language and device preferences.
›› Provide flexible design and user interface tools. Branding, design, color schemes, accessibility,
and templating tools are often used by designers. Aging systems are bottlenecked when only a
core group of intranet admins or webmasters can modify pages or sites. This approach fails to
scale in global, multibrand, multilanguage sites with frequently updated content. Templates for
sites, content types, or widgets that can be deployed multiple times help keep intranets relevant
and responsive to changing needs. Enterprises serving deskless workers should also look for
intranet mobile apps that can be custom branded.4
›› Integrate to essential productivity suites and enterprise applications. AD&D pros must
determine the critical integration points between the intranet and other technology investments.
Decide if the intranet platform should operate independently or if it must integrate to existing
content management repositories, search, or collaboration tools. Essential data, such as employee
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
information in human resource applications or network directory services, is often required for user
and group management. Support for preferred identity management and single sign-on tools for
cloud and mobile access is also important.
Evaluation Summary
The Forrester Wave™ evaluation highlights Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers.
It’s an assessment of the top vendors in the market and does not represent the entire vendor
landscape. You’ll find more information about this broader market in our Now Tech: Intranet Platforms,
Q1 2020 report.
We intend this evaluation to be a starting point only and encourage clients to view product evaluations
and adapt criteria weightings using the Excel-based vendor comparison tool (see Figure 1 and see
Figure 2). Click the link at the beginning of this report on Forrester.com to download the tool.
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 1 Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
Intranet Platforms
Q2 2020
Strong
Challengers Contenders Performers Leaders
Stronger
current
offering
Simpplr
Liferay LumApps
LiveTiles Igloo Software
Unily
Interact Akumina
SDL Microsoft
Aurea
Atlassian
Weaker
current
offering
Weaker strategy Stronger strategy
Market presence
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms Scorecard, Q2 2020
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Current offering 50% 3.22 2.14 2.25 3.56 2.92 3.28 3.56 3.38
Repository and content services 3% 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 3.00
Metadata support 5% 1.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 3.00
Search and indexing 5% 1.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00
Dashboards and reporting 6% 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 3.00
Delegated administration 6% 3.00 5.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Governance services 5% 3.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Collaborative content services 5% 1.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Internal communications 7% 3.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Information architecture 7% 3.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Knowledge graphs 7% 3.00 3.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00
Content analytics 5% 3.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 1.00
AI and/or machine learning 5% 3.00 1.00 0.00 1.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 1.00
Design tools 7% 5.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00
User interfaces 5% 5.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Templating 7% 5.00 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00
Integration and interoperability 3% 5.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00
Developer support 5% 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 1.00
Personalization 7% 5.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms Scorecard, Q2 2020 (Cont.)
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Strategy 50% 3.70 2.60 1.60 4.30 2.70 3.30 3.00 4.40
Market approach 20% 3.00 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Product vision 20% 3.00 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Execution roadmap 20% 5.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Partner ecosystem 15% 5.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00
Supporting products and services 15% 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Delivery model 10% 3.00 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Market presence 0% 1.00 5.00 3.00 2.00 2.50 1.50 3.00 1.50
Customer base 50% 1.00 5.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 1.00
Product revenue 50% 1.00 5.00 4.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms Scorecard, Q2 2020 (Cont.)
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Current offering 50% 2.72 2.74 4.12 3.18
Repository and content services 3% 5.00 5.00 5.00 3.00
Metadata support 5% 3.00 3.00 5.00 5.00
Search and indexing 5% 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Dashboards and reporting 6% 1.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Delegated administration 6% 1.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Governance services 5% 1.00 3.00 5.00 3.00
Collaborative content services 5% 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Internal communications 7% 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Information architecture 7% 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00
Knowledge graphs 7% 5.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Content analytics 5% 3.00 5.00 3.00 3.00
AI and/or machine learning 5% 3.00 5.00 3.00 3.00
Design tools 7% 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
User interfaces 5% 1.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Templating 7% 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00
Integration and interoperability 3% 3.00 3.00 5.00 1.00
Developer support 5% 3.00 5.00 1.00 3.00
Personalization 7% 1.00 3.00 5.00 5.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 2 Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms Scorecard, Q2 2020 (Cont.)
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Strategy 50% 3.60 2.00 3.60 3.10
Market approach 20% 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00
Product vision 20% 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Execution roadmap 20% 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Partner ecosystem 15% 5.00 3.00 3.00 1.00
Supporting products and services 15% 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Delivery model 10% 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.00
Market presence 0% 5.00 1.00 1.00 1.50
Customer base 50% 5.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Product revenue 50% 5.00 1.00 1.00 2.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
Vendor Offerings
Forrester included 12 vendors in this assessment: Akumina, Atlassian, Aurea, Igloo Software, Interact,
Liferay, LiveTiles, LumApps, Microsoft, SDL, Simpplr, and Unily (see Figure 3).
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
FIGURE 3 Evaluated Vendors And Product Information
Vendor Product evaluated Product version evaluated
Akumina Akumina Employee Experience Software Platform 4.8
Atlassian Atlassian Confluence Cloud N/A
Aurea Jive Interactive Intranet 9.2.0
Igloo Software Igloo Digital Workplace Platform N/A
Interact Interact N/A
Liferay Liferay Digital Experience Platform 7.2
LiveTiles LiveTiles Wizdom Intelligent Intranet 6.41
LumApps LumApps N/A
Microsoft Microsoft 365 N/A
SDL SDL Tridion N/A
Simpplr Simpplr Connect Platform Winter 2020
Unily Unily N/A
Vendor Profiles
Our analysis uncovered the following strengths and weaknesses of individual vendors.
Leaders
›› Igloo leads with communication and collaboration and shines during crisis response. Igloo
Software is one of the more mature cloud-native platforms, offering solid intranet capabilities as
well as packaged applications for targeted use cases. It invests in scalability and serves the needs
of multibrand/site firms with its networked enterprise architecture. Specific apps for new employee
onboarding, town halls, or knowledge management augment its core platform. Igloo Software
must increase its pace of innovation as newer players enter the market and accelerate its mobility,
AI/machine learning (ML), and user interface investments. Watch for simplified pricing/licensing
models, better Microsoft Teams integration, and publishing enhancements.
Igloo Software’s breadth of overall collaboration capabilities, as well as its robust content
governance and delegated administration models are key strengths. Weaknesses include maturity
of its AI/ML and knowledge graph capabilities, which lag some newer market entrants. Reference
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
customers gave high marks for content authoring, editing experience, and its professional services.
They also attest to its value as a trusted hub during disrupted operations during a crisis. Areas
for improvement include the platform’s personalization capabilities and search. Evaluate Igloo
Software when robust intranet and communications capabilities are needed with added flexibility to
adopt it either horizontally or for very targeted use cases.
›› LumApps leads with superior employee communication and site design tools. LumApps has
served very large enterprises since its founding and has capabilities to enhance both the Google
and Microsoft ecosystems. As a hub for employee communications, collaboration, and knowledge,
the vendor delivers ongoing innovation with a frequent release cycle. Customers on this cloud-
native software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform are never at risk of falling behind on old versions,
unlike vendors with on-premises models. LumApps has strategic partnerships with both Google
and Microsoft, but delivering intranet and employee communications capabilities to extend both
ecosystems equally well will continue to be a challenge. Expect ongoing investment in AI and
cross-application analytics to surface insights and serve knowledge management use cases,
deepen their user persona capabilities, and extend their partner marketplace.
LumApps has strong design tools as well as a breadth of internal communications options, with
rich user profiles as an area of differentiation. Pages and widgets are the core of content delivery
and provide a strong background information architecture. Weaknesses include APIs that are
narrower than most other vendors, and developer communities are still works-in-progress. AI/
ML and content analytics are also immature. Reference customers are consistent in praise for
content authoring capabilities and overall design experience but are less satisfied with search
and reporting. Evaluate LumApps when a scalable SaaS platform that focuses on employee
communications and works with major productivity suites is important.
›› Simpplr leads with personalization for communication and content delivery. Simpplr is a
pure-play, cloud-native intranet and communication platform, with traction in digitally savvy large
enterprises and tech companies. Simpplr’s strategy is to deepen its analytics and engagement
offerings, on top of a solid content and communication platform. Product vision is grounded
in a superior user experience and a roadmap driven by data and customer insights. As a SaaS
offering, Simpplr may constrain customers from extensive customizations, and APIs are an area
of investment. Watch for ongoing investments into its developer communities, in more packaged
services offerings, and in its analytics.
Simpplr’s strengths include strong repository, governance, and internal communication capabilities,
as well as broad personalization options. However, its APIs and developer resources are relatively
immature compared with other Leaders in this evaluation, and its AI services require upfront training
by its professional services team. Reference customers rate internal communications tools very highly,
even for essential crisis communication. Professional services capabilities were also well-received,
though integration with some third-party tools was noted as a gap. Shortlist Simpplr when a cloud-
native, scalable platform focused on employee communications and content delivery is needed.
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The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
Strong Performers
›› Akumina excels in design tools but is dependent on third-party content services. Akumina
focuses on a broad set of digital employee experience use cases, differentiating with its “Total
Visual Control” design capabilities. Akumina is clear in its focus on extending the intranet
experience across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and has one of the most flexible licensing models
in the market — focusing on not just users but also instances of the platform, encouraging its
use for multiple purposes. Akumina’s dependence on third-party content repository services is
by design, but this strategy limits it in a number of intranet modernization opportunities. Expect
deeper integration into the Microsoft ecosystem (such as incorporating knowledge graphs and
employee-facing bots) and continued integration with popular enterprise applications, such as
aggregating feeds and activities for roadmap items.
Strengths include design and templating capabilities, as well as a broad set of predefined
application integration widgets for common enterprise applications. Persona creation tools enable
targeted communications. Akumina’s dependence on Microsoft 365 results in relatively weak native
collaboration and repository capabilities. Reference customers attest to the power of Akumina’s
design tools, ease of content creation/editing, and ability to personalize communication. They
express some dissatisfaction with performance, upgrades, and reporting. Akumina is a good fit for
firms that are focused on employee communications, desire strong brand/design control, and have
adopted the Microsoft ecosystem.
›› Liferay is a mature platform but misses a knowledge graph for smart content delivery. Well-
known as a platform for websites and portals in addition to intranets, Liferay has a strong open
source heritage and focus on developers. The vendor cultivates an established and diversified
partner ecosystem to serve intranet design and deployments for clients across the globe. It has a
well-defined set of solutions and buyers/influencers that it uses to drive its go-to-market approach
and focus employee experience and knowledge management use cases, where it excels. Liferay’s
product vision is also focused on infusing intelligent services into its stack but lags slightly in its
delivery of low code and design tools to help customers tailor their intranet experience. Expect to
see investment in analytics to help content owners get better usage insights, as well as more AI
tools, including natural language processing (NLP) for better knowledge discovery.
Liferay’s strengths include robust content repository services as well as a flexible metadata model
and a cutting-edge search experience. Liferay has one of the more mature developer communities
in this market. Current gaps include knowledge graphs to connect people and content as well
as rich analytics to reveal relationships across content. Reference customers are satisfied with
Liferay’s design and templating capabilities but report some dissatisfaction with application
integration, including Microsoft 365. Shortlist Liferay when a flexible, open architecture is desirable
and strong foundational content repository capabilities are required.
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The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
›› LiveTiles excels in its design and templating tools but is thin on analytics. LiveTiles continues
to build a global presence and rich set of digital employee experience tools via its services know-
how and focused acquisitions. Its strategy is to build a comprehensive set of intelligent workplace
capabilities with the intranet as a foundation on which to grow. The vendor has a clear focus
on serving large global enterprises and will make investments to extend its platform breadth as
well as establish a presence in key markets. LiveTiles supports cloud, hosted, and on-premises
deployments. This risks an uneven pace of innovation and enhancement across different delivery
models, and customers not on cloud could get stuck on older versions of the platform. Expect
to see investments in reporting (including heatmaps), summarization, enterprise search, and
employee-facing bots for information retrieval.
Strengths include design and templating capabilities. Nondevelopers have the ability to tailor and
tune the user interfaces, and users can personalize their preferred communication channels, such
as Microsoft Teams or mobile notifications. Some dependencies on the Microsoft ecosystem for
user profiling, collaboration, analytics, and search are weaknesses. Customer references rate the
content authoring process and design tools very highly but are less satisfied with current reporting/
dashboard tools. Integration with Microsoft 365 was called out as a plus. Shortlist LiveTiles when
seeking an intranet platform that can serve design needs of large global brands and enrich the
experience of existing Microsoft 365 investments.
›› Microsoft has strong foundational tools but is weak in personalizing user experiences.
Microsoft is a dominant player in the content, collaboration, and office productivity markets, with
substantial intranet deployments on-premises and in cloud. The breadth of product capabilities
in the Microsoft 365 cloud stack continues to evolve, with a powerful, continually innovating set
of products and intelligent services to enhance the intranet use case. Microsoft’s attention to
employee experience as the centerpiece of a modern intranet strategy is lacking as it continues
to focus on technical buyers rather than internal communications or design pros. Expect deep
investment into knowledge graphs and additional use of AI and ML to deliver insights and connect
content and people.
Microsoft 365 delivers robust content repository and collaboration services that scale to meet the
needs of the largest of enterprises. Weaknesses include lack of granular personalization controls,
inconsistent governance across content and page types, and minimal reporting designed for
intranet administrators. Reference customers express high satisfaction with content authoring
and editing, as well as the product roadmap. Personalization and mobile are two areas that
require improvement. Microsoft 365 should be evaluated by firms ready to modernize their
on-premises or hosted SharePoint intranets or by firms that want a single vendor for content,
collaboration, and communication.
›› Unily distills deep intranet services expertise into its emerging cloud platform. Unily provides
a productized set of capabilities born from years of services expertise delivering intranet sites. Its
cloud-native product vision allows it to innovate quickly and leverage a rich set of Microsoft Azure
cloud services for AI, translations, and employee-facing chatbots. A crisp market focus emphasizes
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
the employee experience. Unily’s partner strategy is in early stages, as it recruits systems
integrators and consultants to drive future growth. While its own services organization brings rich
experience, the vendor needs a broader partner ecosystem to help scale its reach and support
customers with a global presence. Unily’s roadmap is collaborative, with customers able to vote on
priorities, including app integrations. Watch for deeper use of Azure AI services, including NLP and
employee-facing bots.
Unily’s key strengths are rooted in its support for rich persona creation and targeted communications,
a strong metadata model, and a well-defined “grid and widget” approach for consistent content
modeling. Areas of improvement include search, which requires configuration to determine what text
and metadata can be queried, and its default reporting capabilities. Reference customers rate its
flexible design tools highly, as well as page versioning and audit trails. Areas of dissatisfaction include
reporting, maturity of its AI, and search. Unily should be shortlisted by firms desiring a modern, cloud-
native platform and by those that want to leverage the Microsoft ecosystem.
›› Interact delivers strong employee communication capabilities but lags in analytics. Interact
is a pure-play, privately held intranet platform provider focused on employee communication,
and, while it leverages Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its primary cloud infrastructure, Microsoft
Azure is also supported. The vendor has a crisp product vision aimed at personalization,
contextualization, and internal communication. Its licensing model reflects its customers’ varied
business models, and employee personas are also a plus. Interact has an established partner
model, however its reliance on its own in-house professional services can limit its ability to
scale and grow globally. Expect ongoing investment from Interact of its partner marketplace for
supported apps/widgets, deeper engagement analytics (such as email tracking), and mobility.
Interact has notably strong governance capabilities for content, as well as flexible options for
design tools, user interfaces, and rich, targeted internal communication tools. Current product
weaknesses include reporting and dashboards and its ability to use content analytics to build
relationships among pages/documents. Reference customers express very high satisfaction
with Interact’s professional services team. Customers see its current mobile support and its
reporting as needing improvement. Interact should be shortlisted by firms focused on employee
communications and by those that prefer a platform in the AWS ecosystem.
Contenders
›› Atlassian excels in collaboration but lags in support for internal communications. Atlassian’s
Confluence is broadly used by project teams to capture corporate knowledge and collaborate
openly. Its product and market strategy will address broader sets of intranet use cases as it invests
in AI and other intelligent services to enhance discoverability of people and content across an
enterprise — not just across teams or lines of business. Its positioning and roadmap, however,
must be better aligned to meet the needs of intranet decision makers from nontechnical teams,
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
such as those in human resources, employee experience, or internal communications. Watch for
ongoing investment into intelligent services, scalability, and simplified licensing for customers that
use multiple Atlassian products.
Notable product strengths include granular administrative controls over content creation,
review, and consumption, as well as its collaboration capabilities. Personalization and internal
communications are areas of weakness, with limited capabilities to define user personas and then
tailor news or announcements to users’ preferred channels. Reference customers report consistent
satisfaction with the ease of the content authoring experience, as well as richness of the APIs and
integration capabilities. Branding and design tools, as well as its mobile experience, are described
less favorably by customers. Atlassian should be considered when content-rich collaboration and
an open approach to knowledge sharing are core intranet requirements.
›› SDL offers robust content services but must work to productize its intranet offering. SDL is a
mature content platform serving internally and externally focused digital experience use cases and
is noted for its strong translation capabilities. Its transition to a cloud-first, customizable framework
means that customers will benefit from a faster pace of innovation. Investments are continuing in
areas of current differentiation, including a strong information architecture, robust global partner
ecosystem, and advanced translation services. SDL, however, must work to provide a more
productized platform designed for the intranet and employee communication use cases. Intranet
deployments today are services heavy. SDL’s roadmap priorities include improved user experience,
more personalization options, and better content findability.
SDL’s market maturity is reflected in strengths that few other vendors can claim, particularly its
overall repository services, structured approach to content authoring, information architecture,
developer support, and relatively mature use of AI. Areas of weakness include support for a broad
set of employee communication channels, dashboards/reporting designed for intranet content
owners, and overall collaboration capabilities. Reference customers rate SDL’s structured content
creation and approval very highly and appreciate the vendor’s professional services. Reporting and
dashboards, however, are areas of consistent dissatisfaction. Firms should consider SDL when the
intranet serves global, often complex, lines of business and requires rigorous content modeling.
›› Aurea reinvests in Jive for the cloud era but risks holding on to its customer base. Aurea is
modernizing Jive, porting it to the cloud, and leveraging AWS for infrastructure. Aurea’s strategy is to
acquire and rearchitect mature products like Jive, make them available to Aurea’s broader clientele
as part of a “one subscription” licensing model, and enable low-friction adoption by users of its
other portfolio products. The platform’s focus on “people-centric collaboration” limits its appeal for
enterprises prioritizing personalized, contextualized internal communications for their new intranet.
Aurea’s strategy must focus on maintaining its market presence as an intranet platform while
helping customers migrate to its cloud edition. Expect the Jive platform to enhance its underlying
knowledge graph capabilities, to infuse intelligent content services, such as semantic search and AI,
and to benefit from the foundational integration work done across the Aurea portfolio.
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
The Jive platform offers strong collaboration services, including support for communities, rich user
profiles, and discussion moderation. Recognition and badging encourage employee engagement
and participation. Current weaknesses include reporting and dashboards for technical and content
administrators, integration capabilities with other enterprise applications, and flexibility of its
metadata model. Reference customers report challenges migrating from on-premises to cloud
editions and integrating with Microsoft 365. Collaboration and workspaces, as well as content
authoring capabilities, are highly rated. Jive should be considered by customers that use other
Aurea portfolio products when employee collaboration is a core requirement for an intranet platform.
Evaluation Overview
We evaluated vendors against 26 criteria, which we grouped into three high-level categories:
›› Current offering. Each vendor’s position on the vertical axis of the Forrester Wave graphic
indicates the strength of its current offering. Key criteria for these solutions include content
repository, creation and editing capabilities, design and user interface customization tools,
integration with common enterprise and productivity apps, and a range of personalized internal
communication capabilities.
›› Strategy. Placement on the horizontal axis indicates the strength of the vendors’ strategies. We
evaluated the vendor’s market approach and product vision, its ability to execute on its roadmap,
its partnership strategy, its related products and services, and how it delivers its platform.
›› Market presence. Represented by the size of the markers on the graphic, our market presence
scores reflect each vendor’s license or subscription revenue attributable to its intranet platform
offering, as well as the number of paying customers on the platform.
Vendor Inclusion Criteria
Forrester included 12 vendors in the assessment: Akumina, Atlassian, Aurea, Igloo Software, Interact,
Liferay, LiveTiles, LumApps, Microsoft, SDL, Simpplr, and Unily. Each of these vendors has:
›› A minimum product revenue of $10 million. The vendor has a minimum of $10 million annual
revenue related to its intranet platform offering. This includes licensing, subscription, and
maintenance, but not consulting services.
›› An intranet platform that is a packaged offering. The vendor offers an intranet platform
packaged as a standalone solution and invests in go-to-market activities to attract, serve, and
retain customers with this need.
›› A focus on enterprise clients. The vendor targets and can scale to meet the needs of large
organizations and can support implementations serving 5,000 employees or above. Forrester
customers demonstrate an active interest in the vendor’s offerings, including inquiry mentions and
inclusion on shortlists.
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
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Supplemental Material
Online Resource
We publish all our Forrester Wave scores and weightings in an Excel file that provides detailed product
evaluations and customizable rankings; download this tool by clicking the link at the beginning of this
report on Forrester.com. We intend these scores and default weightings to serve only as a starting
point and encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs.
The Forrester Wave Methodology
A Forrester Wave is a guide for buyers considering their purchasing options in a technology
marketplace. To offer an equitable process for all participants, Forrester follows The Forrester Wave™
Methodology Guide to evaluate participating vendors.
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2020
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
In our review, we conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors to consider for the evaluation.
From that initial pool of vendors, we narrow our final list based on the inclusion criteria. We then gather
details of product and strategy through a detailed questionnaire, demos/briefings, and customer
reference surveys/interviews. We use those inputs, along with the analyst’s experience and expertise in
the marketplace, to score vendors, using a relative rating system that compares each vendor against
the others in the evaluation.
We include the Forrester Wave publishing date (quarter and year) clearly in the title of each Forrester
Wave report. We evaluated the vendors participating in this Forrester Wave using materials they
provided to us by March 2020 and did not allow additional information after that point. We encourage
readers to evaluate how the market and vendor offerings change over time.
In accordance with The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Review Policy, Forrester asks vendors to review our
findings prior to publishing to check for accuracy. Vendors marked as nonparticipating vendors in the
Forrester Wave graphic met our defined inclusion criteria but declined to participate in or contributed
only partially to the evaluation. We score these vendors in accordance with The Forrester Wave™ And
The Forrester New Wave™ Nonparticipating And Incomplete Participation Vendor Policy and publish
their positioning along with those of the participating vendors.
Integrity Policy
We conduct all our research, including Forrester Wave evaluations, in accordance with the Integrity
Policy posted on our website.
Endnotes
1
We surveyed 14,180 global information workers who use a calendar on a PC at least daily for work purposes. Source:
Forrester Analytics Global Business Technographics® Workforce Benchmark Survey, 2019.
See the Forrester report “Forrester’s EX Index: A Deeper Look At The Data.”
2
3
Many companies choose to build their intranet upon popular digital experience platforms (DXP). This is especially true
when they’ve already standardized on a tool for their externally facing websites and have cultivated internal, technical
expertise with the platform or want to reuse branding and design elements. For example, Drupal is a popular choice,
with vendor Acquia providing cloud deployments and with intranet specialist partners leading deployments. Other
commonly used DXP platforms include Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, and WordPress. Some organizations
will choose to take a more collaboration-centric approach to their intranet and adopt platforms such as Workplace by
Facebook or extend their G Suite investments for their next-generation intranet.
Employees use both tablets and smartphones to access their corporate intranets: 13% of global information workers
4
who use a smartphone for work use their phone to access the intranet daily, and 26% use it to do so weekly; 18%
of global information workers who use a tablet for work use it to access the corporate intranet daily, and 35% use it
to do so weekly; desktop/laptop access still dominates, however, with 29% of global information workers who use a
PC for work accessing the intranet via their PC daily and 43% weekly. Source: Forrester Analytics Global Business
Technographics Workforce Benchmark Survey, 2019.
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