Tom Austin VP & Gartner Fellow Boston, MA USA Years of Experience 19 years at Gartner 43 years IT industry Areas of Coverage High Performance Workplace View Latest Research Resources Create Analyst Alert Contact Gartner Roles and Responsibilities Tom Austin, vice president, has been a Gartner fellow since 1997. He drives Gartner's research content incubator (the Maverick Program). Mr. Austin has been chief of research for social software, collaboration, communications, information management, business intelligence and high-performance workplace (HPW) research. Today, collaboration, social process support, cloud-based application services (such as Google vs. Microsoft) and Enterprise 2.0 are some of his specialties. His scope is broad - i.e., he is leading the new People-Centered Computing Research Community, working to carve out a new, integrative Key Initiative around business strategies and technologies that enable or enhance the contribution of high-impact individuals and teams, particularly as they perform key, business-critical behaviors, such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, learning and relating to one another. Previous Experience Mr. Austin was a research executive for four years, directing Gartner's overall research agenda and process. In the 1990s, he was responsible for much of Gartner's early work on network computing and its immediate predecessor, client/server architectures. He was Gartner's resident expert on groupware and related technologies, and the struggle between Netscape, Microsoft, IBM and others for next-generation messaging and interpersonal applications. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Austin was with Digital Equipment, where he focused on strategic planning, line-of-business management, marketing and software engineering. He has more than 40 years of experience in the IT industry. Professional Background Digital Equipment Corp., Group Marketing Manager, Product Line Manager, Engineering Program Manager, etc., 17 years Education Completed course work toward Ph.D., University of Massachusetts M.A., University of Massachusetts B.A., Georgetown University Languages 0 English LATEST RESEARCH More by this author Title Publish Date Author(s) New Developments in the Cloud Office System Market 22-May-2013 Tom Austin Cool Vendors in Social Software and Collaboration, 2013 26-Apr-2013 Mike Gotta, Tom Austin, Hanns Koehler-Kruener, Anne Lapkin, Andrew Walls, Matthew W. Cain Exploit the Intersect of IBM's Social Business and Solution Selling Strategies 23-Apr-2013 Tom Austin, Hanns Koehler-Kruener Predicts 2013: Social and Collaboration Go Deeper and Wider 28-Nov-2012 Jeffrey Mann, Tom Austin, Nikos Drakos, Carol Rozwell, Andrew Walls Drive Disruptive Innovation With Maverick* Research 05-Oct-2012 Tom Austin