Much has been written about Enterprise 2.0 (also known as enterprise social software) in the ECM space, vendors like IBM, Opentext, Microsoft, and Alfresco already have products on the market; EMC will release Magellan soon (interested parties can apply to participate in the beta now.) And while this is exciting news to many of us in the ECM space, the cadre millennial workers may be less impressed. After all, they probably haven't been sitting around waiting.

In case you're unfamiliar with their characteristics, I've written about the generation in the NY Post. In IT land, millennials are being called digital natives because they were born into a web-enabled world. Tech Republic's Jason Hiner says that they behave differently from those who came before them. They will:

In their workplaces:

• IT won't have as much centralized control of resources (unless you're in a high-security environment)
• Data security, privacy, and confidentiality will be even more complex to manage

And Hiner isn't alone in his thinking. A Symantec study reveals that 69% of millennials feel entitled to use whatever application/technology/device/ they want, regardless of company policy. Only 45% of the millennials surveyed indicated that they stick to company-issued devices and applications right now.

Maybe that's why it was sort of anti-climactic when Mark Lewis announced that Documentum will be integrated with Web 2.0 technologies and that the price to current license holders would be FREE.

"It was like saying that I do not have to pay for the air that I breathe," said an EMC World attendee who asked not to be named. "I (my company) wasn't planning to pay anyway. I would have found another way to get the job done."

Now I don't know how easy or hard that would be and how well-schooled in compliance that particular individual was. Bottom line- it may not matter. Though Larry Dignan of ZD Net makes great points when arguing that Millennials:

"will run into a brick wall and realize that it makes sense to centralize some IT functions. They'll realize Web 2.0 is insecure. They'll realize you can't share intellectual property on Twitter. They'll realize that remote data wiping is pretty cool when you lose your phone. Bottom line: If there's any touchy feeling collision course between Millennials and business, the latter will win."

I wonder. Dignan seems certain that companies like Johnson and Johnson and General Electric will reign these folks in. Yet management gurus like Jack Welch of GE fame may not agree. He champions millennials for being entrepreneurial  ("High performers won't wait") and challenges leaders to gather and sift through the wealth of data that is suddenly available.