This item from today's TMCnet news feeds highlights the expanding role of wikis in enterprise knowledge management (KM) and collaboration:
SAP Invests in Socialtext; Investment Comes at Time of Significant Growth for Enterprise Wiki Market
Often I find that when I mention wikis to people (assuming they have any idea what I'm talking about), they immediately launch into a lecture about how unreliable Wikipedia is. However, to me it seems like the value of the wiki is more as an enterprise tool for KM than as a way to produce a public collaborative encyclopedia -- although I think there's a lot of value in that application as well.
Socialtext describes itself as a provider of "simple group productivity solutions." Today's release describes the company's market penetration: "More than 200 businesses around the globe -- including Nokia, Symantec, JM Family and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein -- are using Socialtext to meet numerous business challenges with simple group collaboration."
Besides an enterprise version of its product, Socialtext also offers a hosted version that could work nicely for a smaller organization or as a way to test it out. The starter package is $495 for a one-year five-user license, $245 for non-profits.
Unfortunately, like many, many technology companies, their web site does not seem to provide any screen shots to give the potential customer (or curious journalist) a way to find out what the product's user experience is like. A mysterious practice, hiding your product. Here's an example of a workspace created with Socialtext:
http://www.socialtext.net/brightgreen/index.cgi
Today's release announces an investment of $850,000 from SAP Ventures as part of a round of funding totaling $4 million.
AB -- 9/30/05
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