This, that and the other (may contain nuts)

Steve Castledine

SocialPoint

Steve Castledine  30 October 2006 20:08:27
Ross Mayfield reports that Socialtext (Enterprise Wiki software for those who have not come across it) has released SocialPoint which is Socialtext running on Microsoft Sharepoint.

I think this is huge news for both Socialtext and SharePoint. Firstly for Socialtext - it opens up their market and their product. This will allow people on the SharePoint platform to have a great Enterprise Wiki platform whilst enabling the SocialText software to be expanded/enhanced/connected to by 3rd Party developers on the SharePoint platform.

For SharePoint, whilst they are releasing blog and wiki capabilities with SharePoint 2007, I cannot see these capabilities being of the strength and quality of Socialtext. So they have a huge win situation as the fact that customers will have a choice of bog standard out of the box capabilities (which I did not see as being as good as current Lotus/Domino capabilities) or upgrade to Socialpoint will add choice to that market and will be a huge factor for purchase decisions.

I wonder if any of the Enterprise blogging solutions will do similar? I do see that IBM/Lotus and Microsoft have the upper hand when it comes to Enterprise solutions for blog/wikis etc as the platforms are there for this shared collaboration - the email/authentication/development capabilities can never be repeated by the likes of WordPress/Movable Type etc. These two players (MS/IBM) have the opportunities in their own hands. If any of the 3rd party providers reverse into one or both of these providers - thats a very smart move indeed!