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Business Services Industry

World's First Wiki Company Returns to Open Source Roots

Business Wire, Oct 5, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- Socialtext:

--Socialtext's New Open Source Business Model Further Seeds Mass Distribution and Community Development

--Announces Wikiwyg -- User-Friendly Open Source Wiki Editor for Fast, Desktop-Like Writing and Editing

Socialtext, the first wiki company and market leader in enterprise wiki solutions, announced today that it is returning to its open source roots by adopting a new commercial business model. After several years of market momentum -- with an assortment of wiki solutions developed on top of an open source wiki -- Socialtext has begun sharing code with the developer community to further the adoption of wikis in the enterprise. The company's first contribution is the Wikiwyg, an innovative, user-friendly "what you see is what you get" editing tool for wikis.

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Open Source Is "The Wiki Way"

Socialtext's decision to shift to a commercial open source model -- revenue will be earned through software as a service and professional services -- comes at a time of a momentous period of growth in both enterprise and new online communities. More than 200 businesses around the globe are using Socialtext to meet numerous business challenges through collaboration. In the past week, Socialtext also announced that SAP Ventures contributed to its Series B funding round, and that Jimmy Wales -- founder of Wikipedia and a leading evangelist of open source wikis -- has joined the Socialtext Board of Directors.

Many businesses are looking for open source solutions because of their superiority -- at both user and technical levels -- and because they help companies avoid vendor lock-in.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is using Socialtext for mass collaboration at a scale well beyond what many businesses are doing today.

"We needed to work with an organization that understands where the future is heading, has the right attitude to building technology, and understands that the information needs to migrate across multiple communications mediums," said JP Rangaswami, Global CIO at DrKW. "Socialtext has both the vision and experience to help us meet the many challenges and opportunities for collaboration on wikis at DrKW."

"As the market leading provider of enterprise wiki solutions, the more the world works the wiki way, the more we win. This strategic shift is about letting go of control to enable widespread adoption and innovation," said Socialtext CEO and Co-founder Ross Mayfield. "With enterprise-wide Wikipedias inside, risk should be shared between vendor and customer, so users can realize the power of mass collaboration."

Wikiwyg Makes Wikis Even Easier, Faster

The Wikiwyg editor, first released in late August, marks Socialtext's first attempt to begin sharing code at the presentation layer -- i.e., user layer -- to maximize simplicity and usability. Users can double click anywhere to edit, reducing the barrier between reading and writing. Leveraging Ajax -- a development method for creating an interactive environment on the Web -- users experience both the usability and functionality of desktop applications but in a completely hosted Web-based environment. Since Wikiwyg was released, community developments include Internet Explorer support and adaptation for a Ruby on Rails application. Wikiwyg is open source licensed, and available for download and demo at www.wikiwyg.net.

Socialtext is built upon the Kwiki open source wiki framework. "Approximately 20% of our code has been open source, and we aim to increase that to 80% by Q1 2005, enabling enterprises to zero-cost pilot a wiki solution without licensing fees," said Mayfield. "We are starting this process at the presentation layer because it addresses core usability opportunities for wikis. As wikiwyg is adopted by wikis and social software applications across the Net, users will find it easier to contribute to the writeable web, a positive experience that helps fulfill our mission of wiki everywhere."

Socialtext also announced its support for the SynchroEdit project -- an open source synchronous editor for the web. An alpha version of this real-time editor is available for demo at http://www.synchroedit.com. While at an early stage, this project is another example of Socialtext's new community software development model.

About Socialtext

Socialtext, the first enterprise wiki company, is the leading provider of "simple group productivity solutions." More than 200 organizations -- including Global 1000 enterprises such as Nokia, Symantec, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and Kodak -- use Socialtext to accelerate project cycles and help groups communicate more effectively while fostering trust, transparency and group memory. Socialtext is an editor's pick of Business Week's 2005 "Best of the Web," and is widely recognized for pioneering the development and use of open source technology and best practices in the enterprise. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, SAP Ventures, and the Omidyar Network. For more information, go to http://www.socialtext.com.

Business Services Industry

World's First Wiki Company Returns to Open Source Roots

Business Wire, Oct 5, 2005

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