Enterprise Wikis: Another Way to Get on the Same Page

Some people call it Enterprise 2.0, eTouch call it the next generation of collaboration and today have announced the latest release of their SamePage collaboration platform. The revamped version 3.0 touts Enterprise Wikis and Blogs, functional templates for project management, and enhanced scalability. SamePage 3.0 has evolved as part of eTouch's history as a services company and is now powered by their Content Management foundation layer. It includes the following features:* True Wiki architecture and feature orientation* Blogging capabilities* User-friendly WYSIWYG editing* Vertical project management functionality* Role-based permissions management* Customizable administration functions* Out-of-the-box clustering supportAmong SamePage 3.0's primary characteristics are the ability to easily glean collective knowledge within the organization. The idea is to make knowledge aggregation as simple as possible -- both for the casual business users and the IT departments that support them.With 3.0 colleagues can disseminate and share vital information, co-author documents without shooting e-mail attachments back and forth, and discuss issues online in real-time and in a semi-structured project context.The product supports an unlimited number of wikis, supports knowledge integration via RSS distribution, and containsblog publishing capabilities both for internal information-sharing or public communications.These are a critical touch points for the software.Emphasizing their priorities, eTouch CEO Aniruddha Gadre calls SamePage a "disarmingly easy-to-use wiki for business users," which in the end is the real benefit for consumers, who generally feel most content and collaboration "solutions" are a chore to use, and thus rarely demonstrate strong adoption. SamePage Multi-faceted Collaboration

Frank Gilbane of Gilbane Group notes "Wikis have become enterprise-ready, applicable and simple to use," characteristics embodied by wiki-oriented user offerings like SamePage.He encourages enterprises to pay attention to "business-critical applications like eTouch with its SamePage product."Fremont, CA's eTouch Systems focuses on streamlining collaboration via next generation working habits. They are an expanding point solution and in this position certainly face stiff competition from the likes ofSharePoint, BaseCamp,Intel's SuiteTwo, SocialText, andBlogtronix. Despite this, the company counts amoungst their existing clients notables such as NASA, Cisco, Alcatel and Johnson & Johnson.With SamePage 3.0, eTouch continues to stay religiously focused on the wiki paradigm, but acknowledges the need to both integrate additional knowledge and collaboration tools and to address the technical and business concerns of corporate IT departments.Continuing with the spirit of practicality the product has been tailored to typical some typical use cases. These include meeting preparation, financial analyst collaboration, knowledge worker data aggregation, and plain-and-simple dumping of miscellaneous odds and ends.The software stack is based on the J2EE platform, is offered in both an on-premise package and as an on-demand Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Per CPU pricing starts at around US$ 10,000. And on-demand pricing kicks off at around US$ 100 per month.In other wiki- and collabo-related news: SocialPoint Jumps on the SharePoint Bandwagon, Blogtronix Touts Integrated Enterprise 2.0 and Intel Enters Web 2.0 Fray with SuiteTwo.