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Commercial wiki vendor Socialtext today released SocialPoint, an open-source wiki integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, the popular enterprise suite for collaboration, file sharing, and intranets.

Socialtext, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., developed the new SocialPoint using the Wiki Web Services -- which the company released in Socialtext 2.0 earlier this month -- and a collection of SharePoint Web Parts.

With the deal, SocialPoint becomes a great option for building a wikipedia inside your company within your existing architecture.

Open source plays an important part in the announcement. The integrated Socialtext /SharePoint Web parts will be released as open source to developers, a move that Microsoft supports.

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Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield said his company, founded in late 2002, brings a wealth of experience and a battle-tested strategy to the Redmond software giant.

"The best thing is, we've been in the market long enough to make the most mistakes, so we've learned the most. … (We've made) the tools simpler and easier to use, because if it's not, then you don't get to get into mainstream use."

An example of how the new SocialPoint works is like so: A marketing team working on a product launch can collaborate on product marketing materials within the wiki, and then share those materials with field contacts who link to the SharePoint portal so the field is informed about the launch. Conversely, SocialPoint enables the field to provide the market team with direct and timely feedback from customers.

SocialText, and collaboration software in general, have come a long way, Mayfield said.

"A long time ago we saw these really simple tools, Web logs and wikis, as having a lot of promise for organizations as an alternative to email, and back then it was kind of a joke. People weren't really sure these could grow up to be things that could rival traditional enterprise software, because they were so simple. That attitude, I think, has really changed.

"It's changed for a couple reasons," Mayfield said. "One is, at this point, open source wikis -- and in some cases consumer Web logs -- have been adapted inside of organizations, kind of from the bottom up, at such a wide scale that they're starting to become commonplace."

Blogs and wikis are being used more because of the keep-it-simple factor, Mayfield said.

"A lot of what we're doing with these kinds of tools like wikis and Web logs is just creating tools that don't get in people's way. "

SocialText offers many deployment options, including hosted service, open source, on-premise, and appliance-based solutions. The company said that 2,000 enterprises use Socialtext, including IKEA, Kodak, Nokia, Symantec, and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

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