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U
nlikely as it may seem, wikis are now being adopted by enterprises larg
e

and small more quickly than celebrities adopt African orphans.

So much so that Gartner analyst Kathy Harris predicted that by 2009, 50


percent of U.S. companies will be using wikis.

That helps explain why vendors large and small are lining up to provide


enterprises with enterprise-ready wiki solutions.

Large outfits. such as IBM (
Quote<!--, <A HREF="http://www.internetnews.com/stocks/quotes/chart.php/IBM/chart">Chart</A>-->
) and Microsoft (
Quote<!--, <A HREF="http://www.internetnews.com/stocks/quotes/chart.php/MSFT/chart">Chart</A>-->
) , are wrapping wiki functionality into their real-time


collaboration tools, respectively Lotus Sametime and Sharepoint Server.

Smaller vendors like Jotspot, Socialtext,
CustomerVision
and Klir Technologies are among the vendors offering stand-alone wiki solutions.

Rather than being driven by senior management, however, adoption is coming


mainly from project managers and department-level executives.

"In almost every big corporation, some group is already using a wiki," said


Andrew McAfee, associate professor of technology and operations management


at the Harvard Business School.

One reason is that wikis hold the promise of helping companies stimulate



more innovation by their employees.

That's important: 80 percent of CEOs see collaboration as being critical to


growth, according to a survey conducted by IBM last March.

Unlikely as it may seem, wikis are now being adopted by enterprises large
and small more quickly than celebrities adopt African orphans.

So much so that Gartner analyst Kathy Harris predicted that by 2009, 50
percent of U.S. companies will be using wikis.

That helps explain why vendors large and small are lining up to provide
enterprises with enterprise-ready wiki solutions.

Large outfits. such as IBM (Quote<!--, <A HREF="http://www.internetnews.com/stocks/quotes/chart.php/IBM/chart">Chart</A>-->) and Microsoft (Quote<!--, <A HREF="http://www.internetnews.com/stocks/quotes/chart.php/MSFT/chart">Chart</A>-->) , are wrapping wiki functionality into their real-time
collaboration tools, respectively Lotus Sametime and Sharepoint Server.

Smaller vendors like Jotspot, Socialtext, CustomerVision and Klir Technologies are among the vendors offering stand-alone wiki solutions.

Rather than being driven by senior management, however, adoption is coming
mainly from project managers and department-level executives.

"In almost every big corporation, some group is already using a wiki," said
Andrew McAfee, associate professor of technology and operations management
at the Harvard Business School.

One reason is that wikis hold the promise of helping companies stimulate
more innovation by their employees.

That's important: 80 percent of CEOs see collaboration as being critical to
growth, according to a survey conducted by IBM last March.