I’m really proud to report MindTouch Deki Wiki was selected as the Sourceforge.net Project of the Month for the month of May.

SourceForge.net: Project of the Month, May 2008

What is the software’s intended audience?

The vast majority (more than 90%) of our users deploy behind a firewall. We’ve seen great adoption by IT guys, who want to replace other wikis with inferior user experiences and limited feature sets. They also find it easy to gain traction within their organizations since MindTouch Deki Wiki is the only platform that allows you to connect existing systems. The users are very often business users, but it’s usually the IT guy who is deploying, hooking together systems, and pushing it out to the business guys.

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What are a couple of notable examples of how people are using your software?

Users of MindTouch Deki Wiki fall into three categories:

• About 50-60% of our users are deploying MindTouch as a general purpose wiki solution for collaboration around text and files. They choose Deki Wiki over other wikis, they tell us, because of the superior user experience and feature set. Maybe because of Deki Wiki’s unique ability to create mashups and situational apps is a factor too. Moreover, sometimes these users cite the fact that they can hook together enterprise systems, web apps and services as a factor in the selection, but these users are not yet to this point. 
• Another 30-40% of your users, and growing, are installing MindTouch Deki Wiki for connecting legacy systems, web apps and web services. This allows users to create alternative interfaces to legacy systems and build new apps from composites (as well as delivering the aforementioned benefits of mashups). This user is almost entirely the enterprise IT guy who is hooking in Web apps, ERP, CRM, Google Apps, etc and allowing the biz users to mash things up to suit their needs, with the added benefit of IT governance.
• The remaining minority of MindTouch Deki Wiki users (5-10%) are doing software development on the platform. We’ve been selected over BEA Weblogic on more than a few occasions to build new apps. When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. When you’re writing new applications in the enterprise it’s most often the case your building on, or integrating with, other enterprise systems, auth systems, etc. MindTouch Deki Wiki’s WOA and service orchestration makes doing this quicker and reusable.

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What has been your biggest challenge?

MindTouch Deki Wiki often gets lumped into the plain old wiki category. Clearly, we’re not “just another wiki” and what our users do with our software is a clear indication of this. The Web 2.0 Hype machine initially was a real barrier for us. Until recently it’s been a challenge to cut through the noise of less sophisticated products and be heard. Thankfully the strength of our product has allowed us to break through.

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What are you most proud of?

We’re incredibly proud of the large and active community of users and developers we’ve built around Deki Wiki. It’s an amazing feeling for our developers when they go to a conference, and some random IT guy tells them “Deki Wiki is awesome! I love your product!” I think it’s those personal shout-outs which let us know we’re doing good work that we’re most proud of.

The question above about our biggest challenge really should also give credit to our community of users and devs because it is only through their efforts that MindTouch has spread. So, thanks again gang.

One final note, If you love MindTouch Deki Wiki please consider nominating and voting for MindTouch Deki Wiki in the Sourceforge.net 2008 Community Choice Awards (requires Sourceforge login or OpenID).