MindTouch Deki's new release integrates...just about everything
Disclosure: I am on the advisory board for MindTouch.
Double disclosure: I really, really like the latest release of MindTouch Deki (formerly "Deki Wiki").
MindTouch has always thought that a wiki should be about more than simply creating basic web pages. With its new "Kilen Woods" release, the company has significantly bent the rules as to what constitutes a wiki, and just which data sources can feed into a wiki.
LinkedIn? Yep. Salesforce.com? Sure. SugarCRM. Uh-huh.
MindTouch Deki enables businesses to connect and mashup the growing number of application and data silos that exist across an enterprise - including legacy systems, CRM and ERP applications, databases, and Web 2.0 applications....For example, MindTouch Deki can visualize content from a Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Access databases and mash it up with other services, such as Microsoft Live Earth or Google maps, LinkedIn and a CRM system - offering a common wiki and web-service interface for content and behavior from multiple sources.
eWeek and others have some good reviews. Me? I just like that I don't have to learn any wiki language to use it. Take a look for yourself:
With 3,000 downloads per day and 400 paying customers, MindTouch is on a roll. It's not the only collaboration play in town, by any means. But I continue to find it to be one of the most interesting.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
