December 08, 2008, 2:25 PM — I've mentioned PBwiki before and likely will again, since they seem to keep raising the wiki bar (doesn't that sound like a party activity? Raising the wiki bar?). They just announced two improvements worth mentioning.
First, they've added unlimited storage for paying customers. Pay the $8 per user per month, and PBwiki gives you unlimited storage space. I don't know anyone else who has done that. If you do, send me a note. Either way, “unlimited†certainly seems like plenty of room for everyone. Free users get bumped up to 2GBs for storage.
Second, PBwiki added document management tools. Enterprise VP Chris Yeh said they aren't trying to fight with entrenched enterprise document management vendors like Documentum, but they want to help companies avoid the giant hassles of tracking an important document through multiple revisions when bounding from e-mail attachment to e-mail attachment. No wonder most corporate attempts at collaboration using e-mail alone fail. Who wants to track and manage one horribly mangled document flying around the Internet? Not I.
PBwiki added folders not long ago, making the document management system more typical and comfortable for user. I like the automatic revision tracking feature, making it easy to go back to an earlier version. Try recovering the document details from four revisions back with that e-mail attachment mess you're using now.
Paying PBwiki customers can apply rights to pages, allowing some people to read but not change the information. And if you have enough users that the idea of recreating a long list of user names, passwords, and security profiles makes your head hurt, you'll be glad to learn PBwiki can integrate with Microsoft's Active Directory. Save yourself some typing time and try out document management from PBwiki soon. You can start with the free version with a small group, test the value to the team of a shared, always accessible storage location, and expand the number or users as needed.
