CIO — Wikis can seem like a godsend to many corporate end users who've tried messy and unsatisfying collaboration via e-mail and other traditional corporate tools.

A wiki — a webpage that can be simultaneously edited by multiple users and (ideally) done without any experience writing HTML code — takes a legitimate stab at the elusive "one version of the truth" problem in the modern corporation. Traditionally, groups have shared information with one another by e-mailing around documents, making corrections to them, and then e-mailing the new document back to the entire group. One major downside to this method is that there's no ability for people to make changes at once and see the modifications their colleagues have made at the same time.

On the other hand, changes to a wiki get made in real time. Wikis also have much better version control, allowing you to revert back to a previous version if incorrect or unacceptable edits get made.

Choosing the best wiki platform, however, can be difficult. Both new and old vendors are offering an array of wiki platforms. But before you start thinking about vendors you need to do your research on your IT and end-user requirements, says Gil Yehuda, senior analyst at Forrester Research, who recently authored a research paper on seven steps for selecting an enterprise wiki.

CIO caught up with Yehuda to talk about these seven steps, and what it takes to pick a wiki that's just right for you and your company, both from a technical and end-user perspective.

1. Pick a Software Delivery Model

Most wikis can be delivered to your company in three formats: on-premise (you install the software on your machines and manage it), hosted (software as a service (SaaS), where the vendors store all the data on their servers), or as an appliance, which is a hybrid model between the first two options.

According to Yehuda, many larger enterprises choose to go with on-premise installs of wikis, especially if their industry has strict requirements around what type of proprietary data (if any) can be stored outside their company's server farms.

The hosted SaaS model can be attractive for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) with leaner IT departments that have limited resources and can't take on the burden of managing more servers and software. In addition, SaaS is adopted sometimes within large enterprises by line of business departments who are tired of waiting for IT to provide them with a wiki or other collaborative technologies.

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