In a move to further commoditize enterprise functionality for the masses, SocialText is offering their suite for free for up to 50 users. This will be a great way to introduce social networking and collaboration to SMEs with a rather rich suite of tools. This would compete directly with Google Sites. Although one could argue that similar interfaces and experiences could be built using Sites templates, this requires custom development. In addition, SocialText truly shines with it’s desktop application and it’s rip of Twitter/Yammer: Signals. These are two features that Google doesn’t have, and I’m not entirely convinced until Waves launches, Google will have much to offer in terms of thought leadership around social networking. Yet.

What’s Included in Free 50

So what do we get for free? Most of the core features of Socialtext are offered as part of Free 50, including:

• the Facebook-like private social network.
• the customized home page dashboard.
• a collaborative workspace that blends wiki and blog functionality.
• Signals, the Twitter-like messaging system.
• Desktop, an Adobe Air desktop application that provides monitoring and access to Socialtext without having to constantly visit the Socialtext web site.

What you can’t do is create multiple workspaces, so there’s no separation of content for project work, clients or similar boundaries. However, as a starting point or intranet homepage, this is a great way to feel the “pulse” of the organisation, potentially linking off to other 3rd party applications via simply RSS feeds that insert activity streams to Basecamp, etc.