The wiki world is going a bit wacky over Google’s acquisition of JotSpot with rivals Socialtext and Atlassian both offering “migration” deals to customers who may be feeling some uncertainty about what Google has in mind for its latest property. 

In a new post, Jon Silvers, director of marketing at Atlassian extends his congratulations to the JotSpot gang, offers the to-be-expected spin that the acquisition is good news for all the players in the wiki space because it demonstrates that “wikis are hot,” and makes a pitch:

We noted that JotSpot is discontinuing their JotSpot Wiki Server. For JotSpot Wiki Server customers who wish to switch to another behind-the-firewall enterprise wiki, now is the time to consider migrating to Atlassian Confluence. We’ll oversee your data migration and offer you a 25% discount off of any Confluence license. Interested? Just email us at sales@atlassian.com for details.

No such Mr. Nice Guy approach from Ross Mayfield, CEO of  Socialtext, who started the day with a blog post that began with ”sincere congratulations” to the JotSpot crew and concluded with the distinctly snide observation that the acquisition “will further commoditize the low end of the market.” 

Mayfield has some right to be steamed, of course.  The Google/JotSpot deal has nearly buried his big announcement that Socialtext has released a new product called SocialPoint, which is Socialtext running on Microsoft SharePoint.

Not to be outdone by Atlassian’s offer, Socialtext is offering to migrate JotSpot wiki content and provide one year of Socialtext Professional hosted wiki service free to any JotSpot customer who signs up by the end of November 2006. The offer is good for deployments of any size. (Update:  Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes wryly points out in a comment below that since Google doesn’t charge for its web apps JotSpot is about to become “free” also.)

“Our experience has been that JotSpot customers convert to Socialtext when they realize they need a real business-class wiki,” sniffed Mayfield, in a press release. “We have been gaining customers since they discontinued their Appliance offering. We hear a high degree of uncertainty from users faced with a potential lag in innovation and unclear integration strategy with Google. Socialtext is ready to support you and your business during this critical time.”

This is the same guy who yesterday referred to Microsoft as “the convicted monopolist.”

Ouch, Ross.  The nails, the nails.