Google launched its wiki, finally.

SocialText co-founder Ross Mayfield, who has recently repositioned himself as a wiki evangelist rather than CEO of a vendor, has the bittersweet task of congratulating Google for unveiling Sites. Sweet because Google's entry into the foray makes wikis that much more inevitable, but bitter because Sites is built on the nuts of bolts of Mayfield's erstwhile rival, JotSpot. Google acquired JotSpot in late 2006 and then buried it for so long that many analysts wondered if it would ever get resuscitated. (Note to Ross: JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus isn't working on the wiki anymore.)

But Mayfield says that comparisons with Lotus Notes and SharePoint products are far-fetched.

eWEEK Google Watch maven Clint Boulton has a good roundup of where Sites falls short.

Still, it looks like Google is well on its way to rounding out an offering that can appeal to a lot of enterprise customers. And I'm hearing that a lot of big-time companies are planning to switch tens of thousands of seats off Office and to Google Apps. That will be one hell of a big bang when it happens. Note that I said when, not if.