JotSpot to be shutdown – migrate to Google Sites

I just received word that JotSpot is set to be shutdown completely January 15th 2009.

I have been vocal about my thoughts about JotSpot in the past and Google’s inability to provide businesses using Jot with a transparent system to migrate over to Google Sites. I event spent time on the Jot Spot Google Group looking for answers from admins and never got an answer.

What does this mean for businesses?

Google positions the migration as simple – but leaves users with the following functionality out in the cold:

There are parts of JotSpot which Google Sites does not yet support. These include:

* Code execution, forms, and developer extensions
* Page level permissions
* Applications from the application gallery like bug reporter
* It will not be possible to migration Family Site or Class Reunion Site

They go out to say that while there are many benefits that came from migrating to Google infrastructure, that there are “gaps” as well. Further investigating into the FAQ states that people on the Family Site, Class Reunion Site, or Tracker sites will NOT be able to migrate and have their sites shut down December 1st 2008.

This means that anyone with a more advanced use of the JotSpot system, such as an application, scripting language, or page level permissions – will not be able to transfer their wiki with the same functionality that they had (and perhaps paid for) before.

Many may say “well the app was free” but for those that paid this is unfortunate news.

JotSpot has had performance issues as of late, and a ton of users posting for support. I think this latest moves leaves those still on the system high and dry.

The migration also takes around 3 days!

I spent a lot of time researching wiki apps and web collaboration sites looking for a great all-in-one solution and in the end went with Zoho. I only mention this to hopefully save the next person with this situation some time and energy.