Enterprise

This week we added three Web applications to our CMS Focus top 30 list.  The CMSs and ECMs listed in CMS Focus are not necessarily the most popular in content management and are not meant to meet everyone's requirements for a CMS. Instead the content management systems that make up this top 30 are what I consider content management "game changers" or "attention getters". New to CMS Focus are the following CMS/ECM: EPiServer, Umbraco, and an unknown CMS called Omeka.

Since the early days of CMSReport.com, I have been providing a list of the top 30 Web applications that interest me the most. This list is called CMS Focus. If you take a close look at this list, you will find that I currently need three additional content management systems to complete the list of thirty. Which CMS/ECM would you recommend be placed on my list?

Alfresco Software today announced the availability of Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.2, the latest version of its enterprise content management (ECM) product. With this release, Alfresco enables cloud-based deployments, streamlines email management and archiving and enhances team-based content collaboration. In addition, the Alfresco Enterprise 3.2 Records Management module is the only supported open source solution to have been certified to the 5015.02 standard.

This release builds on Alfresco’s ability to deliver low-cost, innovative and interoperable open source ECM solutions. New features and benefits included in Alfresco Enterprise 3.2 are listed below.

Enables efficient and easy ECM in the cloud:

• Multi-Tenancy – Alfresco natively supports multi-tenancy, a critical component of multi-company cloud implementations as it maximizes use of hardware and simplifies administration of multiple instances of Alfresco.
• Cloud-deployable – Alfresco now supports multiple deployment options from traditional on-premise to full cloud deployment ranging from a simple AMI to a fully-configured, fault-tolerant and load-balanced Alfresco cluster.
  

At the start of every year, I like to resolve to read a number of IT, CMS, and business related books. The Internet is a good resource, but perhaps because I'm too old school I still like to learn a thing or two from a book. So far I have three books on my reading list for 2010.

I plan to review each of these books at a later date but since I'm a slow reader I thought I'd share them now. Links to the books go to Amazon for a possible purchase are our available in CMS Report's Amazon store.

I'm one of the many CMS enthusiasts excited about CMIS. CMIS is the abbreviation for the OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS). Please check AIIM's official guide to CMIS for further details.

Before you do go over to AIIM's site, you might want to also check out Stefan Waldhauser's "8 reasons why CMIS will transform the ECM industry" posted at Digital Landfill. I like reason number four:

4 -- No more lock-in to one ECM-vendor because of CMIS.

Until today the ECM industry was driven by high complexity and proprietary systems that prevented to switch to other vendors. Even when a vendor dramatically increased maintenance fees (many customers know what I’m speaking about) there often was no choice to go somewhere else because of the tight and proprietary integrations between the customer build applications and the ECM-infrastructure. CMIS will help separate the applications from the ECM-platform and so there will be no more lock-in to one vendor. Doesn’t that sound great?

I think the biggest thing CMIS offers is customer satisfaction in not having to choose one vendor over another. As I stated this morning on Twitter, I see CMIS as recognition that the "total enterprise solution" is a lie. I have yet to see an enterprise software package provide the complete solution that vendors often promise their customers. Somewhere in the product's life cycle the customer finds that they need more than what the current software and/or vendor can deliver but the customer also isn't ready to leave their current system behind. CMIS hopes to solve the migration issues involved with moving from one application to another by allowing both applications to work together.

There is a cost issue here with CMIS though and, so far, I haven't seem much dicussion on the subject. While CMIS allows more than one application to share and work with the content it will not always reduce costs and maintenance fees. The fact is CMIS may now require the customer to provide ongoing support for multiple applications and platforms instead of the single platform they were once supporting. In general, when the customer's IT group has to support additional applications they also need additional time and money required to provide that support. Just like the problem CMIS is trying to solve, CMIS will not always be the total solution to your problems.

This morning, Nuxeo, the Open Source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) company, announced the release of its new Digital Asset Management offering (Nuxeo DAM) for beta preview. Nuxeo is using the Gilbane Conference in Boston to present DAM as a featured product in its conference booth (#122A).

Nuxeo DAM is a packaged application, based on the Nuxeo open source ECM platform, that addresses the complex and resource-intensive demands of managing the rich media assets of today's business. According to Nuxeo, Nuxeo DAM is:

Designed to meet the creative and ever-changing needs of marketing and brand managers, Nuxeo's digital asset management software opens up new opportunities for the creators, users and consumers of rich media to take control of their critical image, video or audio content.

Key benefits that Nuxeo DAM provides include:

• Intuitive experience, designed for creative users
• Productivity accelerant: automate and streamline routine tasks
• Trusted repository, designed for secure and easy scaling as projects expand
• Flexibility: modularity and interoperability through open source and open standards including CMIS compatibility
  

Earlier this week, Ektron Inc. announced the release of Ektron CMS400.NET version 8.0. Version 8.0 builds on Ektron’s social software and enterprise Web content management to allow for the creation of sites that today’s web users expect. Version 8.0 includes the new eMarketing Suite, complete with the analytics, multivariate testing, drag and drop page assembly, ecommerce and enhanced site management tools that marketing teams can use to drive measurable business results.

It is Day 2 for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 and like many of you, I'm not at the conference. That's alright though because there are plenty of smart people at the conference more than willing to talk about what they are seeing there. It's a good idea to follow some of these people around and let them be our eyes and ears.

Probably one of the most vocal SharePoint evangelists I've come across is Michael Gannotti. I've been following him on Twitter for some time. He's recently posted his take on SharePoint 2010 on the SharePoint Expert Blog. 

SharePoint 2010 is absolutely the biggest most important release of SharePoint to date and in the opinion of this techie the single most important product release since Windows 95! Think I have drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid? Well consider how this rev of SharePoint addresses connecting and empowering people, cutting costs through a unified infrastructure, as well as providing a platform that facilitates a rapid response to business needs. Need more convincing after reading this post? Then be sure to check out "What makes Microsoft SharePoint tick?" by Mary Jo Foley. After that if you are still wondering what all the fuss is about why not check out these three videos by the SharePoint team that provide an overview of SharePoint 2010, as well as focuses for the IT Pro and Developer. Once you are sufficiently salivating then be sure to pre-register for the SharePoint 2010 beta here!!

Mike has a lot more to say about SharePoint 2010 and I encourage you read the rest of his post.  SharePoint 2010 sound like an exciting package and finally taking Web content management a little more seriously. However, I suppose I'll personally have to wait as my organization is only now deploying SharePoint 2007. I have to wonder, if companies are slow in upgrading their Windows operating systems...are they any faster in upgrading their SharePoint platform?

This week, eZ Systems announce the immediate release of eZ Publish 4.2, the new version of its Open Source Content Management System. The new release brings important improvements to the heart of eZ solutions, the eZ Publish engine, as well as major advances and new features for eZ Flow and eZ Find. A new extension, eZSI, makes its debut in the 4.2 package providing full support for the Edge Side Include standard to eZ Publish.

Bård Farstad, CTO and Founder of eZ Publish, described the motivation underlying the new release: "Our team focused on Usability for both end-users and editors, as well as Scalability and Performance for customers using eZ Publish in extremely high-traffic installations ". Farstad emphasized that "in those two focus areas, eZ Find (the enterprise-grade search plugin for eZ Publish) has become a key element for achieving the best results".

The 4.2 release was developed by eZ Systems with contributions from eZ Publish partners and trusted community members, and is immediately available as certified software, which benefits from eZ System's Premium support and maintenance services, including the unlimited bugfix guarantee.

This is one of those rare posts where I post an article about a change in the executive ranks of a CMS company. However, thanks to Jon Marks and his CMS gurus on Twitter list I've been a Twitter follower of this person.  Cheryl McKinnon is moving from Open Text to Nuexo as their Chief Marketing Officer. Nuxeo is one of the leading provider of open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software and services.