Open Source ECM Growing Up

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The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space is about more than just managing content. It’s about creating content too.

That’s where open source ECM vendor Alfresco’s new Labs 3.0 release comes into play. Alfresco Labs 3.0 adds new Web Studio functionality that enables users to build sites with drag and drop ease.

Alfresco’s open source products compete in the commercial space against Open Text, EMC/Documentum and Microsoft’s SharePoint, among others. The Labs release is Alfresco’s community version and represents the leading edge of its open source release efforts.

“We are seeing a continuing increase in demand for Alfresco,” claimed John Newton, co-founder and CTO of Alfresco Software. “Many organizations tell us they are seeking more cost effective ways to achieve their IT strategies and they are, more than ever, rigorously review existing proprietary software renewals,” he told InternetNews.com.

Among the new additions in Alfresco Labs 3 is the Web Studio application, which uses the Alfresco developed Surf web framework. Surf is a modular script-able Java-based web framework for Web applications. Newton claimed that Web Studio can be used for a drag-and-drop design experience to build Web sites and applications.

“Web Studio allows you to work with and view the Web site you are developing, but uses the Yahoo YUI [Yahoo User Interface] AJAX libraries,” Newton explained.

The Yahoo YUI is an Ajax toolkit for building and displaying dynamic Web content. Web Studio is also designed to develop and edit Web sites safely by using the new Alfesco Web Content Management REST (define) based Web Scripts.

Alfresco Labs 3.0 will also integrate with other Web content management systems like the open source Joomla project. However, Alfresco is targeting a different space for his products overall.

“Joomla and Drupal have very successfully focused on Web site presentation management, which allows the non-technical content editor to manage page layouts and site features,” Newton said. “With the introduction of Alfresco Web Studio, Alfresco has provided comparable tools for the enterprise, allowing non-technical users to create and manipulate new Web sites, but still adhering to the enterprise architecture and technology requirements.”

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.