Alfresco Innovates with New Community Edition, Delivers First-Ever Open Source Mashable Enterprise Content Services
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Alfresco Community Release 2.1 available free for download with simple URL access for Web sites, portals, blogs and Microsoft Office
LONDON, July 10 -- Alfresco Software, Inc., the leader in open source enterprise content management, today announced the immediate availability for download of Alfresco Community 2.1.
The release introduces the new Web Script technology that provides access to enterprise content, metadata, user interface components and queries using a simple URL interface. Utilizing new Web 2.0 integration techniques, Web Scripts enable web sites, portals, blogs, applications and Microsoft Office to access or mashup enterprise content without the need for integration tools and complex programming. New lightweight scripting capabilities simplify the development of sophisticated mashups using proven web technologies that enable massive scalability.
Enterprise content in large corporations today tends to stay in proprietary silos, only accessible through proprietary user interfaces. With the emergence of Web 2.0, enterprises are demanding the same integration and mashup capabilities found on the Web be made available via their existing user interfaces. Users want to access information within the tool of their choice. The result is a shift towards the application of Web 2.0 concepts inside the enterprise. However, integrating enterprise content with other systems, applications and web sites has required major development and integration projects.
Instead of providing simple interfaces, these projects tend to use sophisticated Java and/or .NET code that is expensive and time consuming to develop. The burden of these interfaces has either prevented simple access to enterprise content or made it unscalable and difficult to use. The lack of integration prevents users from finding relevant content in the context of other applications or web sites and often forces them to integrate information themselves by multi-tasking on multiple applications.
Alfresco Community 2.1 has been designed to deliver simple access to content from the user's tool of choice (Office, portal, website or Web 2.0 property as simply as accessing a URL); simple access and mashup of internal and external content (without requiring complex .Net or Java programming); and massive scalability through proven web-oriented and REST architecture.
The new Alfresco Community 2.1 offers the following new capabilities:
o New Native Office Integration - Building on the ability to view the Alfresco repository as a shared drive through the existing CIFS capability, Alfresco now offers full document management from within the Office environment, as well as MySpaces, MyDocuments, MyTasks and MyWebForms panes. This is in addition to content services such as check-in/check-out, version control, auditing, workflow and PDF generation.
o Enterprise Portal Integration - JSR-168 Web Script access to MySpaces, MyDocuments, MyTasks MyWebForms
o Enterprise Content Publishing into Blogs - WordPress and TypePad
o New Web 2.0 User Interface - Fisheye Drilldown, AutoPreview, Cross Platform Dashlets with Full Personalization
These capabilities are available due to the next generation Web-oriented architecture delivered through Web Scripts, which are the foundation of simple cross platform access, mashups and web scalability. A Web-oriented architecture is far simpler than a service oriented architecture for the following reasons:
o Simple URL access vs. SOAP
o Lightweight scripting vs. complex .Net or Java programming
o Simple mashup of internal and external vs. internal services only
o Common Web Standards - OpenSearch, URL, JSON, RSS, ATOM vs. Proprietary API's
"Web 2.0 innovations are prompting radical reconsiderations for corporate IT managers who must make it easy for workers to manage content across platforms -- both inside and outside the organization," said John Newton, CTO and co-founder of Alfresco Software Inc. "We are moving from silos to mashups, complex proprietary tools to tools of choice, and from complex programming to lightweight scripting. Alfresco's open source innovation is taking ECM out of the 1990's."
"Alfresco 2.1 teamed with JBoss Portal 2.6 enterprise portal provides users with seamless access to simple but powerful content management tools from within their chosen working environment," said Pierre Fricke, director of product line management, Red Hat. "The availability of Alfresco Community 2.1 is an important step forward for next-generation Web applications. We look forward to further integration of Red Hat solutions with Alfresco ECM in future."
For more information or to download Community 2.1, please visit dev.alfresco.com/downloads/ Alfresco Enterprise 2.1, which will include service and support, is expected later this year.
About Alfresco Software, Inc.
Alfresco Software Inc., is the first and leading open source alternative for enterprise content management. It is the first company to bring the power of open source to the enterprise content management market, enabling unprecedented scale and a much lower total cost of ownership than proprietary systems. Founded by a team of content management veterans that includes the co-founder of Documentum, John Newton, and former COO of Business Objects, John Powell, Alfresco is based in London.
For more information, visit http://www.alfresco.com/.
