Topics:
Content Management
Alfresco Releases An Open Source SharePoint Compatible Alternative
John Newton, the CTO of Alfresco Software, gives a good summary of why they're targeting SharePoint on his blog: "Although over 90% of the Fortune 1000 have at least one type of ECM system, less than 10% of the employees in most of these companies use ECM...SharePoint, through its hooks to Microsoft Office, has made significant inroads into this yawning gap in the ECM market, and growing at 35% per annum as a result...With Alfresco Labs 3, our opportunity is to provide an alternative to, provide interoperability with, and be complementary to Microsoft SharePoint." The main feature delivered by Alfresco Labs 3 is that Microsoft Office can seamlessly access the repository in the same way that it works with Microsoft SharePoint Server. This could mean significant savings for many enterprises. Other features in Alfresco Labs 3 include Surf, their Web application development platform; Alfresco Share, a new social computing application developed using Surf; and a document library capable of scaling to more than 100 million documents. That's impressive functionality, and the fact that it's open source sweetens the pot. Interestingly, the SharePoint protocol that makes the Alfresco Labs 3 possible was released as part of Microsoft's compliance with the European Commission's orders in 2004. To the best of my knowledge, no other vendor -- open sources or otherwise -- has released a SharePoint-compatible repository server. For additional information on Alfresco Labs 3, including details on downloading and installing it, check out the Alfresco Labs 3 entry on the AlfrescoWiki. Alfresco has long been a good resource for solid open source ECM, and this added functionality serves to make it even more compelling. « VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2 | Main | How To Stop Firefox From Blocking Google Reader Popups » |
| Sign Up Now For InformationWeek News Alerts |
This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.
Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service.
Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.
