Alfresco Updates its OSS Enterprise Content Manager

Alfresco Software, maker of popular open source content management software, has announced the release of Alfresco Enterprise 2.2. The new release is designed to let web site managers delve into web 2.0 features and online community building. According to the company, "Enhancements support the creation, deployment and updates of scalable Web 2.0 sites that can be developed using any web application language." Alfresco is behind interactive sites in the entertainment, online gaming, sports, telecommunications and publishing industries, and many of the new features are targeted at such sites.

OStatic checked in with Ian Howells, Chief Marketing Officer at Alfresco, about the release:

"Next generation websites are about creating a community around a product or service, such as a game to new mobile phone packages. Communities are about people and two-way conversations where individuals want the simplicity and familiarity of the tools they use day-in and day-out. These conversations are about communicating new services, discovering them via blogs, downloading products, rating and discussing them and being notified of changes."

"We use the architecture and languages of web 2.0 delivering content, not as a 1990s suite, but content-as-a-service that can be mashed up with other services and tools such as blogs, forums and wikis to create next generation community sites."

Alfresco officials say their goal is to allow site operators to move beyond simple marketing-oriented Web sites to deploying interactive sites that fosters community and customer relationships around a product or service. Electronic Arts, Activision and Sony Pictures Imageworks Interactive use Alfresco, among others.

Among the enhancements, according to an Alfresco advisory, are:

• Web Farm Deployment Configuration – supports advanced deployment rules for web 2.0 scalable, 3-tier web application architectures.
• Web Application Preview and Test – provides the ability to preview in-context changes to any web application, including PHP, Ruby, Groovy, STRUTS, JSF, TILES and .NET.
• Site Templating and Branching – enables rapid creation of new sites from existing templates and ability to baseline major site updates by branching existing site.
• Asset Reuse – allows content to be updated and shared across web projects.

According to open source blogger Matt Asay, who is also general manager of the Americas for Alfresco, Alfresco had about "about five thousand plus registered developers" as of late last year. More information on Alfresco Enterprise 2.2 is available at the company's site.