Interwoven constructs Content Networks vision

ECM (enterprise content management) vendor Interwoven next year plans to introduce products and features designed to deepen the role of Web services and collaboration in its ECM platform.

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Dubbed Content Networks, the vision aims to unify the company's recent acquisitions — including iManage for collaboration and MediaBin for digital asset management — into a cohesive effort.

Furthermore, the plan represents a bridge to the next stage of ECM, which involves flexible development of content applications via a SOA (services-oriented architecture), said Jack Jia, CTO and senior vice president at Interwoven.

"ECM is not the end of the game; it is a transition stage of content management," Jia said.

The Content Networks strategy will usher in a suite of five products that address process-level challenges associated with developing content applications that are personalized, flexible, and targeted to specific market segments.

Building out existing SOA capabilities in the Interwoven 6 platform, Content Networks products will "leverage existing content, applications, and repositories and make them dynamic, make them [behave] with business logic," Jia said.

In addition, the offerings will push more content development functions to business users, tap Web services to extend content control outside the enterprise to partners and suppliers, and increase mobility with offline access capabilities.

Interwoven's Content Networks strategy aims to paint a cohesive picture of how its acquisitions will come together and how it plans to expose its functionality via a SOA-based platform, said Andy Warzecha, senior vice president at METAa Group.

A SOA is important because content management "doesn't exist in a vacuum and will be embedded in other applications like portals via Web services components," Warzecha said.

In fact, Interwoven is not alone in its push, as other ECM vendors such as Vignette, Documentum, and FileNet are also moving to embrace Web services. Interwoven hopes to distinguish itself with support for both .Net and J2EE and more emphasis on the extended enterprise, Warzecha added.