Records management (which meets U.S. Department of Defense 5015.2 requirements, but is not yet certified), works much like document management, and thus is likely to have a high adoption rate among end-users. For instance, documents can be dragged into the Alfresco repository from Office, Exchange, and Open Office desktop applications. I set up Alfresco to automatically classify records based on predefined types and then assign retention and archive policies. Further, it's easy to perform full-text searches or queries by file plans, categories, or types.

Image management relies on the same JSR-170 content repository and also let me reuse business policy rules I'd created for Web content and documents. There's also metadata extraction plus transformation among many image formats including TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, Office, PDF, and Flash.

Combining document, Web, records, and image management, Alfresco 2.1 is a full-fledged EMC (enterprise content manager). Although such breadth often signals extra complexity in commercial offerings, Alfresco doesn't succumb to this problem. Using Web 2.0 techniques (such as lightweight scripting), native Office integration, and one common Web interface, users submit material to the common repository. And with integration throughout the modules, administrators can reuse components, such as business rules for publishing content.

DotNetNuke 4.5.5
DotNetNuke's built-in features -- generally broad and centrally managed -- make it appropriate for quickly deploying small Web sites or intranets. This solution is well-suited for moderate-sized e-commerce sites because it supports banner ads and referral programs.

Moreover, DotNetNuke's ASP.Net foundation contributes to its extensibility and usability. Therefore, you might consider it for larger, custom corporate Web projects. One notable enterprise feature is multiple portals within one software instance -- each site with its own identity and access rights.

DotNetNuke doesn't exaggerate its usability statements. Within an hour of downloading the software I had a functional site that incorporated many of this product's more advanced features. One tip is to get DotNetNuke's automated installer utility that you'll find hidden in the company's download area; even if you're familiar with creating .Net sites, this tool may save you time --  it automatically installed .Net prerequisites and configured IIS for me.

Overall site settings, security roles, and user settings are all easily managed from a single administration menu. More important, finding your way around the forms doesn't require much experience. For example, customizing the user registration form to make certain fields mandatory just requires checking off a few boxes.

I followed the same process for other global selections, including changing the look of the portal. (The built-in style sheet editor is available if you want to make more extensive changes). I was especially impressed with the granularity of these options. For instance, I applied one style to a certain section of my site that was designed as an extranet, while public areas received a different visual treatment.

Developing and managing the general structure of your site is equally straightforward. The Pages area let me reorder how pages appeared within the site navigation and move them down to different levels -- changes that were immediately reflected in my site's navigation.