Interwoven unveils Content Networks plan

ECM (enterprise content management) vendor Interwoven over the course of several quarters next year plans to introduce new products designed to strengthen the role of Web services, collaboration, and mobility in its ECM platform.

One goal of the Content Networks vision, which was announced Wednesday, is to provide an integrated architecture under which to unify its recent acquisitions of collaborative content vendor iManage and digital asset management player MediaBin. 

Furthermore, the plan represents a bridge to the next stage of ECM, which involves flexible development of content applications via a 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 future of content management won't be just static documents. You will have content [elements] referencing each other, business logic where some content will evoke other pieces of content. It is becoming harder to separate content from applications."

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 services-oriented architecture 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.

"Content needs context to be more effective. The business user needs to directly modify, change, and delete content-rich applications," Jia said.

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 Meta 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.

Several Interwoven Content Network products are in pilot deployments with select customers, Interwoven officials said.