Internet Evolution: "And in that vein, SharePoint may become the victim of its own success: There are no clearly defined standards and best practices for designing and deploying SharePoint in a cohesive manner. This is not to say that expertise does not exist and that people don’t have opinions and valid experiences. But let’s get real -- the product was only shipped in November 2006, and organizations can get rather desperate as they search for balanced and practiced governance standards."

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It has been awhile since I've considered using KnowledgeTree on the office intranet. I eventually decided that I needed to focus more on our content management system (we are now using Drupal) and consider implementing a document management system (DMS) at a later date. A recent Linux.com article on KnowledgeTree reminded me about the DMS that I almost forgot about.

These days, effective document management means accessibility from anywhere on the planet, electronic storage, reliable backup, and instant document modification updates. KnowledgeTree offers all that and more. It's available in several editions, including an open source community version (which we reviewed last year) that businesses can tailor to their individual needs.

You can install KnowledgeTree in-house on your company's server or use it as an online, hosted service. With it, you can create, edit, and store documents from Linux, Mac, and Windows computer. KnowledgeTreeLive, the hosted version, can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection and a supported browser -- Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.

I always promised myself that I would take a second look at KnowledgeTree sometime down the road. Unfortunately, at least for for KnowledgeTree, the regional office I'm under has started a move toward Microsoft's SharePoint. As I've written in the past, SharePoint is confusing system to describe and even Microsoft has a tough time explaining their product to potential customers. I initially thought SharePoint would be more of a CMS, Portal, and wiki but each time I've looked at SharePoint I'm realizing that it's greater strength may be in document management.

pTools Software today announced the completion of one of the largest public sector IT projects undertaken in Ireland to date. The HSE intranet, which is built on pTools Content Management Software (CMS), provides information and services for all of its 100,000 strong workforce, and will be regularly accessed by over 50,000 HSE staff from a network of more than 25,000 computers. Key features of the intranet include access to daily staff news, briefings and reports, staff email and contact directories, medical libraries and other resources. pTools was awarded the contract following a competitive tender process and worked with HSE ICT Services and the Communications divisions over an eighteen month period to deliver the new intranet. Known as HSEnet, it provides a single unified location for internal online content for all HSE staff and, since going live in November 2007, is already receiving more than 750 thousand page impressions per month and is expected to exceed 1 million page impressions in the coming months.

InternetNews:  This year at the National Association of Broadcasters, Microsoft is celebrating a year of progress since Silverlight's debut.  Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform streaming media technology (think Adobe Flash).  Microsoft is announcing updates to developers' tools that tie it to the company's popular Sharepoint collaboration server, and plans to blow its own horn to call attention to the technology's growing momentum.

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The first part of our ECM Outlook 2008 discussed the emergence of Microsoft Sharepoint as a legitimate ECM application. Even though SharePoint is the 1000 pound pink elephant in the room, other issues like compliance, collaboration, and lower deployment costs continue to drive the ECM industry. Part two discusses five additional key factors and common concerns.

“There has to be a better way of dealing with all of this unstructured information lavishing on shared drives,” says Clark. “Being efficient and compliant at the same time is important. I don’t think one is necessarily more important than the other. Although I’m starting to see a lot more push on the efficient side, corporate governance is not a fad. But we need be to more efficient. We need to out compete.

You and I have a dirty little secret. Many of the Web applications that we call content management systems (Web CMS) are not really content management systems. Huh? A lot of this confusion stems from the difficulty most of us have in answering what should be a simple question, what is a content management system? Scott Abel, The Content Wranger, has noted in previous comments that one of the problems in discussions about content management is that we really lack a common definition of CMS.

The problem we have in defining a Web application as a CMS isn't because people haven't offered good definitions for how we should define today's Web CMS. For example, I especially value Dean Barker's interpretation of a CMS at Gadgetopia, What Makes a Content Management System? On the contrary, the challenge for many of us is that what we know in theory is a CMS isn't really what is currently put into practice. The latest generation of Web applications that we are still calling Web CMS simply have moved beyond the scope of content management and into social publishing.

"The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint is source code and guidance for developers describing how to use Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies together in business applications and Internet Web sites. SharePoint applications that use Web Parts can now be built using Silverlight user interface elements. This capability enables a fresh look at data exposed through SharePoint Products and Technologies using the modern graphics capability in Silverlight."

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If you ask the experts, the primary target market for SharePoint is small and medium businesses (SMBs). If you ask SMBs you might get a different answer though — as the licensing model alone is enough to send most of them running, with tails tucked tightly between their legs."

Complete Story at CMS Wire

pTools today announced that it has enhanced its CMS software for Microsoft SharePoint by integrating it with Window's Workflow Foundation. Organisations can now generate content within the CMS and expose this content as web-parts for SharePoint. The latest release will be launched at Microsoft's world-wide SharePoint Conference in Seattle this March and is part of pTools alignment to Microsoft's .net applications framework.

pTools integration of Microsoft's Windows Workflow Foundation gives the flexibility and rapid deployment necessary for critical web content management initiatives within the overall SharePoint workflow and document architecture.

Microsoft Ireland Partner Manager, Sinead Doohan says “pTools software provides powerful and enhanced CMS functionality for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. By exhibiting at the SharePoint Conference 2008 pTools will gain access and exposure to a vast number of customers and partners interested in connecting, sharing and collaborating on one of Microsoft’s fastest growing product lines.”