pTools today announced the completion of a significant deployment of pTools Content Management Software (CMS) for the new ‘Transparency Initiative’ at the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE), the European leader for the listing of asset backed securities. The project builds on the existing pTools implementation of a multi-dimensional website using pTools CMS software in conjunction with the ISE’s SharePoint based systems. It serves to increase the level of data and documentation transparency in the asset backed securities markets.

pTools worked with ISE’s IT department to extend back-office systems to deliver financial product documentation to ISE’s Internet site. Technically, the Initiative is about exposing thousands of documents online that would otherwise have been locked inside in-house systems and unavailable to the market.

"Our prediction, though proved to be correct though in another sense, inasmuch as the push to sell SharePoint as a replacement to ECM systems has to a large degree stopped — a good thing for buyers, for in that direction lay serious disappointment.

The fact is that buyers typically do not replace systems, be they ECM or otherwise. The growth in the data mountain and the ever-changing demands to the business mean that IT adds to and attempts to enhance what is already there, rather than rip and replace."

- Alan Pelz-Sharpe, CMS Watch, "Three Continents, One SharePoint Story", Intelligent Enterprise, October 1, 2008.

pTools today announced that it has further enhanced its Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software for Microsoft^® SharePoint by integrating it with MediaRich^® DAM for SharePoint, Equilibrium’s Digital Asset Management software. Organisations can now use pTools ECM to manage valuable image and video assets and to enhance SharePoint deployments across the enterprise.   

pTools integration of MediaRich facilitates flexibility and the rapid deployment necessary for critical digital asset and web content management initiatives, all within the overall SharePoint document collaboration architecture.

Commenting on the partnership, Tom Skinner Managing Director of pTools says: “This partnership with Equilibrium builds on pTools capabilities in image and workflow deployments. By using MediaRich with pTools, customers can deliver image and workflow applications with greater ease and efficiency. This makes video, digital imagery and document image assets work for claims, case management and general web systems available in a way that’s increasingly demanded by business.”

ComputerWorld: Corporate developers should take a cue from Web 2.0 companies by making users a key partner in software development processes.

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Internet Evolution: "The IBM Data Governance Council sent out a press release this week predicting that within the next four years, data will become an asset that is reported on the balance sheet of corporations, and that data governance will become a statutory requirement.

This trend could bring a new emphasis on data quality and potentially increase corporate use of social networking as a means of improving that quality."

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John Newton, Alfresco, posted a well written article on the business changes Web 2.0 will continue to the enterprise.  I especially not liked what he had to say about the strength of social publishing tools for knowledge sharing within a company, but also Web 2.0's strength to blend required knowledge available both inside and outside the organization.

These web sites will set further expectations on the internal systems you use and a requirement to integrate internal information with these external sources of information. Web 2.0 has an answer for this as well with an integration technique known as "mash up", the ability mix information from multiple sources using the web browser itself as the point of integration. These external sources of information also provide something that our internal information systems could never provide, a critical mass of opinion utilizing the Wisdom of the Crowds. We will ultimately need to combine external opinion with our internal opinion to get more accurate predictive decision making with our own unique insights inside the enterprise.

When I read what John has written, I can't help but think of our previous discussions on the strength of weak ties.  Companies that are willing to seek out knowledge internally and externally of their control boundaries are likely to have a greater business advantage over those companies that prevent their workers from taking the discussion beyond the office walls.  What a boring life that would be to only be able to talk to colleagues that wear only the same company logo you are wearing?  Companies need to accept the changes that are about to take place as their youngest workers will likely want and need to collaborate with more than just their fellow employees.  The world via social publishing offers their workers more than what most single companies can provide alone.

Alexandria, VA - June 30, 2008- Bitrix, Inc. is happy to announce the newest release of the world class CMS Bitrix Site Manager 7.0. Bitrix Site Manager is a Web Content Management System (CMS) that provides cost-effective solutions that meet the full promise of Web 2.0 Content Management Systems. CMS Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 is a multilingual platform that is simple for content owners to use and enables developers to build advanced Web sites that are stable and secure.

"Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 unleashes the full promise of CMS for a world-wide audience," said Sergey Rizhikov, CEO of Bitrix, Inc. "We are especially excited by the UTF-8 support. It is a great new feature allowing multilingual Internet projects. Our partners who work in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese among others will do well by offering this functionality in their local markets.

Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 also unleashes the full promise of Web 2.0 Content Management Systems for worldwide audiences by empowering content owners to access well-designed site wizards and templates, add content on the fly, upload graphic images, build blogs, and collaborate. The ability to add new content is critical to boost search engine rankings and build conversations with web audiences.

Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 offers a host of new capabilities.

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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