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Yes, Microsoft has SharePoint. And it's the most talked about and controversial content management system out there today. Everyone seems to have it. Many actually use it.
But having SharePoint isn't enough. The company has just announced an open source web content managment platform (or blogging engine depending on how you slice these things) called Oxite. This new bundle of .NET code may be designed to take on the likes of WordPress, but will it do more than create a small sputter?
What is Oxite
Oxite is blog software built on the new ASP.NET MVC framework provided by Microsoft. Although they call it a blogging engine, they also say it is able to host everything from a blog to a large website. Hmm.
Janus Boye likens Oxite to WordPress, which itself is moving from being just a blogging engine to a powerful website platform. Now to be honest, we clearly doubt that Oxite will ever replace the likes of WordPress -- at least not any time soon. And we don't believe Boye thinks that either.
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Mix Online, shown below, is powered by Oxite.
An Open Source Architecture
For those who may not know, ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) is an alternative to creating websites using ASP.NET Web Forms. It's long been the approach to developing Java-based applications. Along with the ability to create intuitive URLs (critical to any blogging platform today), ASP.NET MVC also provides support for test-driven development (i.e., automated testing prior to building the code) and enables finer control over HTML and JavaScript.
The code is broken into assemblies so even Web Form developers can work with it. It supports the use of Visual Studio Team Suite and Background Services Architecture. In short, one can develop MVC apps using typical .NET tools and practices.
Oxite is said to be both open source and fully standards compliant. It has a provider based architecture and comes with providers for Microsoft SQL Server, local and Live Search which you can swap out for your own choices (even non-Microsoft ones).
Blogging Features
- Pingbacks, trackbacks
- Anonymous and authenticated commenting along with optional moderation
- Gravator support (global avatars)
- RSS feeds
- Search friendly URLs
- Supports the MetaWebLog API
- Web Admin Panel
- Supports Open Search format
Other Content Management Features
Along with the ability to create a blog, you can also create full blown websites:
- Create any number of web pages for any purpose
- Create sub-pages off a main page
- Localization
The interface to creating an Oxite site is web-based and authentication is built in. This means you can control who can edit what pages.
You can also host more than one blog or website at a time on a single installation of the software.
Who Created Oxite
Oxite was created by the team of Channel 9 -- a Microsoft sponsored website. This team built Channel 9, Channel 10, Channel 8 and MIX Online (which is built on Oxite). All these websites are focused on Microsoft technologies, providing a "back door into Microsoft".They did it to show how an example of ASP.Net MVC.
You can download the code from CodePlex, available as a Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL). It includes the full version of the MIX Online website so that you can learn from a real example.
Note that Mix Online is a combination of Photoshop, Illustrator and Expression Web with Oxite as the platform, so the complexity of the source code could be significant (if they have included any of that source).
They are saying that the sample is a lightweight sample, so that you can easily learn how it was built using the MVC model.
What About SharePoint?
Some question the need for this new web content management system considering that SharePoint is being touted as the Microsoft platform of the future and contains the ability to create public websites and bogs. The advantage of Oxite is that it's open source, but in the world of Microsoft developers does that make anyone jump and run?
Some say it's about time, but question how open source it really is. You do have to ask that question -- it is Microsoft after all.
Is Oxite the new content management system for Microsoft in the future? Or is it simply a blogging engine that will ultimately be tied into SharePoint making that platform stronger at web publishing then it currently is? We're not convinced much will come of this. Do tell us what you think.
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no way is Microsoft doing anything to jeopardise their billion-dollar CMS baby Sharepoint. What's interesting about this is another indication of MS' increasing openness. Now if they'd just open Internet Explorer up, maybe I'd use the damn thing...
There was alot of chatter in the DotNetNuke community about this announcement today. As you can imagine, the thousands of developers and users who work with DNN on a daily basis are very interested in open source software, CMSes, and anything new that comes out of Redmond. The overall consensus seems to be that anything great that comes out of Oxite will only benefit the DotNetNuke as it will push the DNN project to roll up its sleeves and get to work even harder to improve on itself.
As usual, Microsoft is in danger of over-marketing its latest offering. Performing a huge U-turn – and turning up incredibly late to the open source party.
Oxite is nothing more but a nice sample code demonstrating how to write great code on the .NET web platform. It is not a complete application, has very little documentation and no support. It is essentially a blogging platform, like Blogger or WordPress, with a small amount of content management functionality. Businesses need to be wary, and understand Oxite’s CMS limitations despite the hype it is likely to generate.
By claiming to have arrived in the open source CMS arena, Oxite’s launch also questions the credibility of SharePoint. Until now, Microsoft has been so vehemently anti-open source – so something has obviously changed in the boardrooms of Redmond. Is Oxite really innovation – or just Microsoft jumping on another bandwagon?
This isn’t an enterprise-grade tool; it’s the early stage of a blogging offering. In these hard times, people need real application suites, with support and services, not just coding tutorials.
I see they are comparing it to Wordpress....well for something to get compared to WP it has to earn that privilege and Oxite is far from that...but again I see one more flaw in the they're CMS...it has to go on asp.net server and well such a hosting still costs more than putting a CMS on a Apache server..!
I see they are comparing it to Wordpress....well for something to get compared to WP it has to earn that privilege and Oxite is far from that...but again I see one more flaw in the they're CMS...it has to go on asp.net server and well such a hosting still costs more than putting a CMS on a Apache server..!