Content Management Matters ™

We've been all over it for the last couple of days now, this new proposed Content Management Specification. But do you really understand what it's all about and what it could mean to you? EMC wants to be sure you do, so they are having a live Webcast on Thursday, September 18, 2008 and you are invited.

Just yesterday, some major enterprise content management industry heavy weights -- Microsoft, IBM, EMC, Alfresco, Open Text, Oracle and SAP, announced the first ever Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification draft enabling interoperability across content repositories. By creating a common API, companies can develop write-once, run-anywhere, content and social applications.

As a contributing member of the draft technical specification, Alfresco is able to offer a draft implementation of CMIS for developers who can peruse and explore the draft specification. In addition, Alfresco also announced the first CMIS implementation with the latest release of Alfresco Labs 3.

It doesn't come as a surprise that three of the major Enterprise Content Management (ECM) providers -- EMC, IBM and Microsoft -- have been secretly developing a technical Enterprise CMS specification. Their super secret project is called the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) spec. A fancy new acronym it is, but beyond this is it really the beginning of a brave new world for content management interoperability?

UK-based The Content Group leads the quality standards study for Enterprise Content Management. The Content Group (CG) aims to collaborate with BSI British Standards to develop a best practice standard for ECM, which will establish a frame of reference for the entire ECM market. The final result is expected to be the first ever Publicly Available Specification (PAS) for Enterprise Content Management.

A specification for ECM...something that should have been done long ago? Is the content management industry ready for it?

Oh how we love the W3C. Such an exciting summer for all their working groups and recommendations, it's hard to believe that there is still work to do.

The W3C launched a new Web Applications (WebApps) Working Group, co-Chaired by Art Barstow (Nokia) and Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software). The group combines the former Web APIs and Web Application Formats Working Groups and is focused on developing standard APIs for client-side Web Application development, including both documenting existing APIs such as XMLHttpRequest and developing new APIs in order to enable richer web applications. The group is a part of the Rich Client Activity.

Toward its working goal of releasing a set of standards for widget development, the W3C has just released an updated draft of "Widgets 1.0 Requirements."

The wait is finally over. After only three short months, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released their report from the Web of Services for Enterprise Computing Workshop.

In a move that will likely earn the exultations of many a web developer, the W3C's Web API working group has published the First Public Working Draft of a specification that focuses on what are being called Progress Events.

On April 15-18, the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley in CA will host the fourth annual OASIS Symposium. Entitled "eBusiness and Open Standards: Understanding the Facts, Fiction, and Future," the Symposium will draw an eclectic crowd of thought leaders, industry professionals and giddy geeks in the open source community.