Lately, Web CMS and Enterprise CMS vendors have been choosing to co-exist with SharePoint peacefully and friendly rather than fight it.The friendly gesture tends to come in the shape of various SharePoint connectors and integrations. Open Text, Mediasurface, Day, EMC Documentum and Immediacy -- they’ve all done it. Now, it is FatWire’s turn, as the company releases Microsoft SharePoint Connector for its Web CMS platform.
Another Connector, Same Idea
The new connector allows FatWire Content Server users to access content stored on SharePoint without ever leaving the Content Server interface. Users then can do their thing and publish content to their public sites, Intranets and extranets.The FatWire Content Integration Platform aims to solve the problem of trying to access content from many disparate content repositories in a more streamlined way by providing Web-services-based, peer-to-peer content sharing capabilities that give FatWire Content Server users access to content stored across the enterprise."Offering a compelling Web experience to site visitors is not an easy task," said Yogesh Gupta, CEO at FatWire Software. By putting rich media, documents and other enterprise content at the customers’ fingertips Gupta hopes to help FatWire’s customers to tap into a much greater set of resources to drive their success online.
Additional Connectivity
In addition to the SharePoint connector, the FatWire Content Integration Platform also offers connectors for Windows and Unix file systems. It supports a good number of content types, such as documents, audio, video, images, etc.
SharePoint Keeps on Getting Some Love
It doesn’t surprise us that so many CMS vendors are snuggling up with one of their main competitors. SharePoint’s been getting a lot of love lately with the most recent accolade from Gartner, when MOSS landed in the Leaders Magic Quadrant. As we've mentioned before, while discussing CMS Watch’s most recent 2009 Web CMS report, the SharePoint adoption has been mixed. Many customers may avoid SharePoint for Web CMS projects, but still use it heavily for document collaboration. And this is when the need for all kinds of connectors -- different in scope and functionality -- comes in. Gartner says that 50% of the enterprises they surveyed use MOSS 2007 or WSS. FatWire’s customer base consisting of over 500 customers in about 10 countries could probably find good uses for the new connector. Any way you look at it, the new addition was nothing but a logical move for FatWire.
About the Author
Irina Guseva is a seasoned enterprise content technologist with 15+ years of experience, with roots in various types of media including print, radio, TV and digital media. She specializes in web content management, digital asset management, enterprise content management, digital marketing and customer experience management.
