REDMOND, Wash., July 9, 2002 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the beta version of Microsoft® Content Management Server 2002. Following a year of increasing momentum and growth, Content Management Server 2002 will provide customers with a faster, easier and more cost-effective way to create, deploy and maintain mission-critical, content-rich Web sites. Part of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, including BizTalk® Server, SharePoint (TM) Portal Server and Commerce Server, Content Management Server 2002 will offer support for XML Web services, enhanced content authoring and site deployment capabilities, and provide industry-leading developer support through its integration with Visual Studio®
.NET and support for ASP.NET. Content Management Server 2002 demonstrates Microsoft’s continued commitment to delivering innovative .NET technology throughout the .NET Enterprise Server family.
“Today’s companies no longer have the time or resources to develop complicated, multimillion-dollar content management solutions. Instead, they are asking for solutions that will bring down their total cost of ownership and accelerate their return on investment,” said David Kiker, general manager for e-business servers at Microsoft. “Content Management Server 2002 delivers against these requirements with even quicker deployment times and increased employee productivity through its integration with Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft Word. Those improvements alone can offer customers the ability to deploy a mission-critical solution in a matter of weeks and transform business users into strategic Web content contributors.”
Comprehensive and Integrated Enterprise Solution
Content Management Server 2002 will offer a comprehensive solution for managing content-rich Web sites and will add the following features:
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Direct publishing from Word. The new Authoring Connector for Microsoft Office enables Content Management users to contribute Web content from familiar and much-used Office applications, increasing adoption of the solution and employee productivity.
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.NET and XML Web services support. New support for XML Web services enables customers to expose Content Management Server content and features as Web services for content syndication and to enable customers to integrate their Web sites and content with other applications without being limited by heterogeneous platforms and development languages. This will create the ability to build powerful distributed solutions spanning internal users, business partners and customers, using open standards and keeping implementation costs under control.
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Industry-leading application development environment. Content Management Server 2002 provides developers with the richest possible environment for quickly assembling powerful and mission-critical Web sites. With deep integration with Visual Studio .NET, an ASP.NET architecture, a gallery of prebuilt and extensible content management server controls, and full support for source code management, developers are empowered to quickly and easily build Web sites with managed content and managed code.
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Even faster time to deploy. Content Management Server 2002 works with Microsoft Application Center to allow for improved deployment of Content Management Server Web sites throughout the development cycle, through the firewall and across server farms, resulting in a streamlined development process and life cycle. Together Application Center and Content Management Server support scheduled deployments, automatic registration of server control components, and incremental deployments.
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Standards-based interoperability. With its native support for managing standards-based XML content and exposing content and functionality as XML Web services, Content Management Server easily integrates into a heterogeneous environment and connects to the rest of customers’ business systems.
Availability
Developers and customers can find the beta version of Content Management Server 2002 immediately available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/cmserver/. Content Management Server 2002 is scheduled to be released by the end of this year.
Driving Continued Industry Success With Content Management Server 2002
Content Management Server 2002 builds upon the past year of success with customers and industry analysts and partners. Content Management Server’s customer base has increased 300 percent from the previous year; 50 percent of the increase came from outside of North America. In Forrester’s TechRankings for 2001, Content Management Server placed first in the Performance Architecture and Cost categories. In addition, 10 independent software vendor (ISV) product integrations were delivered and over 500 system integrators have been trained on Content Management Server.
To maximize Content Management Server flexibility, Microsoft continues to work with industry-leading ISVs that will continue to offer integrated solutions for Content Management Server customers, such as these:
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Digital asset management. Equilibrium Technologies Inc. and MediaBin Inc. provide digital asset management applications for customer seeking robust dynamic digital content solutions.
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Portal. The deep integration between Content Management Server and SharePoint Portal Server brings the strengths of the two products into the portal. This integration provides Microsoft customers with a single-vendor end-to-end solution that is fully supported by Microsoft Product Support Services. Customers using CoreChange Inc. or Plumtree Software Inc. portal products also can easily integrate their deployments with Content Management Server.
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Search. In addition to integration with the sophisticated search functionality in SharePoint Portal Server, Content Management Server can be integrated with search technology from Fast Search & Transfer ASA, Inktomi Corp. and Mondosoft A/S. Workflow. SDL International and Uniscape Inc. (which is merging with TRADOS Inc.) provide multilingual support and translation workflow capabilities to Content Management Server for the efficient management of multilingual Web sites.
In addition, new complementary technologies for workflow and XML authoring are expected from the growing Content Management Server 2002 ISV community.
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