Alfresco (software)

From Encoresoup - The Ultimate Guide to Free/Open Source Software

Alfresco is a free software / open source, open standards, enterprise scale content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Its design is geared towards users who require a high degree of modularity and scalable performance. Alfresco includes a content repository, an out-of-the-box web portal framework for managing and using standard portal content, a CIFS interface that provides file system compatibility on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, a web content management system capable of virtualizing webapps and static sites via Apache Tomcat, Lucene indexing, and jBPM workflow. The Alfresco system is developed using Java technology.

Contents 1 History 2 Usage 3 Alfresco Features 4 Awards 5 See also 6 External links 7 References

[edit] History

Alfresco was founded in 2005 by John Newton, co-founder of Documentum and John Powell, former COO of Business Objects. Its investors include the investment firms SAP, Accel Partners and Mayfield Fund. The original technical staff consisted of principal engineers from Documentum, and Oracle. While Alfresco's product was initially focused on document management, in May 2006, it announced^[2] its intention to expand into web content management by acquiring senior technical and managerial staff from Interwoven; this included its VP of Web Content Management, two principal engineers, and a member of its user interface team. In 2007, Alfresco hired the principal sales engineer from Vignette.

In addition to its main website^[3], Alfresco's software may also be downloaded from SourceForge.

[edit] Usage

Enterprise content management for documents, web, records, images, and collaborative content development.

[edit] Alfresco Features

Alfresco is capable of the following:

• Document Management
• Web Content Management (including full webapp & session virtualization)
• Repository-level versioning (similar to Subversion)
• Transparent overlays (similar to unionfs)
• Records Management
• Image Management
• Auto-generated XForms with AJAX support
• Integrated Publishing
• Repository access via CIFS/SMB, FTP and WebDAV
• jBPM workflow
• Lucene search
• Federated servers
• Multi-language support
• Portable application packaging
• Multi-platform support (officially Windows, Linux and Solaris)
• Browser-based GUI (official support for Internet Explorer and Firefox)
• Desktop integration with Microsoft Office
• Clustering support

[edit] Awards

• 2007
  • InfoWorld: Best of Open Source Applications BOSSIE Award Winner
  • Computerworld Honors Program: Finalist
  • Sand Hill Group: Top Software Innovator
  • Network World: Top Ten Enterprise Software Companies to watch
  • Gartner: “Cool Vendors in Content Management, 2007”
  • World Economic Forum: Technology Pioneer of 2007
• 2006
  • Red Herring: Red Herring 100 Europe
  • EContent: EContent 100
  • KM World: Trend-Setting Product Award
• 2005
  • OSBC: Emerging Elite Award

[edit] See also

• List of content management systems
• List of collaborative software

[edit] External links

• Alfresco Website
• Alfresco Blogs
• Alfresco Book
• White Paper
• Feature Tour
• Forums
• Download
• Wiki Documentation
• Alfresco - critical (but now dated) review in KMWorld Magazine
• OpenOffice.org Plugin for Alfresco
• InfoWorld review of 5 open source CMSs - Oct. '07

[edit] References