Articles - Page 232

What I Mean to Say: A Practitioner Perspective on AI, Semantics, and Content Evolution

msalvatierra

In a rather bleak posting on the toendaCMS website, the author has stated that toendaCMS is finished and that he intends to let the project die. For those who may be interested, there is a chance to take this project over and continue it.
From the announcement:
<blockquote>
After weeks and months of my inactivity, i decided to let toendaCMS die completely. I have put a lot of time and effort into this project, but unfortunately were not achieved the desired goals. Other projects have made it (WordPress, Mambo, Joomla, Typo3, etc.), toendaCMS remained small and niche product. Since I have no desire to put all my time in an otherwise dead project, I let it rest now. If anyone wants to take it, he can do that.
And so I say goodbye at this point.
</blockquote>
More info: http://www.toendacms.org

toendaCMS closes its doors

mike-johnston

Owning an Amazon Kindle just got a lot easier! We at Pligg CMS are proud to announce that we are holding another contest for developers. This time around we are asking developers to create free <a href="https://www.pligg.com/blog/926/pligg-widgets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pligg widgets</a> to share with the community. What’s even better is that widgets are REALLY EASY to develop! How to Enter: <a href="http://forums.pligg.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&amp;f=70" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Submit your widget</a> to the <a href="http://forums.pligg.com/free-widgets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Free Widgets</a> forum. All new submissions are moderated, so your post will not appear immediately after being submitted. Your widget should appear within a few hours of submission, once a forum moderator has approved it. We reserve the right to deny widgets that do not offer any features that we consider to be useful. If your widget offers some type of meaningful functionality it will be approved, we just don’t want to see some mindless “Hello World” type widgets.
 * Adult female human hand not included.
At the time of this contest announcement, there is no set deadline for submitting your widget. We will alert everyone when we are nearing the end of the contest deadline and give developers a week long grace period to submit their work before starting the poll that determines the winners. How Winners are Chosen: Once the competition period ends, we will host a poll where users can vote on their favorite widget. The widget that receives the most votes by the time the poll closes will be announced as the winner. Prizes: The following prizes will be given out to the top 5 widget authors:
<ul>
<li>First Place – An <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002Y27P3M?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pligg-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B002Y27P3M" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Kindle</a> reader device.</li>
<li>Second Place – A <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001LDJJ16?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pligg-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B001LDJJ16" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Seagate FreeAgent Go</a> USB hard drive (or similar).</li>
<li>Third Place – A <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XRESCS?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pligg-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B003XRESCS" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SanDisk Cruzer 16 GB</a> USB flash drive (or similar).</li>
<li>Fourth and Fifth Place – A $25 <a href="http://www.pligg.com/pro/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pligg Pro</a> gift certificate.</li>
</ul>
 * Black electronics are wicked awesome
The Fine Print:
<ol>
<li>The developer must be the original author of the code. When using third party open source code as the basis of your work, you must properly credit that code and consider it for your own widget license.</li>
<li>The widget must use un-compiled, open source code.</li>
<li>Widget authors may choose from a number of open source licenses when submitting their widget to the forums, including:
<ul>
<li>Apache License, 2.0</li>
<li>Simplified BSD license</li>
<li>GNU General Public License (GPL)</li>
<li>GNU Library or “Lesser” General Public License (LGPL)</li>
<li>MIT license</li>
<li>Creative Commons License</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Contest winners located outside of the continental United States must provide shipping costs, unless a local supplier is able to provide the same prize at equal or lesser value.</li>
<li>Authors are limited to only receiving 1 prize, given for the highest rated widget based on poll results. If you develop the #1 and #3 widgets, you will only be given the #1 prize. The #4 widget author would then receive the 3rd place prize.</li>
</ol>

Pligg CMS Widget Contest – Win an Amazon Kindle!

OmniUpdate, Inc., the leading web content management system (CMS) provider for higher education, has released version 9.3 of its web CMS, OU Campus. The release includes a Social Media Publish feature that allows authorized users to automate the publishing of content to Twitter. Publishing to other social media outlets is planned for a future release.
The new feature enables users to post or “tweet” from the CMS in conjunction with the creation or update of a web page. Updates can occur on an immediate or scheduled basis. In addition, users can link to multiple Twitter accounts or publish to only the desired accounts. OU Campus preserves a history of all tweets published from the CMS, allowing administrators to run reports of the tweets made by all users of the system.
The Social Media Publish feature comes on the heels of the OmniUpdate-sponsored research report, “Focusing Your E-Recruitment Efforts to Meet the Expectations of College-Bound Students.” The report revealed the increasingly influential role of social media on prospective college students: 33 percent of respondents have searched for schools on websites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter; 74 percent stated a college or university should have a presence on these sites; and 76 percent thought schools should create their own private social networks.
Lance Merker, President and CEO of OmniUpdate, states, “The 2010 E-Expectations report came at just the right time and confirms that managing the convergence of web content and social media in higher education is more important than ever. We are excited about our Social Media Publish feature and its connection to Twitter, as it represents an exciting leap forward in our CMS capabilities and a simplification of the channel communication process for our customers.”
About OmniUpdate OmniUpdate provides higher education institutions with enterprise-class web content management system (CMS) solutions to easily and cost-effectively manage and enhance their web presence and take advantage of the latest web technologies. The company's flagship web CMS, OU Campus™, is a secure and scalable solution offering a complete feature set, extensible tools, and deployment flexibility supported by remarkable customer service and extensive community resources. More than 550 college and university websites are managed using OU Campus.
For more information, visit <a href="http://www.omniupdate.com/">www.omniupdate.com</a>.

OmniUpdate Releases Version 9.3 of Its Web Content Management System

The Telerik Sitefinity team is excited to announce the release of the Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK (Software Development Kit). The SDK boosts developer productivity and facilitates the development of custom Sitefinity modules and widgets.  It is offered for free and includes various resources, such as developer tools and useful examples.
The Sitefinity SDK makes the work of the developers easier by providing articles and code samples for creating modules, widgets, and website templates.  Here is what is included:
<ul>
<li>Basic module – including Visual Studio project</li>
<li>ASP.NET widget –including Visual Studio project</li>
<li>Silverlight widget – including Visual studio project</li>
<li>Sample website template – including preconfigured Sitefinity 4.0 website with content</li>
</ul>
Along with all these resources, the Sitefinity SDK features comprehensive documentation targeted at different audiences. The Installation Guide and System Requirements, the User Guide, the Developer’s Guide, the Content Writer’s Guide, and the Designer’s Guide focus on different functionality and capabilities of Sitefinity. The guides provide helpful tips for developers, designers and content authors who work with Sitefinity on a daily basis.
Here is a screenshot tour of the SDK (click first image to begin):
<img style="max-width:100px" title="installing" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/installing-100x100_e8s1jy.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="SDK_Installed" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sdk_installed-100x100_gmi6xm.png" /><img title="Running_the_Welcome.hta_-_welcome_screen" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/running_the_welcome_hta_-_welcome_screen-100x100_vn5cjn.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="VS_template_screen_and_Sample_project_loaded" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/vs_template_screen_and_sample_project_loaded-100x100_diew1g.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="Automatically_generated_code" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/automatically_generated_code-100x100_pdqmrf.png" />
Finally the Sitefinity SDK also includes the Telerik award-winning RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and RadControls for Silverlight. These productivity tools enable developers to deliver projects significantly faster.
To learn more about the Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK, visit <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/4.0/sdk.aspx">this page</a>.
To download the product and get started, click <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/account/free-trials.aspx">here</a>.

Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK released

Drupal Review

This month's edition of CMS Critic recommends… brings you our suggestions for the most versatile content management systems. This can mean a lot of things so let's first clarify how we have made our selections.
First, the CMS must be able to be expanded upon, must be flexible, and be used for multiple purposes.
Without further adieu, here are our recommendations for the most versatile CMS (to date):
<ol>
<li>Drupal 
It's not possible to speak about versatility and expandability and not include Drupal. Drupal is perhaps one of the most flexible platforms available, both in the commercial and free marketplaces. A large part of this is due to the fact that it really is a content management framework from the get-go and can function in a myriad of manners. Some common uses of Drupal include Intranets, Project Management Platform, Publishing Platform, External facing Website management, and Social networking platform to name a few. Learn more: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/?s=drupal+6">Drupal Review</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/drupal-founder-dries-buytaert-interview/">Drupal Founder Interview</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/drupal/">Drupal News</a> 
Website: <a href="http://www.drupal.org/">http://www.drupal.org/</a></li>
<li>MODx 
MODx is incredibly flexible. This is especially so with their latest release, MODx Revolution, which can be used for pretty much anything and has a number of ways with which it can be expanded.MODx is effectively an application framework with a CMS built on top of it. While Drupal is also known as a framework, MODx does not have as steep a learning curve (in our opinion). Learn more: <a href="/modx-review/">MODx Review</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/modx/">MODx News</a> 
Website: <a href="http://www.modxcms.com/">http://www.modxcms.com/</a></li>
<li>Plone 
Plone is based on Python and Zope and is another open-source CMS that offers multiple uses. Plone offers exceptional security (and a fair learning curve if you are not familiar with the Zope management interface). Learn more: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/plone/">Plone News</a> 
Website: <a href="http://www.plone.org">http://www.plone.org</a></li>
<li>Concrete5 
Concrete5 has been widely adopted by a number of web development firms due to its flexibility and ease of use. Amongst the competition, Concrete5 is perhaps the most user-friendly with inline editing, plenty of plugins to extend its functionality, and very good support. Learn more: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/concrete5-review/">Concrete5 Review</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/concrete5-founder-franz-maruna-interview/">Concrete5 Founder Interview</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/concrete5">Concrete5 News</a> 
Website: <a href="http://www.concrete5.org/">http://www.concrete5.org/</a></li>
</ol>
Obviously, everyone has their own preferences but these are our personal favorites.
Do you have a favorites that you feel we missed? Add your comments below, we'd love to hear them.
Read previous editions of CMS Critic Recommends…

CMS Critic Recommends... August Edition

CMS Kickoff 26

Find out at CMS Kickoff 26, January 13 - 14, St. Pete FL

What's the future of CMS in the AI era?

#ffffff

Webiva, an open source Ruby on Rails content management system (CMS) designed to compete with the likes of Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress, today launched a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosting platform. Webiva.com allows web professionals to build websites on a load-balanced, backed-up and replicated cloud without the hassle of installing and maintaining a Ruby on Rails installation.
“Webiva has been absolutely critical to the growth of our business. We reviewed dozens of platforms to adopt, and have found nothing that compares in quality to Webiva,” said Jonathan Karush, CEO of Liberty Concepts, the nation’s largest provider of campaign websites to U.S. congressional candidates. “It has powered some of the nation's most recognizable advocacy campaigns over the past two years.”
Built from the ground up with a designer’s and a developer’s needs in mind, Webiva is a web 2.0 open-source website building system (WBS) that allows web professionals to build custom websites that look and operate the way they want them to. Based on a Ruby on Rails framework from a software perspective, Webiva does its best to build on the concepts and methodologies that Rails creates. It has an extensible module system that allows additional functionality to easily be dropped into the system. Webiva offers support for forums, e-commerce, social networking other mediums needed by web professionals building top-of-the-line websites.
“Until recently there were two CMS options: a blog engine that’s user-friendly but limited, or a full-stack CMS that’s powerful, but complex to manage,” said Webiva Partner and Developer Pascal Rettig. “Webiva offers the best of both, a Rails-based system with the accessibility of a blog engine and all the features of a big CMS on the back-end.”
With 18 years of combined web development experience, Pascal and Martha Rettig are the inventive developer-designer team behind Webiva’s creation. They have been using the system for more than four years. Every feature available on Webiva was added in response to a specific requirement that arose during its use. Key benefits to web professionals using Webiva include:
<ul>
<li>Easy-to-Use – A user-friendly interface similar to a blog engine with all the features of a powerful open-source CMS</li>
<li>Non-CMS Aesthetic Appeal – Webiva is transparent from a site’s front end, giving designers full control and easy access to site HTML and CSS with built in editors.</li>
<li>Quick Click Site Creation – Build and deploy dozens of sites from a singe install- no need to FTP templates and assets.</li>
<li>Well documented, Open-source Platform – Built-on and extensible with Ruby on Rails, web professionals can use core modules (including e-commerce, social networking, forums, etc.) or write their own.</li>
</ul>
About Webiva
Webiva is the first and only web 2.0 open source Ruby on Rails content management system (CMS) built from the ground up with a designer’s and a developer’s needs in mind. Known as a website building system (WBS), Webiva allows web professionals to build custom websites that look and operate the way they want them to. Founded in 2006, Webiva is based in Boston. <a href="http://www.webiva.com/">http://www.webiva.com/</a>

Webiva Launches SaaS Hosting Platform for Open Source Rails-based Content Management System

Now in its fifth year, the Award has been adapted from the established Open Source CMS Award with the wider aim of encouraging, supporting, recognizing and rewarding all Open Source projects.
WordPress won the 2009 Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award in what was a very close contest with MODx and SilverStripe. While MODx was the first runner up, SilverStripe, a Most Promising CMS Award winner in 2008, made its way to the second runner up position in its first year in the Open Source CMS Award final.
The 2010 Award will feature a prize fund of $24,000 with several new categories introduced. While the Open Source CMS Award category will continue to recognize the best content management system, Packt is introducing categories for the Most Promising Open Source Project, Open Source E-Commerce Applications, Open Source JavaScript Libraries and Open Source Graphics Software.  CMSes that won the Overall CMS Award in previous years will continue to compete against one another in the Hall of Fame CMS category.
These new categories will ensure that the Open Source Awards is the ultimate platform to recognise excellence within the community while supporting projects both new and old. “We believe that the adaption of the Award and the new categories will provide a new level of accessibility, with the Award recognizing a wider range of Open Source projects; both previous winners while at the same time, encouraging new projects” said Julian Copes, organizer of this year’s Awards.
Packt has opened up nominations for people to submit their favorite Open Source projects for each category at www.PacktPub.com/open-source-awards-home . The top five in each category will go through to the final, which begins in the last week of September.
For more information on the categories, please visit Packt’s <a href="http://www.prlog.org/10845539-packt-launch-fifth-annual-open-source-awards.html">website</a>.

Packt launch fifth annual Open Source Awards

Hycus CMS 1.0.0 released on August 6th 2010. This is the first official release of Hycus CMS. Hycus CMS is a free, open source PHP based content management system. Hycus CMS is the first cms released in India and by an Indian team.
The basic feature list of the CMS:
<ol>
<li> Light weight CMS.</li>
<li> Fully featured CK editor in admin side.</li>
<li> Removable admin side.</li>
<li> Fully ajax based admin side. (can also be disabled)</li>
<li> Easy to manage your site's content, menus, blocks.</li>
<li> Site's configuration at you finger tips.</li>
<li> Creates RSS feed for your contents.</li>
<li> User management for front end.</li>
<li> Search with extendable plugins.</li>
<li> Easy designing.</li>
<li> Html/CSS templates to Hycus templates is easy.</li>
<li> Contact page.</li>
<li> Search Engine Friendly URL's (SEF).</li>
<li> Maintain multiple Websites with same single set of files.</li>
<li> Add contents in other Indian languages (available only from admin side)</li>
</ol>
Requirements:
<ol>
<li> PHP 5.0 or above</li>
<li> MySQL 5.0.51 or above</li>
<li> Javascript enabled browser</li>
</ol>
Browser compatibility (test in the following browsers):
<ol>
<li> Firefox 3</li>
<li> Google Chrome</li>
<li> Apple Safari</li>
<li> Microsoft IE7 and IE8</li>
<li> Opera 10</li>
</ol>
Website: <a href="http://www.hycus.com/News/hycus-cms-100-released.html">http://www.hycus.com/News/hycus-cms-100-released.html</a>

Hycus CMS 1.0.0 Released

Contao (formerly Typolight) version 2.9.1 is available. The maintenance release includes an important front-end cache fix, a front-end preview link fix, and various accessibility fixes. It also fixes an XSS vulnerability in one of the framework functions, so an update is highly recommended.
Changes include:
<ul>
<li>Updated TinyMCE to version 3.3.8</li>
<li>Improved the theme exporter to skip back end templates</li>
<li>Improved the theme importer to check for existing custom templates</li>
<li>Added: added a Safari patch for the EditArea plugin</li>
<li>Added: added a Swedish translation to the TinyMCE typolinks plugin</li>
<li>Added: added a warning to the login screen if cookies are not allowed</li>
<li>Fixed: the listing module always showed the primary key column</li>
<li>Fixed: empty article teaser drop-down menu when only a root page was mounted</li>
<li>Fixed: the hyperlink element did not handle mailto-links correctly</li>
<li>Fixed: the table sort script did not handle tag replacements correctly</li>
<li>Fixed: the version 2.9 database update failed when upgrading from version 2.6</li>
<li>Fixed: the maximum front end image width was not calculated correctly</li>
<li>Fixed: custom image gallery templates threw an exception the back end</li>
<li>Fixed: fixed an XSS vulnerability in the front end</li>
<li>Fixed: the feed generator did not always use the correct publication date</li>
<li>Fixed: fixed two style sheet importer issues</li>
<li>Fixed: the front end preview links did not work with URL rewriting enabled</li>
<li>Fixed: not all browser languages were checked when looking for a website root</li>
<li>Fixed: the front end cache only worked with rewritten URLs</li>
<li>Fixed: recursive duplication of a page created an empty record</li>
<li>Fixed: the comments form was not displayed if an element was protected</li>
<li>Fixed: change the link title when nodes are expanded or collapsed</li>
<li>Fixed: do not add pages with robots=”noindex” to the XML sitemap</li>
<li>Fixed some minor issues</li>
</ul>
More info: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/typolight/">news</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-leo-feyer-founder-typolight-cms/">interview</a>, <a href="/open-source-cms-typolight-releases-2-7-3/">review</a>
Website: <a href="http://www.contao.org">http://www.contao.org</a>

Contao 2.9.1 is available

Ektron Inc. announced a 37 percent gain in revenue for the first half of 2010 over the first half of 2009. Q3 2010 sales increased 45 percent compared to a record sales month in July 2009. 2010 momentum is fueled by accelerated customer acquisition and significant installed-base investments by companies such as Microsoft, Mitsubishi Motors of Europe and The Home Depot. Adoption among Fortune 500 and top-name brands of Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite (eMOS) and the recently announced eIntranet also are contributing to the growth.
“Demand for Ektron’s latest solutions, from new and existing customers, combined with our ability to deliver upon mission-critical business initiatives continues to drive a healthy gross margin,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “With competitive technical analysis and boardroom influence favoring Ektron in customers’ due diligence, our momentum and accelerated growth is expected to continue.”
Recent Customer Acquisition and Product Update June 2010 marked the launch of eIntranet 2.0, a ‘total solution’ for intranets that integrates elements of Ektron’s core technology and gives businesses a powerful and trusted intranet solution. Fortune 500 companies and top-name brands including Brookstone, Realogy and Time Warner Cable are turning to eIntranet to raise the daily value of their intranets. eIntranet combines social software and web content management in one enterprise application. Activity streams, a gallery of widgets, mobile engagement and in-context analytic tools ensure that eIntranet is easy to deploy, use and extend – on-premise, hosted or in the cloud.
July 2010 global customer acquisition highlights and further investments by Ektron’s installed base include Teradyne, The United Nations and Valassis. Additionally, the national governing body of golf, The United States Golf Association (USGA), is extending the use of Ektron across their entire enterprise.
“The USGA is expanding our business processes rapidly on the web. We are doing so with the further investment and enhancement of the Ektron solution,” stated Alex Withers, Managing Director of Digital Media at The United States Golf Association. “Ektron’s ability to meet our demands and provide us with state-of-the-art enterprise technology, both publicly and internally, allows us more quickly and efficiently to achieve our business goals.”
The USGA uses Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite to stay on top of the ever-changing digital trends. By leveraging analytics and site visitor activity-specific data, The USGA is able to drive conversions and increase brand loyalty.
Key features and functionality of Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite include:
• In-context analytics – Pre-built integration with Google Analytics, Ominiture SiteCatalyst and WebTrends. • Content targeting – Allows marketers to personalize content by matching site visitor attributes to content. Ektron supports targeting using attributes such as demographic, day-part, behavioral, location/GeoIP, traffic source and Facebook Connect. • Multivariate testing – Uncovers the best combination of content, layout and messaging to convert website visitors. • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Optimizes content for organic search. • PageBuilder – Technical and non-technical teams are able to build out entire pages on the templates created by developers, dragging and dropping Widgets into the drop zones to create the visitor experience on the web page while maintaining the look and feel. • eCommerce – Streamlines campaigns, coupons and price adjustments in virtually every currency. • Heat maps – Show how much of the web page is being seen and where visitors are abandoning the site.
About Ektron Ektron Inc. has innovated web technology since 1998. By integrating web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron’s software and solutions improve operational efficiency, drive revenue growth and build customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron's extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ektron.com">www.ektron.com</a>.

Ektron Reports 37% 1H Revenue Gains, Begins Q3 2010 With 45% Growth

KnowledgeTree has recently been making headlines here on CMS Critic with their recent shift to a SaaS based document management platform and we decided to take some time to find out the reasons for their move. In this interview with CEO, Daniel Chalef, we discuss the reasons behind the move to SaaS and his vision for the future of document management, among other topics of interest.
Enjoy…
CC: Can you give our readers a bit of a basic rundown as to how you came to be with KnowledgeTree and a bit about your background
 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/knowledgetree-daniel-chalef-100x100_vvqzgp.png" />
DC: Mike, the genesis of KnowledgeTree was a product developed for a South African customer by a South African systems integrator. At the time I was CTO of the SI and we decided to open source the results of the project.
We put the project up on to SourceForge.net and started seeing many thousands of downloads per month and we figured there was a business model to be had.
We subsequently started up a company in the US, of which I became the CEO, and redeveloped the software which is the incarnation of KnowledgeTree's document management solution that is available online today.
CC: Interesting. Compared to competing DMS products, what do you think made KnowledgeTree peak the interest of potential customers/users?
DC: To business users:
<ul>
<li>simplicity</li>
<li>fast time to value (i.e. what equipment, people, configuration and customization, and training is required to start seeing value from the product)</li>
<li>affordability versus very expensive enterprise content management suites.</li>
</ul>
For technologists running KnowledgeTree on-premise:
<ul>
<li>The accessibility of KnowledgeTree's code. Being written in PHP it is easy to modify and extend</li>
<li>The fact that KnowledgeTree is delivered as a service, a cloud offering, really assists both business users and technologists with seeing value very quickly</li>
</ul>
KnowledgeTree is designed to allow users to quickly start managing documents online, and to go beyond other basic content management services available today in in allowing users to manage their document lifecycle with tools such as workflow and contracts management features.
KnowledgeTree also has pretty neat integration with Microsoft Office applications, the desktop and even HTML5 drag and drop.
CC: Can you explain a bit further how your customers see benefit from moving to your platform now that it's SaaS based? What is the primary difference to the end user between a SaaS cloud offering and a locally managed install, in your opinion?
DC: Document management as a Service provides the following benefits:
<ul>
<li>Customers don't need to make capital expenditure on equipment and software;</li>
<li>The software can be implemented immediately, without requiring IT's assistance, reducing IT's workload and streamlining the purchasing process</li>
<li>their content is stored securely, with many vendors servicing customers out of datacenters that have undergone stringent physical and logical security certifications (such as SAS70 Type II certification) often this level of security is higher than their own infrastructure</li>
<li>coupled with security, DM as a service provides for very high availability and data integrity – again, the massive redundancy available on cloud infrastructure often far exceeds what a customer can economically implement themselves</li>
<li>In a mobile, or geographically dispersed workforce, a customer can ensure that all knowledge workers can access content from wherever they may be, without having to lay on additional network connectivity into their own datacenters.</li>
</ul>
Additionally, with software as a service, all upgrades and improvements are managed by the vendor, and this further reduces the burden on internal IT teams, and ensures that the customer is always running the latest, most capable and most secure product.
CC: Those are certainly compelling reasons. You mentioned the mobile workforce.. how well does KT integrate with the increasing number of mobile platforms on the market?
DC: Our web interface can be used from Webkit based phones (Android, iOS) and we have Android and iOS apps in the works.
CC: What is your vision for the next 5 years as to how people will be interacting with and manipulating their data? Do you see a change with regards to how it is being accessed? Do you anticipate more mobile applications coming into play? How is KnowledgeTree preparing itself for these shifts in the way content is managed?
DC: We will have greatly increased need to manage content. Currently, very few organizations are managing all sources of content – IM, social streams (whether generated internally, or on external social platforms), the majority of email etc are not currently managed, with adverse effects on an organization's ability to manage risk.
This problem is only going to increase and often times, the burden of doing so is too large (expensive) to manage centrally. As a result, line of business managers are often bearing the costs, both in terms of risk and in terms of operating efficiency. The costs of managing this explosion of content have until now been very significant, primarily due to two factors: available software, and the model the software was taken to market.
The available software has been expensive, difficult to implement and difficult for the line of business to maintain. It's required expensive consultants to configure, and often manage and the software was only available on-premise – with all the associated capital investment required in physical infrastructure.
Alongside the explosion of content, we've also seen the rise of cloud computing. Storage costs and computing costs have plummeted and software running on that cloud infrastructure has taken cues from consumer software:
<ul>
<li>It's become accessible for business users, with easy to use interfaces, the removal of “tech” or “ECM industry” geek-speak.</li>
<li>It's also mobile and accessible</li>
</ul>
So going forward, business users will grow ever more empowered to manage their own content, drive efficiency within their line of business, and manage risk.
Some very practical examples:
A CFO in a 200 person company no longer requires the implementation of an expensive on-premise ECM and document capture solution to manage the workflow around invoicing, purchase orders, and accounts payable.
Document management as a service offerings, such as KnowledgeTree, allows the CFO herself to build workflows, integrate on-premise scanners etc that support the above uses, all from a very accessible (as in easy to use, free of jargon) web UI.
You've got me started, but I can go on if you'd like ? It's a topic I quite enjoy.
 
CC: You recently wrote an article on the KnowledgeTree blog entitled “<a href="http://www.knowledgetree.com/blog/idc-saas-momentum-skyrocketing">Is traditional software dead?</a>” in which you pointed to some numbers by IDC that showed a steady decline in the licensed software model that most corporations have been tied to for years.
What methods are being employed by KnowledgeTree to assist these users with large time and customization investments in place with their current software to move to your platform?
DC: We are building technology that assists customers with migrating their content, and broader taxonomy (metadata, workflows, etc) from on-premise to the cloud.
We positively want to make it as smooth as possible for a customer to get from their existing legacy ECM app to KnowledgeTree in the cloud.
Already in place, we have technologies that assist organizations with putting large volumes of content in the cloud, either as the bare documents themselves, or with some migration development of XML files, the documents and their metadata.
So we have some tech already in place, and are building more to ensure a smooth migration.
CC: Has KnowledgeTree seen a growth in adoption due to this decline of late?
DC: Yes, we have seen strong interest from customer organizations for a SaaS / cloud solution and from surprising places that have validated our belief that mid-market organizations are very ready to see the benefits of SaaS. The sizes and types of organizations we are seeing certainly indicate the coming of age of SaaS.
CC: Do you feel that Knowledgetree has a leg up on it's competitors when it comes to the migration to a SaaS based solution?
DC: Our Hot Folders technology, which is specifically designed to assist with this process has certainly been well received by our user community.
CC: Can you describe Hot Folders a bit for us?
DC: It monitors a folder for files or folders and releases them into the KnowledgeTree service. What's cool about it is that it can work as simply as that, or you can train your scanner, fax server, or even other line of business apps such as accounting apps, to output an XML file alongside the document.
This file describes the document in more detail, perhaps providing a barcode, a customer number or similar. This metadata is then associated with the document in the KnowledgeTree repository. You can then report on documents added to the repsoitory, based on that metadata, using KnowledgeTree's search engine or even kick off a workflow that manages the newly added documents through their lifecycle.
For example, newly scanned in invoices could go through an approval cycle before being paid. 
This very same technology can be leveraged when migrating from a legacy on-premise ECM application to KnowledgeTree in the cloud. That is, your existing metadata can be migrated alongside the documents themselves.
CC: Thank you. Back in June, you mentioned an upcoming launch of Salesforce.com integration. When can users expect to see this and what other integrations are in the works, if any?
DC: We are able to right now provide it to customer organizations who'd like to try out the beta and will be publishing it on the AppExchange later this quarter.
We have a number of other line of business application integrations in our sights, and will be announcing these over the next few months. Our lightweight and easy to use REST interfaces do already provide a powerful mechanism for custom integration efforts that customers or partners would like to undertake.
CC: It sounds like KnowledgeTree is well positioned to be even more of a contender in the market. Where do you see the company in the next 5 years?
DC: Continuing to deliver great, innovative software that our customers enjoy using, and see significant value from, and with that, healthy growth that we and our investors can be proud of ?
CC: Can you share with us whom some of your largest or more recognizable customers are?
DC: We're proud to have a number of very recognizable organizations using KnowledgeTree. 
These cover federal agencies, such as the US GSA, the FAA, DoJ, etc to companies including folks such as Virgin America, Papa John's Pizza, and IBM. We also have a whole bunch of universities using our software.
CC: Excellent. Thank you for your time, do you have any parting comments or remarks you'd like to share with our readers?
DC: Mike, thanks for the opportunity discuss content management today, and KnowledgeTree's cloud solution for SMB document process management. I'd like to invite your readers to sign up for a free 30-day trial of KnowledgeTree to experience the contacts management, workflow and collaboration features themselves: https://www.knowledgetree.com/free-trial
About KnowledgeTree
KnowledgeTree makes sharing content and controlling document processes simple with secure, affordable online document management solutions for growing SMBs and departments at larger companies. Designed for business professionals, KnowledgeTree is easy to use, does not require extensive training and enables content to be accessed and managed anytime, anywhere via cloud computing. Rich and open APIs allow for seamless integration of popular third party business applications.
KnowledgeTree accelerates return on investment by streamlining document-centric business processes and increasing collaboration with workflow, document alerts, version control and full transaction histories. KnowledgeTree is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.knowledgetree.com/">www.knowledgetree.com</a>.

Interview with Daniel Chalef, CEO of KnowledgeTree

KnowledgeTree, provider of online document management solutions that allow businesses to share content and control document processes, today announced an expanded integration with online web applications provider Zoho.
As a result, users of KnowledgeTree’s software as a service (SaaS) offering have the ability to create new documents and spreadsheets by accessing Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet from within KnowledgeTree.  These documents can be saved directly to the KnowledgeTree repository in a wide variety of file types.  In addition, KnowledgeTree users are able to edit documents and spreadsheets in the repository without needing desktop software such as Microsoft® Word.
Zoho.com offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning online business, productivity and collaboration applications.  “For editing, the Zoho integration is a huge time saver,” stated Evan Person, director of product, KnowledgeTree.  “It means that users can quickly make changes to a document online without going through a multi-step check out/check in process. ”
KnowledgeTree’s cloud-enabled document management solution provides customers with the ability to share files and manage their business processes at a low cost of product ownership. KnowledgeTree offers a complete, fully functional 30-day trial for an unlimited number of users. Available for free, users can access all the rich functionality of KnowledgeTree, including the ability to download and install client tools such as a Microsoft® Office Add-in and a cross-platform explorer for Windows, Mac and Linux desktops.
“The expanded integration between KnowledgeTree and Zoho facilitates communication between business professionals and enhances knowledge sharing among business groups,” commented Raju Vegesna technology evangelist at Zoho.  “As a Zoho API Integration Partner, KnowledgeTree is meeting the needs of today’s mobile workforce by bring document management online where it is accessible anytime anywhere.”
About KnowledgeTree
KnowledgeTree makes sharing content and controlling document processes simple with secure, affordable online document management solutions for growing SMBs and departments at larger companies. Designed for business professionals, KnowledgeTree is easy to use, does not require extensive training and enables content to be accessed and managed anytime, anywhere via cloud computing. Rich and open APIs allow for seamless integration of popular third party business applications.
KnowledgeTree accelerates return on investment by streamlining document-centric business processes and increasing collaboration with workflow, document alerts, version control and full transaction histories. KnowledgeTree is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.knowledgetree.com/" target="_blank">www.knowledgetree.com</a>. Follow us on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/knowledgetreesw" target="_blank">@knowledgetreesw</a>

KnowledgeTree Expands Integration with Zoho

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