Interwoven Extends to Content Infrastructure

Hoping to break out of the pack of competitive content management providers, Interwoven Inc. introduced upgrades and additions to its product suite and a re-positioning as a “content infrastructure” provider.

“In close collaboration with our largest customers, Interwoven has developed a comprehensive suite of products to address the broader enterprise requirement of making content a strategic asset,” said Martin Brauns, president and CEO of Sunnyvale, CA-based Interwoven.

One such customer that’s signed on to Interwoven’s broader initiative is insurance brokerage Aon Corp. which is using Interwoven products for multiple global Web properties. “With a multiplicity of Web initiatives, Aon’s needs have extended beyond traditional content management,” said Kevin Mayes, director of Internet communications at Aon. “By addressing the needs of distributed content contributors publishing to multiple user-targeted Web sites, Interwoven is taking content management to the next level — Content Infrastructure.”

At an event in New York today, Interwoven. (Nasdaq:IWOV) announced the 5.0 release of TeamSite, TeamSite Templating, and OpenDeploy software, along with two new products — Interwoven OpenChannel and MetaTagger 2.1 software. Interwoven says its broader product functionality addresses a customer need for Content Aggregation, Content Collaboration, Content Management, Content Intelligence and Content Distribution, to provide an underpinning for multiple eBusiness initiatives and applications.

For example, Content Aggregation captures all content necessary for delivering a compelling Web experience, including database, file system, application code and XML. Interwoven extended its existing Content Aggregation functionality with the introduction of TeamCatalog software in March. TeamCatalog streamlines the process of moving legacy catalog content to the Web by aggregating product data, and then automating the cleansing and categorization to make product information transaction-ready.

In the area of Content Collaboration Interwoven’s TeamSite 5.0 software now adds single-click collaboration with email content entry, and an easier to use WebDesk interface. Content contribution has been reduced to a simpler, three-step process the company describes as — ‘get in, submit, get out.’

Interwoven’s overall Content Infrastructure lineup is designed to integrate seamlessly with leading application and transaction infrastructure products from companies such as ATG, BEA, IBM, TIBCO and webMethods.

“Content infrastructure is emerging as one of the core infrastructure sectors for enabling related technologies such as personalization, multi-channel output, portals and eCommerce,” said analyst Andrew Warzecha, vice president at META Group. “The role of enterprise content management is critical to an organization, and I’m pleased to see that vendors like Interwoven are extending their offerings beyond traditional Web content management.”