EConExplorer™ is a powerful, versatile, and affordable software technology based on industry standards supported by companies like Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle, and BEA that enables an organization to access its content wherever it resides, build and deploy web applications quickly, create ad hoc reports, and facilitate collaborative information sharing between peers on a real time basis using any type of web browser.

Making the Case for Distributed Content Management Solutions

Wouldn't it be nice if the knowledge assets of organizations were integrated in a single unified system where all users could easily create, access, share, exchange, and edit content (files and applications) in real time without the need for complex coding or the addition of expensive hardware. The reality however is quite different. Content typically exists in different file types, resides in different locations, networks, or repositories, and is often supported by different operating systems. As such, most enterprises are rich in content but poor in their ability to access, manage, and share it with internal users as well as external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and strategic alliance partners.

Rapid growth, downsizing, reengineering, organizational restructuring, mergers & acquisitions, decentralized operating environments, telecommuting workforces, and the explosion of data are trends or marketplace dynamics that tend to exacerbate rather than promote the fluid and timely distribution of information. As such enterprises are challenged to find better solutions to make information available when and where it is needed in the face of powerful factors that act to frustrate rather than facilitate access.

The " old paradigm " prescribed a strategy of centralized storage and administrative control of content. Data was migrated in systems integration initiatives from multiple " silos " to one or several large repositories. Webmasters became the gatekeepers of new information and were arguably more effective at delaying the availability of new content rather than speeding its delivery to users.

Unfortunately, the shear volume and explosion of structured and unstructured data has rendered its maintenance in central repositories a daunting, time consuming, and very expensive task. The WWW has become and continues to be the medium to connect people and information. However, the volume of content created by even mid-sized companies has become too great for a single Webmaster or administrative group to centrally control. As such, a new paradigm is required to sidestep the bottleneck of a centralized control system and provide timely access to content without consolidating it in a central repository.

Distributed Content Management (DCM) is both a solution, strategy, and technology infrastructure design that:

• Provides the framework or foundation to build web based applications
• Allows access to content wherever it resides irrespective of file type, platform, or operating system
• Gives users selective access to content on the basis of role assignments that are incorporated in an easy to use administrative interface
• Permits all content to be organized and categorized in virtual folders thereby facilitating search, retrieval, viewing, distributing, and editing functions
• Allows the use of any browser along with full customization using any HTML editor
• Permits real time collaboration between users with any changes or updates instantly posted
• Subject to defined roles, allows users to author and share content without the slowdowns associated with centralized webmaster control …because control is embedded in the administrative interface role definitions and not an individual with a backlog of unprocessed requests
  
  

The power of DCM lies in its simplicity. In effect, DCM creates a virtual network leaving content intact where it was created and stored. So, access to enterprise content is fast, fluid, and accurate. DCM will support centralized traditional approaches to content management but also excels in peer-to peer real-time collaboration. Matrix organizational structures, decentralized operating environments, and telecommuters to name a few.

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