Using Infosonia’s technology, single click wiki creation and blogging is possible, and a content integration platform is provided to help organizations manage, find, and securely share content that is stored in disparate repositories. The first solution to be produced as a result of the acquisition is FatWire TeamUp, which provides enterprise Web 2.0 collaboration capabilities that include easy-to-use wikis, blogs, and social tagging in addition to the content integration platform.
Much of the functionality for Web 2.0 is provided by small niche companies such as Infosonia, and these vendors are increasingly becoming acquisition targets for larger WCM and enterprise content management (ECM) vendors, to enable them to extend the scope of their own portfolios.
There has always been a need for a degree of collaboration within WCM, even if it is just for reviewing content before it is published on a website, but there is an increasing need for project teams to work across geographic and system boundaries, and the easiest way to achieve this is often via web-based systems. In addition, customers and partners need to interact with each other online, and the combination of WCM and Web 2.0 technologies is an enabler of this. FatWire TeamUp enables organizations to interact through features such as instant internal collaboration via wikis and blogs, external site community, which enables user-generated content and community building among customers and other site visitors, and content integration and re-use.
FatWire plans to quickly integrate FatWire TeamUp with its Content Server WCM product. Once the two products are integrated, organizations will be able to publish content created in FatWire TeamUp wikis, including rich media and digital assets to FatWire Content Server with a single click.
The most successful websites are those that offer a rich interactive experience to their users that entices them to keep returning. Web 2.0 technologies are becoming a real differentiator for organizations that exploit these technologies on their customer-facing websites. However, these capabilities are also a boon for organizations with intranets and extranets where collaboration is required both across the organization and with partners.
The acquisition of Infosonia should transform FatWire into a leading WCM vendor in geographies where it does not currently have a large market presence. The acquisition of Content Server, the former Open Market product from Divine a few years ago, started the transformation of the company into a formidable WCM force, and this acquisition will provide the company with a differentiator over those of its competitors that do not already have this type of capability. However, it must not rest on its laurels, and it needs to innovate to take full advantage of this acquisition to stay ahead of the competition.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
