Alfresco releases Version 4

Alfresco has unveiled what it says is its most significant platform ever. Version 4 includes a host of new features and user interface enhancements that have been designed for faster user adoption, along with improved tools to allow developers to create social and cloud-scale, content-rich applications.

Alfresco Community 4 can be downloaded now for development and testing. Alfresco Community 4 significantly increases overall system performance, Alfresco says. New features that enable cloud-scale deployments include:

• high-performance indexing—Alfresco Index Server, based on Apache Solr, improves performance by separating indexing from content processes;
• integrated workflow—content-focused business processes can be automated with Activiti, an open source Java-based BPMN 2.0 business process server; and
• enhanced clustering—increased reliability and scalability are achieved, including added support for clustered CIFS.

Alfresco 4 includes a new, extensible service to publish content and status updates to social sites, including YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and SlideShare. Furthermore, the company reports Alfresco 4 offers a streamlined, simpler, consumer-like experience for users, including:

• dragging and dropping of files or moving them around on HTML5-enabled browsers;
• enhanced support for video, audio, Adobe Creative Suite & Apple iWork documents;
• “following” influential content creators or “liking” favorite content;
• Google Docs integration to collaborate in real time;
• new, free iOS apps available now from iTunes, along with continued support for WebDAV and CMIS standards for new mobile use cases; and
• easier to extend and customize.