WCM for the masses

Merant has introduced a new version of its Web content management (WCM) solution, Merant Collage 4.5, which features automatic workflow generation, incremental content deployment, and broader support for Web Services and industry platforms, such as Windows Server 2003 and the AIX operating system.

The company says Collage quickly adapts to existing infrastructure, giving organizations secure, process-driven control over Web content, including existing Internet, intranet and extranet sites, within hours of implementation. Merant Collage makes it easy for authorized users to directly contribute and update Web site content, while ensuring adherence to corporate style and decreasing demands on IT staff. Merant Collage supports a wide variety of IT environments including .Net and J2EE.

Further, says Merant, Collage 4.5 makes it easy for authorized users to directly add content to Web sites, eliminating bottlenecks that arise when one centralized group is responsible for posting and deployment of all Web content. Version 4.5’s workflow feature allows users to author content from within common desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office, and then save it to Merant Collage, where it is automatically routed through appropriate processes.

Merant Collage 4.5 also includes “incremental deploy,” a new capability that enables organizations to intelligently deploy complex Web sites. The product swiftly analyzes any new changes to content and calculates precisely what needs to be deployed to the production server.