Microsoft Goes For Records

June 22nd, 2006: Document and records management vendors beware? Microsoft wants your business.

Microsoft hopes to shake up the Australian ECM (Enterprise Content Management) market with the release of a converged SharePoint and Content Management Server within the Office 2007 high end 'Enterprise' and 'Professional Plus' editions due for release at the end of the year.

.Microsoft SharePoint-based ECM systems developed in-house have been popular choices for organisations that don't have the budget, or the requirement, for big, expensive EDRM systems. And the promise of out-of-the-box integration between Office Sharepoint Server 2007 and Office 2007, means it will be even easier to develop these sort of applications according to Microsoft Australia's director, information worker business group, Tony Wilkinson.

"A lot of companies out there have spent large amounts of money on big, complex EDRM systems and we're not suggesting that they should rip what they've got out and deploy this system instead," said Wilkinson. "But for companies which don't have anything in place at the moment, we believe this is something worth looking at."

Document management features available in Office 2007 will include integrated information rights management protections, per-item security and streamlined workflows for document processing. Users will be able to enter and track document information either using Office InfoPath 2007 forms or information from Office SharePoint Server 2007 document libraries. On the records management side, Office 2007 gives users more control over retention and auditing policies while offering enhanced policy and auditing controls and email management options.

Would you use Office for ECM? Comment on this story

Related Article:
Microsoft - In Storage Market Monopoly?