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Already among the pioneers in using XML for Web content management, Ektron this week unveiled CMS400.NET, a Web content management system developed for Microsoft's .NET environment.

Ektron made the announcement this week at the VSLive! show in San Francisco. The product will be available in the second quarter of 2004.

By joining the .NET platform, Ektron customers will be able to build true Web applications and not just Web sites, said Edward Rogers, vice president of engineering at Ektron. CMS400.NET will offer tight integration with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, a popular tool for Web application development.

The Web services in CMS400.NET will allow information to be shared with other Web sites and applications. Flexibility of information is nothing new to Ektron's products. With a strong background in XML, sharing and re-packaging data has always been a strong selling point for the Amherst, N.H.-based company.

Developing a native .NET content management system is a chance for Ektron to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of software development. While Ektron's CMS300 provides functionality that will work in .NET, CMS400 will scale better with future Microsoft operating systems such as Longhorn, according to Rogers.

Ektron's CMS300 was first developed in Cold Fusion, but over time Ektron has centered more on Microsoft technologies. But Rogers is not concerned about losing out to other platforms in the long-term. "For our price point, our skill set, they're on the Windows platform," he said.

While CMS300 took advantage of Ektron's work in XML, which is a good technology for those who want to stay platform-independent, Ektron did not to want to port the CMS300 technology to .NET. Instead, the company decided to look ahead to see where the world will be in four years.

"We will have CMS300 version, but over time, and I mean time in years, it will fade," Rogers said. "In the long run, when Microsoft goes to the 2006 server, whatever that is, that's going to be .NET."

Speaking of CMS300, Ektron introduced version 4.1 at the AIIM expo in New York in early March. It includes an "out-of-the-box" intranet that allows users to customize a templte to create intranet pages and forms.

CMS300 4.1 also includes more collaboration features, such as support for membership groups, which lets users create protected content folders within the CMS and allow specific user groups, such as partners or paid subscribers, to access content with a log in. Threaded comments, which allow the content creator to collaborate on tasks and add comments within the content, have also been added.

New administration tools include the ability for administrators to assign tasks and monitor content. There's also a smart desktop "dashboard" view that lets users view current CMS status, including a list of of checked-out content blocks and tasks awaiting action.

CMS300 4.1 also includes integration with IXIASOFT TEXTML Server. This allows organizations to expose their XML content to detailed searches.