Document Management: Enterprise Content Management With Microsoft SharePoint: Overview Of ECM Services And Features

The amount of content an organization must manage is growing at an incredible rate. The cost associated with managing content increases as the amount of content increases and regulatory compliance standards tighten. Corporations have ever increasing requirements to easily and quickly store, manage and retrieve enterprise content to solve business problems ranging from customer satisfaction to disaster recovery.

Microsoft made strides in the content management space with its Office 2003 suite. The Microsoft Office 2003 suite coupled with SharePoint Products and Technologies, Microsoft Content Management Server and Microsoft Exchange Server formed the general backbone of the Microsoft content management strategy. Even with all of these products working together, Microsoft had not stepped into the realm of true Enterprise Content Management. In general, these products introduced the Information Worker to Basic Content Services.

In February 2007, with the release of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, Microsoft officially entered the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) arena. Microsoft provides a robust, scalable ECM platform that rivals those of traditional ECM vendors. With the addition of mature SharePoint technology partners, Microsoft is a viable ECM contender today.

This paper reviews the capabilities of MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 for Enterprise Content Management, evaluating their ability to serve as an Enterprise Content Management solution today. The ability of Microsoft to meet the content management needs of customers relies on the solution requirements of each organization. Microsoft will continue to rely on its partners to enhance its ECM platform.