Traction Software refers to its TeamPage product as an “enterprise Weblog platform.” However you classify it, TeamPage 3.01 is a strong competitor against collaborative Web publishing portals such as Plone, PHP-Nuke and SharePoint Services, even though most of its rivals are either freeware or bundled features in a Windows Server.
TeamPage 3.01 also competes with service-oriented applications such as Intranets.com Inc.s namesake offering. These applications provide various corporate-oriented capabilities in a hosted configuration.
eWEEK Labs found TeamPage 3.01, which shipped last month, to be a very capable and compelling product designed around managing projects. Many of its features will make it attractive to companies that are more comfortable deploying a commercially supported application. And, at $4,995 per server, TeamPage is affordable for most organizations.
Like open-source products such as Plone, TeamPage can run on pretty much any operating system, including Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Windows.
Administration of TeamPage is performed from the browser-based portal interface, and we appreciated the depth of management options and the straightforward design of the settings options. In Version 3.01, it is also possible to connect TeamPage with Active Directory and LDAP to integrate the site with corporate authentication systems.
Content in a TeamPage site was split into projects that we created—a good way to organize and control how groups share and collaborate on content. Within each project, we had a great deal of control over how the project was categorized and accessed.
The included Traction Instant Publisher is an intuitive WYSIWYG editing tool that eases content creation. However, this tool works only with Windows and Internet Explorer.
TeamPage was very configurable in tests. And because TeamPage is based on Java, developers should find it easy to extend the platform. The new version also includes increased support for Web standards such as Web Services Description Language and support for RSS syndication.
In addition, the skins features in TeamPage 3.01 make it possible for designers to control the look and feel of the site and make it easier to deliver content to a wide variety of devices.
eWEEK Labs Director Jim Rapoza can be reached at jim_ rapoza@ziffdavis.com.