Divine Inc., the venture capital company turned consolidator of struggling e-business software companies, last week released its first content management software since acquiring Eprise Corp. and Open Market Inc. last year.
Divines Content Server 4.0 is an upgrade of the former Open Market product of the same name, and the companys Participant Server 4.0 is an upgrade of the former Eprise product of the same name.
The two products are targeted at decidedly different segments of the market, with Content Server more of an enterprise content management product for larger companies and Participant Server targeted at smaller installations with more specific needs, such as building intranets and partner extranets, company officials said.
Divine officials touted ease-of-use improvements in both products. Participant Server 4.0 adds integration with Macromedia Inc.s Dreamweaver Web site development tool, as well as enhanced integration with Microsoft Corp.s Word. It also supports the building of re-usable Visual Basic Script and Java components that integrate with other applications and supports online discussion groups, according to officials.
For Henrik Sandell, chief technology officer of Insurance.com and a user of Version 3.5 of Participant Server, the Dreamweaver integration was the most compelling part of the new release.
“Were currently using [Macromedias] HomeSite, so if they make the integration with Dreamweaver seamless, we might make the switch over to Dreamweaver to take advantage of that,” said Sandell, in Newton, Mass.
Otherwise, Sandell said, Version 4 was a point release and not nearly as major as Eprises Participant Server Version 3 release.
Content Server 4.0 adds improvements to the interface, workflow engine, search engine and publishing capabilities.
Sandell said Insurance.com chose Eprises Participant Server over Open Markets Content Server when they were competing products because the company needed only a content authoring system, not a content delivery system. He said little has changed since the acquisition by Chicago-based Divine, although he did say the presentation and packaging of the product have improved.
“We havent really worried about it,” said Sandell. “We knew Eprise was in a tough situation and that an acquisition was a definite possibility. But were still dealing with the same people we always dealt with.”
