Alfresco WCM (Web Content Management) has traditionally focused on the core “management” aspects of web content.  This focus has facilitated the open source development of world-class WCM management capabilities. The versioning, workflow, preview and deployment capabilities offered by Alfresco WCM are found nowhere else in the open source space. Similar features found in the proprietary space cost an order of magnitude more than the Enterprise licensing (for services and support) offered by Alfresco.

Today, choice of delivery platform is left completely open the consumer.  The Alfresco WCM platform makes very few assumptions about the type of website is being managed. It possible to manage static sites, .Net sites, PHP based sites, Java based sites, Ruby sites and so on.  While this choice is important, many customers would like a complete solution provided by a single vendor that covers both management and delivery of web content.  Furthermore, because today the product is management focused it can be difficult for customers in the evaluation phase to quickly download and identify the true value inside WCM without a lot of upfront work.

Many websites today require dynamic and personalized components.  The more dynamic the site is, the more complex the solution tends to be.  Typically costs and the required technical skills needed to maintain the site track closely with the level of complexity. Businesses today continue to look for easy to deploy, simple to maintain WCM solutions that minimize the technical skills needed to produce and manage sites. Large, full-time development staffing is expensive, difficult to hire for, and hard to maintain.  The more work that exists which requires a strong development skill set, the less users are enabled to care for their own needs and the greater the constraint on throughput and agility. Simplicity and agility are key success factors on the Internet today.

Alfresco, having established a strong foundation in core web content management capabilities has now begun to focus efforts on making it very easy to construct and deliver sophisticated, web 2.0 dynamic websites.  Alfresco hopes its new platform named Surf will enable knowledge workers to manage enterprise class, dynamic websites with little or no deep technical skills required.

What is Surf?  Surf is an application framework for developing and delivering dynamic websites. Surf leverages existing Alfresco technologies including Alfresco templating and Webscripts.

Surf has been designed from the ground up to leverage web-enabled tooling that exposes powerful capability such as inline editing, drag-and-drop positioning of content, point-and-click template selection and so forth.  These tools make it possible for users with very limited technical training to manage significantly sophisticated dynamic websites.

Under the hood is a powerful engine for aggregation of content and application behavior.  The Surf architecture shows a deep appreciation for the Web 2.0 inspired architecture and web application mash-ups.   It’s important to point out that while tools exist to reduce the need for technical skills, the platform does not eliminate or discourage access to its internals for those who need it.

Surf and the tools designed to help manage Surf based websites represent an exciting and powerful next generation WCM platform that covers both core management aspects and delivery capabilities.   Alfresco continues to bring enterprise class features to the open source ecosystem, improving on battle tested concepts with groundbreaking innovation, modern technologies and leading development approaches.