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http://www.pcweek.com/news/0414/18aaiim.html
Document specs 'AIIM' high
By _Jim Kerstetter_ In New York
April 18, 1997 11:30 AM ET
[I love the irony of the lede metaphor here... :-]
On paper, it sounds like a great idea: Create a standard that will
allow document management systems to interoperate, sparing
corporations the tedium of tearing out old software when something new
comes long.
But in practice, it's not that simple. At the Association for
Information and Image Management International Show here this week,
FileNet Corp. was beating a drum for the DMA (Document Management
Association) standard.
The DMA spec, expected to be finished within the next two months,
would create a way for document repositories to interoperate and will
allow users to communicate with multiple repositories through a single
client interface.
But other companies are approaching DMA cautiously, even hoping that
other standards efforts, such as the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring
and Versioning) project, make DMA a moot point.
The problem with DMA is its complexity, said one user. Integrating it
with document management applications could be a long and expensive
process. Even FileNet, which is counting on DMA to help it join four
systems it acquired in mergers, won't have DMA-compatible software out
until year's end.
The WebDAV effort could eventually solve some of the same problems
through Internet standards and technologies. WebDAV, now being worked
on by the World Wide Web Consortium, is ostensibly designed for Web
authoring tool compatibility. But document management vendors , many
of which are racing to get Internet and intranet products to market,
think it could have an impact in their space as well.
Also at the show, new extensions were announced for the Open Document
Management API, which was created more than a year ago to link desktop
applications to document management systems. The extensions will
standardize browser links to document management systems.