Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning
Immediacy has been making best use of new technology standards
and protocols, the main one being the
‘Web-based
Distributed Authoring and Versioning’ specification
(
WebDAV
for short).
WebDAV
is an extension to the established Hyper Text Transfer Protocol or
HTTP (the widely adopted internet communications standard) and
facilitates fundamental functions such as document check-in/out,
version control, file-level access and integrated search.
WebDAV
also
provides support for URL-based name spaces and XML based metadata.
As an example, this allows the web address of a file (URL) to be
put in an e-mail, instead of attaching the file. This eliminates
the burden of file transfer from the email server, and allows
document collaborators to work together on a single instance of the
file, instead of exchanging multiple versions back and forth via
email.
The Immediacy WAM uses
WebDAV
at its core. This eliminates many of the proprietary methods and
technology employed by the more traditional systems. The result is
a simpler document management system which already supports an
organisation’s desktop application standards and infrastructure
architectures.