"As Intranets evolve from simple publishing outlets to strategic business tools that integrate business processes and deploy robust applications, the groups involved in building them face the conflicting needs of maintaining control while encouraging collaboration," said Morris Taradalsky, executive vice president of the client-server division at NetObjects. "The Authoring Server provides a collaborative environment designed to integrate the three groups of people most directly involved in building and maintaining corporate intranets: the departmental content producer, the Intranet web team, and the IS department."

Departmental content contributors demand intuitive access to frequently updated content and an easy to use front-end tool to contribute content stored in their favorite applications. Departmental or corporate Web teams need powerful and easy-to-use site building tools which allow Web teams to collaborate and incorporate information stored in both documents and databases. Information Systems professionals require products that enable them to control the Intranet building process, fit into the corporate infrastructure, are open standards-based and secure, and can scale with enterprise needs.

The NetObjects Authoring Server Suite includes an authoring server at its core, an administrator module, the NetObjects TeamFusion client and a Java-based content contributor. Key new features and benefits include:

• The integration of the award-winning NetObjects Fusion™ 3.0 authoring client to provide Web teams access to the latest technologies such as dynamic data publishing from corporate databases and e-business application functionality.
• A Microsoft FrontPage connector that enables end users to integrate their FrontPage Web pages into the Intranet. The connector is the first example of the evolution of the Authoring Server into an open development platform that offers support for non-NetObjects clients.
• Scalability and performance enhancements such as the ability to support more concurrent users running on the server and reduction in the amount of resources per user consumed by the server, to support enterprise-wide deployment.
• An open and secure server that supports industry-standard databases and operating systems.
• An integrated asset management and remote administration system that simplifies collaboration.

"The controlled collaboration approach of Authoring Server enables Webmasters to focus on the more strategic role of evaluating technologies and setting standards, rather than merely managing content," said Sylvester Lott, manager global Internet services, VLSI. "By deploying the product enterprise-wide across our global operations, we have evolved VLSI's Intranet from an information publishing outlet into a critical business tool."

Unlike office productivity products that merely let office users share files or custom publishing solutions that are aimed at performing specific Internet rather than Intranet-related tasks, the NetObjects Authoring Server Suite is a truly collaborative solution for building and maintaining corporate Intranet sites.

About NetObjects
NetObjects, Inc. is a privately-held company that is funded by IBM, Perseus LLC, AT&T Ventures, Norwest Venture Capital, Venrock Associates, Rae Technology LLC and private investors. The NetObjects product family consists of NetObjects Fusion Personal Edition, NetObjects Fusion 3.0, NetObjects Authoring Server Suite, NetObjects ScriptBuilder™ 2.0 and NetObjects BeanBuilder™. NetObjects develops and markets award-winning Web site building software for businesses.