Microsoft teams up on content management

Microsoft and software partner Interwoven have agreed to join forces on product integration, research and development, and sales and marketing.

The partnership, announced on Thursday, is aimed at law firms and other professional-services companies that have complex document and records management requirements.

Interwoven, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., specializes in systems for creating, sharing and archiving documents, e-mail and other business records. Rivals include Stellent, OpenText and EMC, which bolstered its position with the purchase last year of Documentum.

Under the agreement with Microsoft, Interwoven plans to tie the capabilities of its WorkSite products more closely to Microsoft Office applications, including Word and Excel; the Windows operating system; and SharePoint Portal Server, a Microsoft data-sharing tool.

The companies were not immediately available to comment on their joint marketing and development plans.

Microsoft has been in a partnering mood lately. Last month, the company inked a pact with German software maker SAP that also calls for joint product development and marketing. In another deal, i2 Technologies, a maker of supply chain software, agreed this week to make Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program the primary interface for its software.

Specialists in document management software have been retrenching as giants such as Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and EMC elbow into the field.