As expected from a company at the forefront of XML protocols, XML is richly supported throughout Frontier, but you don't have to use its power until you need it for real applications. Not surprisingly, Winer ardently promotes simplification of XML wherever possible. He is a programmer, not a "technical academic."

Last year, UserLand released a wrapper application for Frontier termed "Manila." Manila supplies templates for instantiating Frontier objects as a complete Web site. Beginners can launch a Web site in five minutes--nice but hardly unique today. However, because savvy end-users can edit HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and even XML directly within exposed templates, Manila delivers remarkable stretch for creating sophisticated pages and sites.

Everyone can "write" Manila pages online through simple browser-based editing augmented by a complete outlining tool. That deserves a full pause and restatement. No special HTML editors are needed. Your users can maintain their own sites using Internet Explorer or any standard browser. Just click the Edit-This-Page button and, well, you're editing this page.

Not unlike Domino and Notes, UserLand's major problem with Frontier and Manila (and even more with a new complementary peer-to-peer product now in beta, Radio UserLand) has been the way these products shatter conventional paradigms. If you're ready to break some windows, see "A closer look at Manila and Radio UserLand" elsewhere in this issue of DominoPower.

Is Frontier a complete Web and application server? Object-oriented database? Programming language? Content management application? Online editor?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Yet, you probably want to ask again the same question with which I headed this article:

"Why would DominoPower publish an article about a competitive groupware and Web server environment, UserLand's Frontier?"

The answer is because Frontier addresses certain weaker aspects of Domino and Notes without requiring you to invest significant resources (financial or technical) until or unless the business case becomes clear. Indeed, Frontier is ludicrously inexpensive for corporations ($899 for an unrestricted license). Manila is free. Even better, to get the flavor of it all, you can go ahead and implement a real Manila site, hosted for free by UserLand, today.

Frontier, Manila, and content management
CMS (Content Management Systems) are all the rage these days and not without reason. We have a lot of "content" to manage on and off the Web. You're not the only one tearing out your hair.

Whether one regards content narrowly and traditionally as "complete texts" (publishable articles) or broadly as including any element implemented on any Web page (commerce sites fully qualify), content management critically determines a site's quality… and costs.

A CMS, in the large, must support site design, authoring, review, approval, data conversion, data storage, testing, content staging, content deployment, site maintenance and updates, content retirement and archival, and reporting and analysis of each content item. This isn't my original list. Consult a useful Microsoft white paper on the subject at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ecommerce/contmgt.asp.