FileNet, the enterprise content management (ECM) specialist acquired by IBM last October, has released a major update to its P8 process and content management platform, which it said adds more than 75 enhancements and new capabilities.

IBM FileNet P8 4.0 features an improved user interface and the ability to run on a wider range of environments, according to Doug Coombs, the vendor’s European head of product marketing.

“More modelling tools can be integrated into the platform, and the system can ingest a higher number of documents,” Coombs said. “We’ve run a series of performance tests, and on the defined platform the system could digest over six million documents per hour, and managed to retrieve 50 million documents during an eight-hour day.”

The update adds a compound document module, which offers firms a holistic view of content and any changes made to documents, while improvements in the Business Process Framework are designed to speed up application development.

The latest version also takes account of Microsoft’s continuing impact on the marketplace, according to Coombs. “This release features support for SharePoint 2007. With Microsoft’s dominance on the desktop, it’s important that all the ECM vendors work to that point,” he argued.

Going forwards, Coombs predicted that ECM vendors would increasingly look to build search technology into their platforms. “Ultimately ECM vendors will look to acquire search specialists, as search becomes part and parcel of content management packages, just as compliance has,” he added.

IBM FileNet P8 4.0 is available now.