Open-source enterprise content management startup Alfresco Software is edging deeper into the Microsoft world with its version 2.1 release to be formally announced this week.

Alfresco chief technology officer John Newton said the new release will include a Microsoft Office plug-in and extensive Web 2.0 capabilities that will let Alfresco and other web interfaces work inside Office.

“So far, [Microsoft] SharePoint has had a lock on integration in Office but with 2.1 we’ll be able to apply ECM routines against Office documents,” Newton said.

“There’s a whole new world of Web 2.0 that demands lightweight, mashable services. People are beginning to ask, ‘can I take my content and make it available as an Ajax pop-up or in my enterprise portal?’”

The release will also offer deeper support for the OpenSearch protocol so that searches can be combined across distributed repositories.

Alfresco claims over 300 paying customers and over 12,000 operational servers. Many of the firm’s leading engineers formerly worked at Documentum and Interwoven respectively.