With IBM's next release of DB2 Content Manager, the company's strong allegiance with open standards will be more evident than ever.

With its so-called "Project Cinnamon," which will be incorporated in that next release, the software giant is giving greater access to Web services, XML, and Java interoperability will field content out to more places.

IBM distinguished engineer and chief architect of IBM content management., Jim Reimer, defined content as "(a) set of information that can be exploited in a number different solutions, and standards can ease that path for solution builders" - in other words, it's a sort of 'clay' that can be molded in various ways.

The technology that will accelerate the dissemination of content has been dubbed Cinnamon in line with a tradition at IBM's Silicon Valley-based research labs of deriving its code names from the world of food.

With Cinnamon, IBM aims to accelerate the process of setting up a content management system and simplify making changes to XML - people at administrative levels will have the ability to tailor attributes using a graphical XML interface. There will be greater content distribution as well. XML documents can be imported right into DB2 Content Manager.

Users won't have to worry about coding procedures - essentially everything will operate on an instructional basis guided by graphical interfaces. Development is pared down even more when easy-access XML is coupled with less restrictive Web serviced allowing Content Manager to take requests from SOAP and other Web services standards.

"XML is an established standard, but the schemas are still evolving," said Reimer. "Cinnamon provides graphical modeling to see the schemas, schema reporting, and establish mapping."