Open Source Content Management System - Code named "Oxite" released by Microsoft

Microsoft via its CodePlex site has released an alpha version of its Open source CMS code named "Oxite"

Microsoft made the Oxite source code available for download on December 5. Oxite is available under the Microsoft Public License (MS-Pl), one of its OSI-certified open-source licenses.

Here is a Microsoft’s description of "Oxite" -

“Oxite provides you with a strong foundation you can build upon - pingbacks, trackbacks, anonymous or authenticated commenting (with optional moderation), gravatar support, RSS feeds at any page level, support for MetaWebLog API (think Windows Live Writer integration made easy), web admin panel, support for Open Search format allowing users to search your site using their browser’s search box, and more - so, you can spend time on designing a great experience.”

Microsoft claims that "Oxite" is more then a blogging engine and can support large web sites.

I was wondering why Microsoft felt a need to develop another content-management system, given that SharePoint Server provides content-management functionality.  One obvious difference is the open-/closed-source aspect of the projects.

For last couple of years, Microsoft is aggressively showing its interest in the Open Source Projects and is trying to make a mark in the open source developer’s market. For more information on Microsoft’s Open Source initiatives you can visit this link - http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/