In addition to the ways Plone helps you perform your work, it gets a lot of benefits from its architecture. Plone is built on the award-winning application server Zope, and gets all the benefits of the underlying platform, as well as adding extra features not present in any other system in the Zope world.
Here are just some of the reasons why Plone is being widely deployed throughout the world:
Powerful pluggable workflow system
Plone has built-in support for administrative workflow and approval mechanisms. It supports both action-based and entity-based workflow paradigms, and has a pluggable architecture to allow you to plug in your own workflow systems, if required.
Modular, easy to expand, reusable components
Both the programmatic logic and the user interface construction can be reused extensively in your custom project, which means that you both get code reuse and a consistent look across different parts of the application.
SQL connectivity
Since Plone is based on Zope, you can connect to any relational database that Zope supports. All the major databases are supported - both commercial (Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MS SQL, SAP, Interbase, etc) and open source (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc).
Easy to create new content types
By repurposing existing content types, you can easily generate your own custom content types without any programming skills, and if you want to write richer content types with advanced behaviours, you can do this with the Archetypes add-on.
Lightweight XHTML
The XHTML interface of Plone is very lightweight, which is a feature you will appreciate if you are ever using it from a mobile phone connection or directly from a mobile phone browser. It's also a big advantage if you want to build on and extend the interface later on.
Fully indexed, powerful search engine
All content in Plone is indexed and searchable. It also supports pluggable stemming and splitter options, which enables useful searching in languages like Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
Activation date and expiration dates
Every content item has attributes that control its lifespan, and ensures that the content is posted and retired on time.
Topics and Topic Map technologies
To enable efficient aggregation of content, you can use using hierarchical topic systems to help you grow the knowledge in the system while maintaining structure and control.
Powerful template system
Plone utilizes the industry's first XML standards-compliant templating language, ZPT. This templating system works well with a wide range of editors, including visual web editors like Dreamweaver.
