Your questions are garbled and difficult to understand.
1. What are the specifications that I should look for in a serious Content management tool ? The specs. I came cross are related to metadata( Dublin Core,XMP ) and somethink like CMIS. WebDAV is one more. Are these the standards at this time ?
Yes CMIS and WebDAV are standards however which standards should be implemented by which CM tool is not clear cut. Alfresco is standards compliant by its open source nature and instinct.
2. What kind of archival policies are supported by alfresco ? Do I have to archive by reading a folder using some file system like CIFS etc. ? Can I archive directly when a report is generated by my Java application by calling an alfreso web service ?
What do you mean by an "archival policies". Whatever you mean by "archival", alfresco can do it, including archiving for the DOD with RM. And policy driven storage.
3. Does the retrieved file contain metadata like Dublin Core,XMP etc.?
Probably not unless you use a metadata injector. The metadata is accessed separatly from the content stream.
