Irina Guseva: Random Thoughts on CMS, WCM, ECM and Other Acronyms

That is a conclusion Basex, an analyst and research firm, came to in a (at times, admittedly questionable) report entitled Content Management Systems: The New Math for Selecting Your Platform released in September 2009.

The researchers are saying the content management market is set to explode in the next several years, and open source CMS vendors are contributing to this growth, as well as to how customers are changing their CMS selection processes. Let’s take a look at details — some of them you may find quite amusing.

Basex estimates that the U.S. market for content management reached about US$ 4.1 billion in revenue in 2008. By 2014, it should jump to US$ 10 billion.

Basex says that Alfresco and Bluenog are “leading the charge” in the commercial open source market. Umm, many may not agree with this stance. What about players like Nuxeo and Acquia? If we were to judge market leadership by the number of customers and license deal sizes mentioned in this report, the math wouldn’t be the same. But let’s go on.

Then the research firm adds that “Fortunately, it’s gotten simpler to find the right [CMS] tool.” Umm, really? We do like this wording (found in the same report) better: “Choosing the right content management system is far from straight forward.”

Breakdown of CMS vendors into tiers in this report is slightly unconventional with Microsoft ECM and SharePoint sitting right next to Percussion and Alterian. Not to mention the lack of clear differentiation between on-the-premise and hosted/SaaS vendors. One would imagine this distinction would be of importance to many organizations selecting a CMS.

Leaving out DotNetNuke and eZ Publish from commercial open source CMS vendors seems like a significant omission. Some would argue Basex putting Bluenog in the commercial open source box – actually, we’ve heard that debate before – with its technology mix of proprietary code, Apache and other open source software.

While the report is profiling 16 CMS vendor, the most mentions seem to be given to Bluenog and Alfresco (approximately twice as many, compared to other open source or proprietary CMS vendors). If in fact, certain vendors were involved in the makings of the report as underwriters, it would be nice to disclose that.

More on CMSWire.com

CMIS, in its current state, seems to be best suited for document management scenarios. Hence, it was only a matter of time before a DMS vendor like KnowledgeTree jumped on the CMIS bandwagon (joining the many Web and Enterprise CMS players) and released its own implementation of the draft Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification.

Admittedly, quite a timely move, considering that the latest OASIS CMIS Technical Committee face-to-face meeting took place only two weeks ago, getting CMIS an inch closer to the actual standard level.

In the best spirit of interoperability, the CMIS implementation by open source document management systems (DMS) vendor KnowledgeTree is designed to follow the spec and allow ECM users to access enterprise document repositories that have a CMIS interface. The CMIS implementation for KnowledgeTree Community Edition Snapshot is available for download. The latest code can be found here.

Let’s not forget the recent CMIS Face-to-Face Meeting that took place in Colorado in the first week of August. According to Nuxeo’s Florent Guillaume, “…everybody is pretty happy with the spec as it is, and we’re nearly ready to start the OASIS review process that will first make it go through formal public review, and then open the OASIS vote for CMIS to become a standard.”

Guillaume hopes that CMIS “should be a 1.0 standard by the end of the year.” Read his Day 1 and Day 2 blogged observations.

More on CMSWire: Document Management Vendor KnowledgeTree Embraces CMIS

Vignette has been getting some criticism on their pricing and licensing methods. Some consider it to be too expensive and too complex,  even for an enterprise-level CMS. Vignette listened and did something not many expected — introduced a subscription-based licensing model and announced new licensing models for its web content management solutions.

Given the current state of Vignette affairs, I can only guess what the future will bring and whether the new subscription-based licensing model will find its fans. At least Vignette is trying.

Full story + discussion on CMSWire: Vignette Tries Subscription-Based Licensing Model

Announced on Vignette’s Facebook fan page and by Jules, here’s yet another CMS vendor meme. They call it the Enterprise Web Content Management (WCM) Vendor Meme. And this is exactly where I have a problem with it (OK, several):

1. I know the lines are blurry between ECM vs.  WCM (vs. micro CMS). Some call themselves “enterprise-ready” WCM. What is enterprise WCM? Enterprise CMS or Web CMS? Decisions, decisions…
2. Why can’t you put up a corporate blog using your latest VCA release instead of using Facebook, where I have to become a fan to leave a comment or otherwise participate?
3. What happened to the “traditional” ECM attributes like DAM, document and records management, eDiscovery, retention, ODR, workflow, BPM, IM, KM, etc., etc.? None of which are mentioned in the questions list.
4. The question list seems to be tailored specifically around Vignette’s products (keywords: portal-like, financial and government deployments, see #6, etc.)
5. Hence, no need to answer the questions — just do the tagging bit?
6. “We provide a one-stop shop for enterprise Web Experience (VIGN keyword — see #4) needs, offering a full range of capabilities including at least 6 of these 7 commonly requested enterprise functionalities:
   1. Web Content Management” — Doh!

Maybe, I am just completely and utterly confused, but I don’t get this. No offense, I applaud the effort to engage further with the community, but this one is me meme not. Or, like others said:

[updated April 4] Alfresco’s @LuisSala offered his opinion on Vignette’s ECM meme effort. Very detailed, with many examples, which should not come as a surprise given that Sala is a former VIGN employee. One of the quotes I found interesting:

…these are instantly recognizable as a thinly veiled and highly biased checklist highlighting Vignette’s self-perceived “strengths”.

My take-away: some things are better to be vendor-neutral, not vendor-authored. Another reason why we have organizations like @cmswatch.

Open source offerings and associated services are getting better and starting to seem less risky, while IT budgets are shrinking.

Result? What’s bad for economy is clearly good for open source. A recent survey shows that web content management is one of the prime “targets” for disruption by open source.

Open source vendors rejoice, closed source companies nod in agreement and utter the magic word “interoperability.”

Full story on CMSWire: Bad Economy Is Good for Open Source

This morning (to my sheer amusement), I’ve picked up on Twitter that @daysoftware has challenged several CMS vendors to participate in what they call CMS Vendor Meme.

Twitter Morning

It went like this. LOLs are the best part of any morning

daysoftware: Introducing the CMS Vendor Meme http://tinyurl.com/cbocwf

irina_guseva: lol RT @daysoftware: Introducing the CMS Vendor Meme http://tinyurl.com/cbocwf

adriaanbloem: @kasthomas LOL, seen this? RT @irina_guseva: lol RT @daysoftware: Introducing the CMS Vendor Meme http://tinyurl.com/cbocwf

Inspired by CMSWatch’s Kas Tomas’ Reality Check for Vendors, the challenge is to (honestly) answer 15 product-related questions. Day Software started off with a slew of screenshots and a score of 40/45.

Day tagged “OpenText, Coremedia, Interwoven, Vignette (where’s your blog?), Fatwire (where’s your blog?), Nuxeo, Magnolia and Tridion (where’s your blog?).” By the end of day (haha), only one (+one more not tagged by Day) vendor responded.

Magnolia CMS Plays In

Magnolia was the first to respond. Score: 42/45. Tagged: Jahia, Alfresco, OpenCMS, Hippo, EZ, Core Media, dotCMS

2. Installing or uninstalling our software does not require a reboot of your machine - Yes

No restart required. Why are you asking?

9. We run our entire company website using the latest version of our own WCMproducts - Sort of

Nearly. Unlike Day, we did not have three years time to release our latest generation of software…

13. Our licensing model is simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand - Yes

You can get one version for free. You get a better, supported version for 12k $ per server per year. Simple enough for a five year old.

Alfresco’s Turn

Alfresco followed. Score 40/45. Tagged: Documentum, Oracle/Stellent and Acquia/Drupal

10. Our salespeople understand how our products work.

Inasmuch as a non-technical/non-web-development savvy person can, yes. But that’s why we have a stellar team of Solution Engineers ready to lend prospects, customers and community members a helping hand.

11. Our software does what we say it does.

Yup… That’s the whole idea, ain’t it? Download it and see!

14. We have one price sheet for all customers.

There is indeed only one price-sheet…

At the End of the Day

adriaanbloem:  CMS vendors reminding me why CMS Watch doesn’t treat comparison as a horse race. Day gives itself 40/45, Magnolia 42/45, Alfresco 41/45…

Thanks, Day, for a good laugh

9c56d0fcf93175d70e1c9b9d188167cf