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

Gotta admit, I am about to run out of the (semi-) witty headlines for Day Software that continues to build on the momentum and report bright financial results quarter after quarter. That is, let’s not forget, following the not-so-bright period a bit of time ago.

After reviewing and changing their accounting policies, doing a bit of a re-org in the upper echelons and shedding some extra weight, Day continues to deliver positive numbers in Q3 2009. The highlight of Q3 (interim results) is a considerable increase in license revenue — a 37% growth over the same period in 2008 and a 26% increase over 1H 2009.

Day attributes these revenue numbers to “global demand for CQ5” and “major new customer wins.” I’ve looked at both CQ5.1 and CQ5.2, as they came out, and do tend to agree that the product is starting to look more and more compelling.

These were interim Q3 results. Not many details are available, but chances are R&D (and associated sales and marketing, etc.) spendings are sky-rocketing to get the upcoming CQ 5.3 to the market.

At this time, we don’t know much about how the license revenue increase correlates to, for example, consulting, training and overall Professional Services (Does Day even have PS? Not really.) revenues. Someone’s got to implement all those sales deals…

Cross-published on CMSWire.com: Day Boasts License Revenue Jump in Q3 2009

Day’s customer? Evaluating Day CQ5 CMS? CMS geek generally curious about the present and the future of web content management? Check out Day’s customer summit that is scheduled to take place in Zürich (October 14-15, 2009) and Chicago (October 28-29, 2009).

Day’s plan for this event is, mainly, to share strategies and customer stories around CQ5 Web CMS that was released in November 2008. CQ5.2 that came out earlier this year included new DAM and Social Collaboration features.

There are several tracks planned at the summit, including business and technical. The business track is focused on CMS project objectives, CQ5 selection and criteria, and CQ5 business results. In the technical track, attendees will look into CMS project objectives and implementation plan, CQ5 deployment details, and lessons learned in best leveraging Day’s CQ5.

Very often, it’s best to get right into the vendor’s camp if you want to get more insight into what’s going on with the company and where it is going. While, as we reported, Day has had many good days lately, nothing beats a chance of being able to talk to the actual customer who had already put a check mark next to that line that says “CMS implementation.” Getting direct access to Day’s management and technical teams wouldn’t hurt either.

A bit of gazing into the crystal ball is also on the menu with one of Gartner’s analysts leading a discussion on where Day and the content management industry are headed in 2010.

Don’t miss:

• Unveiling of CRX 2.0: the JCR 2.0 (JSR-283) content repository
• Day’s 2010 roadmap

Cherry on top: Day’s CTO David Nüscheler will give a sneak peek of the upcoming CQ5.3. Now, that should be interesting.

Back in April 2009, when Day announced the nominations of Barry Bycoff and David Arnott to the Board of Directors. Both were elected in May at Day’s Annual Shareholder meeting in Basel, Switzerland.

Today, board member Barry Bycoff was elected the Board’s Chairman, replacing Michael Moppert, the founder of Day.

Moppert assumed the Chairman role in May 2008, after he handed off his Day CEO reigns to a former Interwoven exec Erik Hansen. Moppert is said to remain an active member of Day’s Board.

Bycoff took over the steering wheel on a good day, shortly after Day’s announcement of positive 1H 2009 financial results.

“I am pleased to be working with Day’s CEO Erik Hansen and the remainder of the Board to help Day capitalize on this opportunity and build on its recent success,” said Bycoff.

Hansen’s initial plan to make Day more appealing seems to be working out so far. Upon accepting the CEO role, he wanted to focus on growing Day’s strongest points: the content infrastructure business and the core content management product.

Since then, we’ve seen CRX new releases and updates, as well as new versions of Web CMS CQ5 and CQ5.2, hit the streets of the content management world.

Originally published on CMSWire

I talked quite a bit about the hyped about and much-anticipated Day’s CQ5 in this blog, including CQ5 installation experiences and random thoughts. And then, I also talked about CQ5.2. My impressions were mostly positive, but not without some healthy constructive criticism

Looks like the WCM market , and the new and existing Day’s customers, are mostly positive about the product as well, as they keep investing in this Web CMS and making Day’s 2009 first half numbers shine brightly yet again.

1H 2009 revenue growth was reported at CHF 17.0M, which is an increase of 33% from total revenue of CHF 12.8M for 1H 2008. License revenue accounted for a whopping 42% of total revenue at CHF 7.2M, an increase of 26% from total license revenue of CHF 5.8M compared to same time last year. According to Day, there is an increase in re-orders from the existing installed base due to the interest in updates and new modules that came out in CQ 5.2 (e.g. DAM and Social Collaboration).

Support and maintenance revenues came in at CHF 5.4M, or 32% of total revenue. Day also reported operating income of CHF 1.8M, or 11% of revenue, and better-than-expected GAAP net income of CHF 1.1M, or 6% of revenue. Total cash was CHF 18.3M, a 21% increase over 1H 2008.

Day’s success in the challenging economy is partially due to the operational restructuring efforts that took place last and this year, along with key new hires and additions of new members to its Board of Directors.

We should see more R&D, sales and marketing investments at Day in the second half of 2009. If you wish to geek out on accounting numbers, head over here. I, in the meantime, cannot wait to get my hands on the next release — CQ 5.3.

Originally published on CMSWire: Day Software Continues to Roll in Cash in 1H 2009

I came across an interesting reaction to blogging by Lars Trieloff, Day’s product manager for DAM and SoCo, and couldn’t help but think (out loud) and document my stream of consciousness (also known as blogging) 

After all, he mentioned my name a few times, and I parse that as an invitation to engage in a dialogue. Something is telling me I’ve (unintentionally) crushed one of the processes running on Trieloff’s processor(s).

Prologue, or How It All Started

Earlier this week, Day Software released CQ 5.2 with new DAM and SoCo features. One of the statements that caught my attention during a briefing I had with Day was Trieloff’s “personal blogging is dead.”

So, I kindly disagreed with that statement in my CQ 5.2 coverage for CMSWire.com. On my own blog, I also posted a different (and much truncated) version of Day’s announcement.

The posts go live, and then something unimaginable (to Trieloff) happens. My own blog generated a larger response wave than my post on CMSWire. Granted, it was due to one mighty curious reader (and many, many more observers) who was probably just bored at a corporate meeting.

A comment/question was posted, and (being the Twitter user I am) I chose to use Twitter as a faster vehicle to get the questions answered (I do care about my readers — all 1.5 of them). And it worked like magic.

Although I could’ve addressed the questions myself without “desperately looking for outside inspiration, for ‘brains’,” I chose to ping @daysoftware and offer ya’ll to chime in. And so Day — represented by @trieloff and @kevinc2003 — did. Everyone wins, no?

No, the next thing I hear is that personal blogging is in fact in a transitional Zombie state, but (most likely) is dead. One would imagine that after spending 1.5 years of one’s life on a product release that is generating some buzz that specific *one* would be jumping from joy? Or is this just a way of rationalizing and dealing with a blown circuit?

Dialogue: Personal or Professional?

Is personal blogging really a Zombie, as Trieloff (quite vividly so) illustrates with pictures? BTW, that’s some *bad* hair day (pun intended).

Depends on how you define personal blogging and/or Twittering and where you draw the line.

If I am speaking from my personal (and not a corporate or a news organization’s) point of view on professional topics, is this personal or professional blogging?

If I am talking about CMS and post it on CMSWire it is professional, but if I ponder CMS topics on my own blog it is less professional? If I am using WP and not CQ5 to blog, does that mean I have a very unprofessional aka personal blog?

If I were to blog/Twitter (personally) about the daily grind and nothing beyond that — a pair of stilettos I just bought, the great risotto I had for dinner, the color of underwear I am (not) wearing, sales at Target, the French manicure I just got done or the hot date I went on the other night — I doubt that this type of information would generate the same amount of attention as my CQ5 SoCo post.

That type of information above is not really useful to anyone but the sex offenders on my block, weirdos lurking on the Internet and the coupon-collecting soccer moms. None of whom I would consider to be my primary audience (if I even have one).

Professional blogging, on the other hand, is based on the notion of relevance and usefulness. The same idea, I think, applies to professional Twittering (with slightly laxer constraints). Content is still king, but a 140 characters of it may not necessarily encompass everything I am “dying” to share with my professional network. And that’s when folks blog — from a personal or organizational standpoint.

Epilogue (of Sorts)

As far as Twitter goes and “the ‘brains’ that undead personal blogs are looking for can be found at Twitter.” It would be nice if Twitter was the answer to all questions. But Twitter is merely one of the tools out there and is hardly the Holy Grail solution for “fueling discussions and driving blog traffic.” The funny thing is that this whole exchange of comments about Day’s SoCo didn’t even start on Twitter.

CMS Vendor meme did receive a lot of Twitter action — *after* it was posted on the CMS Watch blog and, subsequently, on Day’s blog. Cannot imagine we would’ve had that many delicious dialogues, if Twitter was the only tool at hand.

No content – no traffic, regardless of which blogging platform or microsharing app you’re using.

What I find contradictory is the fact that those chastising “personal” blogging resort to posting on posterous.com instead of sticking to “corporate” blogging on, say, dev.day.com? “Personal” blogging ain’t dead after all, eh?

Coincidentally, I am not the only one challenging Trieloff’s verdict. Others have disagreed with Lars as well (on a different occasion, though). That was when personal blogging was announced obsolete. I don’t think that the ultimate goal of blogging is to make it the Technorati 100 blog list.

Twitter, or any other microsharing app may, of course, be faster and “more connected” — by its nature. However, it is not a substitute for blogging.

Microblogging and blogging in my mind are as different as Kindle 2 and holding an old book with that library smell to it in my hands. Somehow, seems to ooze more substance albeit less convenient.

P.S.: I am gonna categorize this post as “personal.” Just because

Oh, and I do love gadgets, and it’s been ages since I held a Rarität circa 17th century in my hands.

I don’t really have much to say about this release, since watching a pre-cooked demo is not the same as getting a first-hand experience, but here it goes.

Day Software, continuing to ride the CQ 5 and CRX momentum waves,  released CQ 5.2 with new Social Collaboration (SoCo) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) applications. Not to mention some interesting multi-site and multilingual enhancements.

While marrying web content management with social media, web 2.0 and DAM is hardly revolutionary — nowadays, it’s more about execution than the idea itself.

All in all, Day did fairly well with CQ 5.2. Next time there are questions about negative numbers on the balance sheet, the answer will (still) be simple: R&D and associated product launch costs (including time per day spent on Twitter with marketing efforts).

Full article on CMSWire: Day Software’s CQ 5.2: Weaving in DAM and Social Collaboration

Lars Trieloff (Day’s product manager for collab and DAM, and the person who spent the past 1.5 years of his life on this release) proudly welcomed CQ 5.2 and shared hidden CQ5 gems he didn’t show in demos.

The first one is the workflow launcher designed specifically for CQ5 DAM.

cq5 workflow launcher

The workflow launcher listens to all content repository events  and triggers the actual processing of any new asset added to the system. All event types (+other info) are clearly visible in the launcher tab.

The second one is (not pretty enough to be shown in demos, I gather) feed importer.

cq5 feed importer

The importer is used to talk to remote sources, parse them and create nodes in the content repository. it is currently used for subscribing to  remote iCal files and in the blog tool for content aggregation.

In order to implement a new parser and importer, Trieloff  says, “all you have to do is implement one OSGi component.” And, voila, your Twitter mashup is done.