Report: U.S. CMS Market to Explode due to Open Source

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

Hippo Inks a Partnership With Capgemini NL

Almost every content management vendor gets to a certain point when a reach-out to integrators and agencies is a must. Usually, this move is associated with vendor growth.

Hippo, the makers of open source Enterprise Hippo CMS, have reached that exact point and inked an agreement with Capgemini Nederland B.V.

Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, Hippo co-founder/CCO (left), and Kees Birkhoff, Delivery Director Public at Capgemini NL

Capgemini Nederland B.V. is a subsidiary of Capgemini, one of the most known firms for consulting, technology and outsourcing services. In 2008, Capgemini reportedly made EUR 8.7 billion in global revenue. The firm has presence in more than 30 countries and employs about 90,000 people worldwide.

Hippo-Capgemini partnership is designed to focus on Web Content Management (Hippo CMS 7) and portal solutions, and adding more implementation power to the Hippo ecosystem.

According to the company, some Capgemini’s consultants already received advanced training in Hippo’s technologies. It has also been said that they are participating in the open source Hippo community to “stay on top of new features and functionality.” Sounds like a good step. As we know, Hippo CMS is now in a much-revamped version 7.0, which, most recently, got to the 7.1 release and started shipping as a bundle with Apache Jetspeed Portal 2.2 and Hippo Site Toolkit.

Originally published on CMSWire:  Hippo CMS Team Inks Strategic Partnership with Capgemi

Open Source ECM Vendor Jahia Re-inforces U.S. Presence

The next wave of European content management vendors hitting the U.S. market is yet again upon us. This time, the ripples are coming from the open source Enterprise CMS vendor Jahia.

The vendor launched its U.S. mission two years ago, continuing it with further formalization of efforts by opening its North American HQ office in Washington, DC. Emmanuel Garcin, Jahia’s VP, will continue to serve as the GM for North America.

A little before that, a new R&D and Support office was opened in Montreal, Canada.

With local as well as other European open source vendors (like Hippo and Nuxeo), it may get pretty crowded in the enterprise CMS U.S. market. Closed-source ECM vendors like IBM, EMC and Open Text are surely paying attention.

More on CMSWire:  Jahia Goes Beyond Canada, Opens U.S. Headquarters

Licensing Debate Between Bluenog and Hippo Goes On

The subject of open source software licensing is rarely considered titillating. More often it inspires early afternoon naps.

Well, there’s been a change in the script and we’ve got a small civil war on our hands. Tempers and tensions have risen between US-based Bluenog and Netherlands-based Hippo — both companies deal in the content management space, both are tinkering with open source.

Now it’s not the fight we’re interested in — though it’s been a fun interlude of Days of Our [Software] Lives. Rather, it’s the principles behind the issue that are worth paying attention to.

In short, Bluenog has been accused of violating Hippo’s and Apache’s software licenses by using Hippo’s code and not properly giving attribution. We had a chat with both parties. Here’s what they had to say.

More on CMSWire: Oversights by Bluenog Spark Open Source Community Anger

Repackaging someone else’s code, sticking a new logo to it and selling it under a new name is one way to do it. But it is not the only way.

Perhaps, if there was a proper disclosure of origin from the very beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It seems, Bluenog (intentionally or not) have chosen a different path.

Another question here is whether open source is too liberal to be controlled: in code changes or licensing violations. One can hope for others’ good manners and sticking to legalities, yet the reality shows this is not the first (and not the last) debate on OSS licensing.

Hippo CMS 7.1: More Usability and Stability

It wasn’t long ago when  Hippo CMS 7.0 came out. It was a major release with serious changes to the content management system’s core.

This 7.1 release does not bring significant news, but does introduce some changes that Hippo CMS users should take into account. There are some new features (mainly around CMS usability) and some “enhancements” as well. Boy, that was a looong JIRA list of bugs.

Full story on CMSWire: Hippo CMS 7.1 Focuses on Usability and Stability

Hippo Embraces Apache Jetspeed’s Revival

The open source ECM vendor Hippo, in an effort to develop a closer relationship with the Jetspeed community, has been busy contributing to this Apache project and even released its own product and support package  for Apache Jetspeed 2.2.

Hippo seems to be on a mission to re-establish Jetspeed’s position as the top choice for performance-oriented enterprise portals.

Can this be a huge comeback for Jetspeed?

Hippo and Jetspeed: It’s Mutual

Hippo is quite known for its commitment to the open source industry and the Apache Software Foundation, so the news doesn’t come as a surprise. For Hippo, the benefit of working with Jetspeed is quite obvious.

What about Jetspeed you ask? Jetspeed is also on the receiving end of this mutually beneficial deal.

When was the last time you’ve heard about Jetspeed? When was the last time the interest in it spiked?

Hippo/Jetspeed relationship may be exactly what Jetspeed needs for its revival in the open source enterprise portal scene.

Hippo and Jahia (Together and Apart) Under Jetspeed Covers

Hippo is not alone in the Jetspeed ecosphere from the commercial open source standpoint.

Jahia, another open source enterprise content management vendor, has been tapping into Jetspeed powers as well. This match also seems to be made in Apache heaven.

Jahia focuses on web content management and portals as well, and in Jahia 5.0, the CMS included a Corporate Portal Server based on Jetspeed-2. It was built purely in Java, with Jahia source code available under a collaborative and community source license (=Jahia’s contribute or pay paradigm).

However, in the latest product version — Jahia 6.0 — the vendor moved away from “the more complicated Apache JetSpeed previously used” in their portal implementation. The technology is now based on Apache Pluto 2.0 and supports the portlets standard JSR-286.

What would be interesting to see is Hippo and Jahia collaborate on Apache Jetspeed. Surely, the two vendors can join forces to benefit the Apache community. Or, should we be less optimistic about Jetspeed and friendly rivalry?

Full story on CMSWire: Hippo Embraces Apache Jetspeed’s Revival