I thought this post from another list might be useful for those who have
recently made enquiries about CMS or for anyone else interested in CMS
in general.

Martin.

--
[log in to unmask]
Institute for Learning and Research Technology, University of Bristol
8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1HH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 7192, Fax: +44 (0)117 928 7112
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/ and http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/id/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:10:00 +1100
From: David Walker <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: content management/personalization companies

The best place for content management information is Cameron Barrett's CMS
page and list at http://www.camworld.com/cms/. The list sports a Web
archive.

Scanning the list archive will probably disclose four themes:

1. In a surprisingly large number of cases, the major commercial solutions
produce enormous disappointment. This is in large part due to the very
"We'll give you whatever you want, no problem" marketing stance that you
mentioned. For most sites, off-the-shelf software will not do this. You will
end up paying for specialist consultants. According to its SEC filings,
Vignette makes half its revenue from consulting systems. For Vignette's
shortcomings, see
http://www.siliconalleydaily.com/issues/sar01222001.html#Headline7482 and my
own effort at http://www.shorewalker.com/pages/vignette_doubts-1.html. For
comments on Broadvision from a respected information architect, see
http://www.peterme.com/bvsucks/index.html.

The reason for all the disappointment, as best I can see, is that
off-the-shelf CMSs are insufficiently flexible to react to frequent changes
in business logic.

2. There are lots of small systems out there. Most were built for one
company's use and then expanded. They suffer from the same business logic
issue as large CMSs. Someone out there probably has a CMS with the business
logic you need. But good luck finding it.

3. Lots of people are searching frustratedly for solutions.

4. Lots of people end up building their own custom-made system. It's more
flexible, and for many situations, ultimately cheaper. (Some then try to
turn their solution into a product - see point 2 above)

For your needs, the right solution may be the ArsDigita Community System
(ACS) at http://www.arsdigita.com. They are the industrial-strength solution
in the space. They do very little marketing, but have a client list that
includes the US military and the World Bank. Their ACS software is
open-source; they make money from consulting. You can hire them, or you can
find a person/people who understands some flavour of Unix (such as Linux)
and a heavyweight relational database management system such as Oracle, and
knows or is willing to learn TCL and the finer points of AOLserver.

Regards,
David Walker

Content director, eChoice: http://www.echoice.com.au,
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Journalism/analysis: http://www.shorewalker.com,
mailto:[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jenifer Wells [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, 25 January 2001 6:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: content management/personalization companies


Has anyone had either really good or really bad experiences with any of the
content management and/or personalization software providers out there?
We're looking at a host (though probably avoiding the huge ones like
Broadvision) of them, and all sales pitches seem to sound pretty much the
same: "We'll give you whatever you want, no problem." If anyone has had
experiences with any of these kinds of providers--or for that matter,
providers of any of the functionality I'll list below--that they'd like to
pass on, I would be grateful to hear about them. Send to me and I'll
summarize for the list. Thanks, Jen

Desired functionalities:
-Dynamically serve content based on personalization/customization rules
and/or publisher rules
-Manage large bodies of web content for numerous online publications (lots
of templates)
-Community-building: discussion boards, chat, IM, etc.
-Search
-Online education
-e-commerce

.......................
Jenifer Wells
Information Architect
4Lane Digital
802-246-1705
.......................

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