Autonomy Interwoven Takes a Bite at SaaS CMS, Landing Page Optimization

Nice article. A/B testing, multivariate testing, and landing page optimization are all commodity features. Google Optimizer does a great job and it's free.

The real goal, IMHO, is the marriage of best-of-breed analytics, marketing automation, CRM and CMS from multiple companies. The CMS will always remain the hub for delivering compelling, real-time, and unique experiences depending upon where someone is in the sales cycle (B2B) or what they are interested in (B2C).

But in order to deliver on this promise in real time (based on real-time customer/audience behavior) content has to be delivered dynamically. Both Autonomy/Interwoven and CrownPeak--while doing a great job re-packaging a commodity feature (landing page optimization) as unique--are equipped to only deliver static pages.

Dynamic page delivery is the key.

Dear Robert,

Thanks for the not-so-subtle Clickability sales pitch ;) Yes, we know you (as well as Marqui and Ingeniux) are using the free tool from Google. That's great!

OTOH, Autonomy Interwoven and CrownPeak have decided to develop their own tools for the whole web optimization dance. Also, great! Now, let's not be jealous ;)

Hi Irina,

LOL....I'm never subtle.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for all marketers :) ...especially our marketing colleagues at CrownPeak. They've done a great job pushing the SaaS advantage, which benefits all of us in this space.

What I do mind are those companies claiming to be SaaS or in the "cloud" when they're simply single-tenant hosted solutions. In my view they are simply trying to draft off the current SaaS/Cloud momentum and confuse the marketplace. I'd probably do the same if I were in their shoes, but I'm glad I'm not ;).

Thanks for the bandwidth.

Robert

Robert,

As ever, you're very welcome.

The debate about SaaS vs. cloud vs. hosted (old story) is not interesting really. Neither is watching various parties pull the SaaS blanket ;)

What I am interested in, though, is when will we hear product-related news from you (webinars and awards don't count)? It's been a long time...

Best,
Irina

Hi Irina,

I appreciate the platform you?ve given me to speak.

First, you can call ?SaaS/Cloud, Hosted, and Installed? an old story. But it has far-reaching implications for how a business approaches its digital strategy.

That point alone bears education?and that need is not going away. As I?ve said before, there is more confusion in the marketplace now than ever, and its incumbent upon journalists/bloggers/consultants/vendors to be authentic around how they portray infrastructure and software delivery.

Regardless, as a believer that all applications will eventually move to the cloud, it warms my heart that organizations like Autonomy / Interwoven are now trying to course correct and validate the value of SaaS by ?pull(ing) the SaaS blanket,? as you call it.

Thanks for asking about product releases. We had one a week ago.

SaaS is a disruptive technology. Consequently, not only has application delivery and infrastructure dramatically evolved, but the way software is developed and released has changed forever. Also, obviously there is no reason to install or upgrade like traditional software; nor incur the costly overhead associated with this.

At the risk of being pedantic (and this is not aimed at you, Irina ;)), the beauty of SaaS is that at Clickability we can "release" at a pace of nearly one new feature per day. The Interwoven / Autonomy traditional installed model of ?going gold? with a big bang is simply an anachronism in the SaaS world. Hence the pitch: no upgrades, no software to install, no new hardware to buy, no exorbitant professional services to pay for upgrades.

Customers drive our innovation. And on the Web, that innovation comes fast and furious. Waiting 18 months for the next installed software release just doesn?t make sense.

Companies expect innovation at a pace that helps them invent new ways of doing business and growing revenue on the Web--especially in a challenging economic environment. With the traditional software model, real revenue creation opportunities are lost; end users are unhappy; Web experiences quickly become outdated and obsolete.

At Clickability, we use the agile development model (which continues to take the engineering community by storm). Customers get the real features they want as quickly as they possibly can. That can?t happen with the traditional installed software model. In the Web Content Management world, I don?t know anyone who can wait 18 months for new features.

Clickability does a ?release? on average of once every two months. Very recent releases have been related to streamlining content management for multi-lingual publishers (we basically handle every language on the planet), expanding our site development feature set, adding new Social Media capabilities with more advanced community moderation tools, and the list goes on.

I?d be happy to put you in touch with our senior product manager, if you?re interested in more info.

Once again, thanks for given me this opportunity to speak.

Best,

Robert