Hannon Hill Does Web CMS Homework

By Scott Frangos | Published Oct 16, 2006

Hannon Hill Corp, a Web CMS software vendor targeting mid-sized organizations, has announced the latest update to their Cascade CMS Server. The company timed the announcement to coincide with last week's EduCause 2006 conference in Dallas, Texas, a technology event for higher education — one of Hannon Hill's primary markets.

With requirements driven directly by existing users, the v4.6 release is expected to receive a good grade from customers. The company solicited votes from its existing client base regarding new features and prioritization.

As a result, the latest rev of Cascade Server gives customers increased functionality and features including faster publishing speeds, more sophisticated analytics, additional enhancements to the web services API for audit trails and workflow interaction, plus an improved configuration interface.

In the Web CMS category, Cascade Server has won industry respect among users in Education, Healthcare, and Government sectors, receiving a Best of Show award at Internet World. It has made a consistently strong play and in a field that includes competitors such as Ektron, recently free Quantum Art, recently acquired Hot Banana, recently updated Synkron, and recently repositioned RedDot.

Hannon Hill's success is due at least in part to its flexibility and relative agility. The CMS platform runs on a range of operating systems, can be accessed from any browser, and efficient organizations tend to be able to implement the software in just a few months.

Open Standards has been a mantra over at Hannon Hill with heavy employment of technologies such as XML/XSL, CSS, RSS, Web Services, and SOAP. Additionally, their Cascade Server has quickly moved on the rich client interfaces revolution with an AJAX-enabled, zero-footprint client (no ActiveX, no Java Applets) which is supported on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

There have been no advance user reactions to the 4.6 release, but we expect Cascade Server to receive high marks and remain a strong contender in this dynamic market.

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