Cms Watch News & Articles

A little over a year ago, the ECM Maturity Model (ECM3) version 1 saw the light of day. The goal was (and still is) to tame Enterprise Content Management challenges in a step-by-step fashion and have a prescriptively descriptive framework to help organizations assess their own levels of maturity.

In version 2, more community feedback was included, and the doors are still open if you want to contribute your thoughts.

Our latest poll showed that while web analytics usage by our readership was strong for a good number of you, more than 65% of respondents have significant work to do.  Here's a review of the results peppered with the opinions and commentary of some experts in the analytics space.

In its recent research, CMS Watch (news, site) found that enterprise search buyers are increasingly turning to specialized search vendors, as they struggle to find the right solution.

CMS Watch's Search & Information Access subscription service shows specialized focus in specific environments (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle) or verticals (e.g. Recommind in legal sector).

While evaluating 23 enterprise search vendors (10- to 18-page comparative evaluations per each), the researchers also found that:

• Despite improvements in SharePoint search, Microsoft-focused organizations are still considering other alternatives (Coveo, SurfRay or ISYS).
• Rapidly growing repositories are making enterprise search harder.
• Larger vendors struggle to keep up with specialized search vendors (Sinequa, dtSearch and Vivisimo), who are quickly releasing connectors to various repositories.

The updated Search & Information Access report also looks into FAST, SharePoint search in 2010, Autonomy’s IDOL platform, open source Apache Lucene and Solr, and offers an updated industry "cross-check" chart with 2010 product developments and vendor changes.

You can either get a free sample or buy the full report here.

 With the IMS 2009 conference coming up very soon, we have news that UK based content management provider Modera will be not just exhibiting, but will be speaking.

CMSWire talked with Modera's CEO Siim Vips in July, looking for their secret sauce for what they called work on the "next generation web cms". Hard at work on ModeraNet2, their next generation platform, Vips talked about things like syndication and communication enhancements, and tight integration with business processes.

On December 3 at 2pm GMT+1, Vips will present "Past, current and future content management technologies". Along with talking about Modera's experiences, Vips will talk about what was/wasn't successful in the industry and where the marketplace is headed for 2010 and beyond.

Other presenters on Web Content Management include:

• Tony Byrne, CMS Watch, Web Content Management Circa 2010
• Gabe Sumner, Telerik Developer Evanglist, Will your CMS evolve with your business? Why CMS adaptability empowers business
• David Miller, COO TERMINALFOUR, The mobile browser wars: Using web CM solutions to publish mobile independent of the mobile device

You can get more information on the conference and full speaker list on the IMS 2009 website. 

Analyst firm CMS Watch (news, site) released their latest installment of the Web CMS Report, providing deep insights into 40+ web content management systems, spanning global markets. As usual, there's good, there's bad and there's ugly. What caught our eye is some restructuring of their market analysis. Let's have a look.

There are few organizations that haven't considered -- and implemented -- SharePoint (news, site) in some manner. But as much as it has been implemented, it's still a confusing and often frustrating platform to work with.

Delivering just the kind of help these confused folk need, CMS Watch offers their latest research on SharePoint. The SharePoint Report 2009 helps organizations better understand where and how this platform might best fit in their organization. Here's what you can expect.

CMS Watch (news, site) has just released the 17th edition of their independent research report on Web Content Management: Web CMS Report 2009.

In this latest release, CMS Watch notes that there is another wave of web content management vendors from Europe entering the North America market. These vendors are offering a greater variety of options especially in the areas of .NET and open source. And these are not new vendors, many have been around awhile, just focused on the European market.

According to Tony Byrne, CMS Watch founder, European and UK-based Web CMS vendors have been trying to break into the US market for over a decade. There are been two previous waves: successful in wave 1: RedDot and Day Software, successful in wave 2: Sitecore and Tridion.

This "third wave" includes some well-known vendors:

• Telerik and EpiServer: Offering solutions to the SMB market and challenging existing vendors like Ektron and Sitecore
• eZ Publish, TYPO3 and Drupal: All three are developing strong partner relationships in North America

And while they think this is a good thing, CMS Watch is advising caution and due diligence. “Crossing the Atlantic in either direction is very hard for a Web CMS vendor,” adds Byrne.  “Building effective support structures is a process that takes years, so North American customers should carefully weigh any newcomer’s current abilities as well as long-term staying power.”

You can get the full report here.

Perhaps in an attempt to compete with third-party vendors, more Web CMS vendors are offering site search services. CMS Watch reports that 40% of major Web CMS vendors now embed the open source Apache Lucene (news, site) search engine.

The latest report to come from analyst firm CMS Watch (news, site) is one that will grab the attention of those who want to understand who is visiting their site and what they are doing while they are there. We suppose that includes just about everyone then. Or at least it should.

The CMS Watch Web Analytics Report 2009, is an analysis of 20 web analytics firms against twelve potential use cases. What they found was that mobile and video analytics vendors are offering a variety of solutions to track the usage of video and mobile more closely, but there's still work to be done.

CMS Watch studies the content management industry very closely. It's their job. They write a number of good research reports on technologies like web content management, enterprise content management, social software and SharePoint. Every so often they take all that knowledge and wrap it up into a neat little subway map, giving us a bird's eye view of who's who and where they fit in the industry. 

An updated version of that Subway map has been released and it is certainly worth taking a look at -- if not using some of that color printer ink you hold so dear.

Trying to organize and implement Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions is a bit like wrestling a morphing blob of goo. Squeeze one part of the blob to get it under control and another section bulges out and falls on top of you.

For two years, a quartet of industry players has worked on ECM3 -- an ECM Maturity Model created to help organizations tame the mighty blob. Let's take a look at what they came up with.

Yahoo’s web analytics service, originally IndexTools until Yahoo took them over in 2008, is battling it out with Google in the web analytics ring. And despite their hold on the analytics world, according to CMS Watch, Yahoo beats Google in several areas important for enterprise analytics.

According to North Plains, 2008 was a record year for them in terms of revenues and adoption of their Digital Asset Management platform. With the expected increase in the need for DAM solutions in the next few years, and the continued growth of online publishers, is North Plains set to grab a big chunk of the DAM market?

Forrester isn't the only analyst firm taking a close look at Social Media. CMS Watch has taken a hard look at some of the top social software and collaboration tools on the market today. Unlike Forrester, however, they are looking at more than just community tools for interactive marketing.

If you have been unsure about how to use all these neat (yes I said neat) social media tools in a way that benefits your organization and not just ties up your employees time, this report will help.

Big new yesterday -- the acquisition of Enterprise Content Management provider Interwoven by Autonomy. A surprise to many, not so much because Interwoven was snapped up, but more because it was Autonomy that did it.

Regardless, the news has sparked much discussion in the ECM industry. Or wait.. it's the Web Content Management industry that is all a buzz...