Hippo Cms News & Articles

With Europe being under heavy snow this winter, the NL-based makers of Hippo CMS (news, site) seemed to have many cold days to concentrate on the next release as opposed to spending their time ice skating on Amsterdam's canals. Here's what's new in the recently released Hippo CMS 7.3.

Welcome to the March installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next month.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.

Welcome to the February installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next month.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.

Normally in this space we look back over the current month and forward into the next month at what the various open source CMS projects are up to. But rather than blindly putting out an update for January, we thought we'd look farther ahead into what everyone wants to accomplish throughout next year. Call it our open source 2010 predictions with less guesswork and high hopes.

Welcome to the December 2009 installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next 30 days.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.
 

Building on the previous 7.1 version of its open source CMS, Hippo (news, site) released the new 7.2. It brings bug fixes as well as new functionality focused on giving more control to the end users in regards to managing layouts and document types, and getting new sites up and running faster.

Hippo CMS 7.2, they say, is "the fastest, most stable version yet." Let’s take a look at the release in detail.

Got a Hippo heart? Hippo (news, site) will open its doors to all supporters of open source and open source content management software on October 30, 2009. The event called #ForgeFriday is scheduled to take place in Hippo offices in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Petaluma, CA.

With the goal to possibly grow its Forge Project, Hippo invites all to participate and build a Hippo CMS plugin, a portlet, a repository add-on, a Hippo Site Toolkit component, or something else that you think would be cool enough to win “The Wow! Factor” award.

When and where:

• Amsterdam 14:00 -- 21:00 CET, Oosteinde 11 1017 WT Amsterdam (20)-5224466
• Petaluma 9 AM -- 4PM PDT, 185 H Street, Suite B, Petaluma CA 94952 (707) 773-4646

Can’t come over? Join online and follow the event through tweets and webcams. We should expect to see links with more info on the above on Hippo’s website shortly.

The online participants should also be able to upload ideas, code, screenshots or videos to the site. But in the end, no slides or code is allowed. The only thing you'll be judged on is the running demo.

Back in August, Hippo held its first Forge Friday filled with “pure hacking, a big BBQ, beers and, of course, geeky prizes.” Add to that 20 kilos of meat and 60 liters of beer, and it sure looks like a fun geeky event.

Welcome to the October 2009 installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next 30 days.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.

Software vendors need integration partners. And if one were to choose, these partners should be sophisticated, have a lively and broad Rolodex, be well respected in the sector and be capable of adding momentum to the project at hand.

Hippo (news, site), the makers of a Java-based, open source web content management system, seem to share this perspective. And they've signed an important agreement with Capgemini in the Netherlands.

Capgemini Nederland B.V. is a subsidiary of Capgemini, one of the better known firms for consulting, technology and outsourcing services. In 2008, Capgemini reportedly did EUR 8.7 billion in global revenue. The firm has presence in more than 30 countries and employs about 90,000 people worldwide. The Hippo-Capgemini partnership will focus on web content management (Hippo CMS 7) and portal solutions, as well as add more general implementation power to the Hippo ecosystem.

According to Hippo, some of Capgemini's consultants already receive advanced training in Hippo's new 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.”

The Hippo CMS is now in a much-revamped version 7 series, and most recently we saw the 7.1 release come out the gates, shipped as a bundle with Apache Jetspeed Portal 2.2 and the Hippo Site Toolkit. Based in the Netherlands and with offices recently opened in the USA, the Hippo CMS project appears to be making solid progress. We'll be keeping a close eye on it.

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.

Welcome to July 2009 installment of our what's coming from the open source CMS projects in the next 30 days.

If you're looking through here and feel that your project was left out, we invite you to send us an email at pr@cmswire.com with a pointer to who we should contact at your project for updates.

We’ve covered their previous version -- Hippo CMS 7.0 -- in some detail. 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.

Hippo (site, news) says the focus of this version is on stability, usability and performance.

With its open source CMS -- Hippo CMS 7.0 -- recently out of the door, Hippo (news, site) has found a partner in the U.S. to help implement the revamped product. CorraTech is an open source software services and consulting shop. The two will work together to deliver web content management solutions to mid-market and enterprise customers.

Growth is almost always falls in the same equation with demand. Hippo says they are experiencing an increase in the customer base in North America. Meaning it’s time to shake hands with some system integrators. Or, as Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, CEO of Hippo, puts it: “This move will help us deliver to our growing customer base in North America, where we are witnessing strong demand.”

CorraTech, as a provider of professional services (PS) and support for companies looking to transition to open source software, also evaluates open source vendors for enterprise adoption readiness. As part of its CorraTech’s Open Source Center of Excellence (OSCOE) evaluation process, they measure system scalability, architecture flexibility, interoperability, usability, licensing and support capabilities, as well as the commitment to the open source community.

Some of CorraTech existing partnerships include the open source usual suspects like Alfresco, Drupal, Joomla! and others.

As we’ve seen many times before, one “growing pain” to be aware of is spreading your PS resources too thin. As in the case with other European Web CMS vendors that have entered the U.S. market at some point in the past, Hippo customers should keep in mind the implications of a “partner model.” While the future may be bright, stay in the present moment and think of a possibly limited pool of implementation resources in the initial stages of market entry.

Hippo CMS 7 is available for a free-of-charge download from www.onehippo.org. Also, check out our take on the new version.

Open source offerings and associated services are getting better and starting to seem less risky, while IT budgets are shrinking. Result? What's bad for economy is clearly good for open source.

A recent survey shows that web content management is one of the prime "targets" for disruption by open source.

Open source vendors rejoice, closed source companies nod in agreement and utter the magic word "interoperability."