Content Management Matters ™

Sitecore recently announced the coming version of their flagship web content management system and today the product is officially out the door.

Our technical and editorial teams had an opportunity to test drive the new Sitecore 6 product last week. And with this latest version out of the gates today, we thought it apropos that we share a bit of what we saw.

In a very few words, version 6.0 is a nice corner-rounding release that demonstrates both that the company cares about its customers and that it has a successful process of building client feedback into the product development cycle.

Sitecore has announced that the latest version of their Web CMS “redefines web content management usability and control.” 75 organizations have been testing an early release version that is apparently turning heads. According to one Fortune 500 CIO tester it is “by far the most advanced CMS on the market now.” That’s a strong statement to make, but marketing is the name of the game when trying to sell one’s product.

Gartner is getting a little more hip naming their reports and JustSystems is one content management vendor benefiting from it. After all, being named a "cool vendor" can't hurt a company can it?

Sitecore collared some key customers over the holidays and badgered them for feedback about their short-term plans, hopes, and dreams for their content systems. Reports from the field identified three broad trends for Web CMS for 2008, and Sitecore have been so good as to share their findings with us.

The trends are the "integration of Web CMS into the enterprise," "adoption of mobile computing," and "the growth of .NET Framework."

Sitecore notes that while these trends were already apparent in 2007, they will have a more noticeable effect on the market in 2008.

We love to watch relationships blossom and bloom, and while the weather may be cold, the atmosphere is warm and fuzzy for the folks at Sitecore and Coveo Solutions, Inc., who recently announced a partnership to integrate Coveo’s search engine functionality into Sitecore’s CMS.

Marketing and tech firm FourMangos is collaborating with Sitecore, a .NET Web CMS provider, to build a web content management solution that appeals to both marketers and devs.

According to President and CEO Neil Fennessey of FourMangos, "This application, coupled with FourMangos’ innovative creative and web strategy, lets us offer our clients a more flexible architecture which allows them to be more resilient to changing strategies and content requirements."

FourMangos typically provides integrated marketing, enterprise solutions and strategy offerings for organizations worldwide. It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (A far cry from Sitecore, which is in Copenhagen.)

Aside from news of the partnership, there's no word yet on what the creative and tech-oriented enterprise CMS solution will be. But nothing brings a migraine on like the mental image of creatives and techies fighting over the same toy -- something we addressed after a SEO session at ad:tech Chicago.

Collaboration between the pair will only grow more necessary in the next couple of years, so here's to hoping the solution's an elegant one.

Plus, FourMangos and Sitecore are no strangers to such unlikely harmonies. They've worked together on a few projects previously. And last summer, Sitecore flirted with rich web to help improve corporate intranet technologies.

Sitecore Web CMS has just been bolstered by the addition of a new dedicated SEO module that enables the creation and management of web-optimized content.

The module embeds SEO analytics into the day-to-day CMS process, allowing content-administrators and creators to optimize for search engines as they go.

Amadeus Capital and Northzone have just joined hands with Peter Larsson (via Monterro Holdings) to acquire a majority stake in EPiServer.

Stockholm-based EPiServer, a web CMS purveyor, significantly exceeds estimated industry growth of 13 percent per annum.

CMS Watch points out this is a pretty ambitious series of changes for a company that only hired its first employee outside Sweden last year. But scaling in Scandinavia isn't as easy as one would hope.

EPiServer's biggest competitor, reach-wise, is Sitecore. There's also Polopoly, I guess, but we haven't heard much about them since that pay-per-view blogging thing.

The Amadeus/Northzone/Larsson transaction cost about US$ 23.5 million. Peter Larsson will be taking on the mantle of CEO.

Copenhagen-based Web CMS purveyor Sitecore has just announced the launch of Intranet Portal, which helps businesses provide employees with contextual information within a secured and central locale.

What makes this intranet offering such a big deal? It boasts a user experience that promises to match a given enterprise's website.

Crossing paths mid-flight with many a European CMS contender, Ektron, a New Hampshire based Web CMS vendor, has set up camp in the United Kingdom. Their new UK division will include business development, partner support, technical consulting, customer service and an in-house training center.

Though home to many vendors, the European CMS marketplace is in many ways still up for grabs.

And if you EU types would care to see some of these vendors go several rounds in the ring. Get on over to Denmark for the 2nd International Content Management Forum (cmf2006). The Danish CM event kicks-off Nov. 7th and runs through the 9th.

Choices, choices, choices... but no big players yet. That's the message for European CMS technology buyers, according to the European edition of the CMS Report by CMS Watch, released today. "Standard", and "Enterprise" -- for large multi-site projects -- editions are available.

Mid-market Web Content Management (CMS) vendors around the world are successfully winning business from larger CMS players.

"A plethora of mid-market Web content management vendors have been growing in size and numbers while most of the enterprise-tier players have taken their eye off the Web content ball in favor of grander ECM visions," says Tony Byrne of CMSWatch.