Vignette News & Articles

Hot on the heels of last week's move to "rescue" its competitors' customers, FatWire is back in the news. Fortifying their competitive edge, folks at FatWire (news, site) launched a new partner program aiming to extend reach and consulting capabilities globally.

Once Autonomy Interwoven and Vignette customers start jumping the ship (if they, in fact, do so), a stronger partner network will clearly come in handy. Sapient, Satyam and EMC Conchango are among FatWire’s "leading partners," if that tells you anything.

The Global Partner Program covers FatWire's full portfolio of solutions -- web content management, targeted marketing and analytics, collaboration and community, content integration, and mobile delivery.

Partners will be able to get certified to deliver the technical, business and marketing consulting services to customers, which should benefit all parties involved.

There are three levels:

• Registered Partner: Experience with multiple implementations, offer some services.
• Certified Partner: Experts in best practices with access to FatWire technical resources.
• Premium Partner: “Deepest knowledge” of best practices, highest levels of access to FatWire expertise and technical resources.

According to the vendor, 2008 had brought approximately 40% revenue growth. Without a successful partner network, it would be difficult to sustain growth. In most cases, it’s next to impossible to be a successful partner without vendor support.

ACE is the internal code name for the upcoming release of Vignette Content Management (VCM) product, which will see its better-than--V7.x light this summer.

Within an ace of the VCM V8 launch, we're giving you exclusive sneak peek into what to expect from Vignette.

Vignette has been thoroughly scolded for poor usability and outdated technology, among other things. But it does look like some positive changes are coming.

Competition in the Web CMS market is cutthroat. Not a single weakness goes unnoticed. Not a single slip goes unattacked. But it’s just business as usual, right? We all seize opportunities, especially in tight times.

FatWire (news, site) is no exception. Demonstrating as much, the web content management vendor has launched a "rescue program" for Interwoven and Vignette customers who are apparently plagued by their recent acquisitions by Autonomy and Open Text respectively.

What is FatWire offering as bait? Free licenses and "proven migration tools" valid until the end of September. Should you consider?

Despite going through turbulent times, Vignette announced upcoming availability of an update to its Vignette Media product. We covered Vignette Media last year, when it just came out. And yes, we expressed a bit of skepticism then.

The new Vignette Media 7.1 is still positioned as a digital media publishing platform aimed at TMEs (telecommunications, media and entertainment) and CMEs (communications, media and entertainment).

Using this platform, organizations can upload, publish and manage rich media, video, editorial and marketing content across multiple websites. The goal is still to be able to manage, promote and sell digital assets; as well as capture advertising revenue.

There doesn’t seem to be much detail yet on what new and/or improved functionality will be available in the upcoming release, but there’s a microsite here if you want to poke around.

Some of the known Vignette Media 7.1 features seem to include improved DAM and ingestion of large volumes of media assets. Plus -- some visual mechanisms to better manage data.

Vignette Video Services module remains to be part of this offering. So we, probably, should expect some improvements related to management of video assets.

Vignette Media 7.1 should be available in the second half of 2009. By then, all logistics of the Vignette acquisition by Open Text should be sorted out, but we don’t expect Open Text to have much influence on the upcoming release.

The Forrester Wave for Web Content Management For External Sites, Q2 2009 is out and there are 10 web content management vendors on the list that we all know and love well. SDL Tridion (news, site) took the top honors this time with Interwoven and FatWire close behind.

Why are these three vendors at the top and who else is on the list? Let's take a look.

It hasn’t been an easy year for anyone in the Content Management industry, so it really wasn't too much of a shock that earlier this month it was announced that Vignette (news, site) was being taken over by Open Text (news, site) and that they had a year-on-year first quarter drop off in revenue of 24.2% to US$ 33.9m.

Everyone’s feeling the pain and Vignette’s Q1 results were just a continuation of a trend that saw their total 2008 revenues drop-off by 11.6% over 2007.

But its not how you behave in the good times that marks you out as a market leader, its how you respond to difficulties and Vignette appears to be tackling the current economic downturn head-on.

Open Text (news, site) held their third quarter fiscal 2009 investor teleconference yesterday and as was expected there were lots of questions on the Vignette acquisition plans.

Open Text announced their plans to acquire Vignette (news, site) just yesterday morning. The reported deal size was about US$ 310 million -- a tidy sum for a content management systems vendor that has been struggling a bit as of late, with software license revenue in steep decline. Here are some insights as to why the ECM Canadians fell for the WCM Texans.

Everyone said that the Interwoven/Autonomy deal would only be the first in a series of big announcements within the enterprise content management world. And that it is.

Today, Canadian-based enterprise content management vendor Open Text (news, site) has reached a deal to buy Vignette Corporation (news, site) for US$ 310 million.

Vignette is expected to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Open Text. The deal will see Vignette stockholders get US$ 8 per share plus 0.1447 of Open Text stock.

The deal is expected to close the second half of this year. The news saw Open Text shares fall by 85 cents. Vignette's shares however soared US$ 3.32 -- a sign that shareholders see this as good news for the struggling enterprise content management firm.

"Vignette's customers represent some of the world's most powerful online brands and we are excited about the opportunity to expand the relationship with these customers and partners," Open Text Chief Executive John Shackleton said in a statement.

We are waiting on more details. When we get them, we'll be sure to pass them on.

There is not an organization out there today who isn't implementing or planning some kind of enterprise social computing solution. There are a lot of things to consider when developing your strategy and just as many technological solutions out there to choose from.

Here we offer you 8 articles on social computing, some focused on the plan, some focused on the technical solution. Both will provide you plenty of information to focus on your plans.

Ever thought Vignette was way too expensive for your content management heart's desires? Now, there may be a way to rethink this.

Today, Vignette Corporation (news, site) announced new licensing models for its web content management solutions, including a subscription-based model.

Social media and content management (ECM and WCM) is a hot topic as of late. Vignette (news, site) played in as well and released the updated Vignette Community Applications 7.1.

This social media solution targets organizations looking to engage with internet audiences and spice up their online presences with communities, social interaction and collaborative communication.

Despite some concerns, it looks like there are still enough clever folks left at VIGN not only to tackle the latest Vignette Content Management 7.6 release, but also to deliver a new admin module called the Vignette Transfer Tool.

We glanced at V7.6 earlier this year, so let’s switch our attention to the Transfer Tool. This module is designed to make techies happier and to simplify deployment, configuration and administration of Vignette Content Management environments.

In essence, it allows replicating QA or development environments in a simpler than before fashion, among (we would expect) other things.

In addition, despite recent losses, it looks like Vignette is investing more money in R&D and promises to release additional components for its web content management system in the coming months, including improved integration with SharePoint (the MOSS-VIGN relationship started in 2006).

What’s piqued our interest even more are updates coming to the company's Social Media Solutions. These revolve around web 2.0, social collaboration and video management. We will, of course, keep you posted as details unfold.

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.

Following a round of layoffs at the dusk of last year, Vignette has announced 2008 fiscal year and Q4 2008 financial results. Total 2008 revenue has dropped 11.6% over 2007. Vignette's Q4 2008 total revenue was US$ 37.2 million, a decrease of 29.4% from Q4 2007.

As we've mentioned before, Vignette is going through some rough patches and keeps steadily losing revenue. Let’s take a closer look at the numbers and their impact.

During economic times like these, most companies are looking to cut costs rather than invest in the newest trends in technology. Vignette is an organization that has had its share of tough times, but those setbacks are not keeping the leadership of the company from dedicating one of their most talented resources to the booming world of social media.