Web CMS

It's been a busy summer for the Plone project. In particular, they put out a call for Plone Improvement Proposals (PLIPs) for Plone 4. They also split the initial vision for Plone 4 into a more do-able Plone 4 for this year and a more far-reaching update for Plone 5 slated for next year. Following the PLIP process, the Plone 4 Framework Team has polished off their list of what's to be included in this release. Even with scaled back plans the Plone 4 team chose to include a record 40 improvement proposals.

The Open Text Web Solutions group, formerly known as RedDot Web Content Management (WCM), has just put out a new and significant release of their mid-range Web CMS product. Yes, Vignette (when the acquisition is finalized) will take place alongside Web Solutions version 10 in this WCM quilt. This update brings improvements to the technology stack, more Enterprise CMS and SAP integration patchwork and an updated user interface. But OTEX didn’t stop there. Let's see what else they've done. We spoke with Marci Maddox, Open Text’s director for global product marketing, to get the details.

The initial vision for Web CMS Plone 4 was so complex that it wasn't slated for release until 2010. In order to allow for smaller, more focused releases, Plone Founder Alexander Limi announced at the Plone Symposium at Penn State that the Plone Roadmap has been revised. What was originally Plone 4 has been split into Plone 4 and Plone 5. The New Plone 4Plone 4 is due in late 2009 and its release manager is Eric Steele.  This release will feature:

Liferay Portal Enterprise Edition 5.2 is now available, boosting the speed and feature-set found in the previously released Standard Edition, including benchmarked performance improvements. The Enterprise Version Catches UpLiferay Portal Enterprise Edition was launched back in January 2009 to complement the existing free Standard Edition. Version 5.2 of the Standard Edition was launched back in February to the open source community, offering content management, collaboration tools, mashups and social networking applications in a single package.

Vivvo, the simple PHP-based Web content management system that we noted lacks basic capabilities but is still suitable for small publishers, is extending its arms.In what’s undoubtedly an attempt to nab some extra fans (and do away with the burden of downloading), the company is now offering hosted trial versions of their solution, free for the asking. The next step, according to the founder, is to provide a full SaaS CMS offering.

If you were to believe all the hype surrounding concrete5, an open source Web content management system, then a remarkable new system has just gone on General Availability (GA).While its usually a good idea to give every company a hearing and every piece of software a trial run, generally PR emanating from a company about their own product should be taken with even the tiniest pinch of salt.Especially when they are claiming to be better than Drupal and Joomla, two of the most well known open source web content management systems.

How do I know? Some smaller vendors are starting to peddle their CMS wares via spam. The latest was a random mass mailing I received today to one of our spam-catcher addresses pitching, "Advanced CMS for Your Site!" -- from an interactive agency I had never heard of. They wanted $3900 for their product. That could buy a lot of "enhancement" pills. But the address and phone at least pointed to what seems like a legitimate firm in Silicon Valley rather than Nigeria.

Version 3.3 of the Plone web content management system is on its way, and the Plone Foundation is inviting all and sundry to help test during its short beta cycle. Come one, come all, pound on this baby and make it great. New with 3.3: Features Added, Bugs FixedA number of enhancements and bug fixes are included with this release, such as:

Well this is kind of interesting. Do you have SharePoint Services (WSS) up and running, but would really like to have some web publishing capabilities on top of it. Unfortunately you don't have the money to invest in full blown MOSS just to get web content management. CompleteSharePoint.NET offers you a solution — a Web content management system built on top of WSS.We were interested in understanding a bit more about this new Web CMS, so we asked Tommy Segoro — its creator — a few questions. CompleteSharePoint.NET was built by Tommy Segoro, a Practice Lead working at L7 Solutions in Perth, Western Australia. It is currently a beta solution. Released on CodePlex in October of last year, CS.NET has been downloaded over 519 time to date.

Liferay, Inc., announced the version 5.2 release of Liferay Portal Standard Edition — an open source portal platform that integrates content management, collaboration and social networking. The latest release promises enhanced performance, scalability and simplified administration. Liferay now offers a value-added commercial Enterprise Edition (EE) in addition to the open source Standard Edition (SE).

And so it has started. The end of the year is upon us and everyone is thinking about what's ahead for 2009. Independent analyst firm CMS Watch has offered up their predictions for the coming year. If the results of how they faired with last year's predictions are any indication, we may all do well to pay attention. Like the 12 days of Christmas, CMS Watch has chosen to offer up 12 predictions for the technology world for 2009.

Drupal is at it again with another round of updated releases. While not major releases, these new versions from Drupal do address a number of security fixes and bugs that were brought to their attention via Drupal’s bug tracking system. Drupal has announced that there will be no new features added to 6.x or 5.x. They are holding the feature updates and implementation of new features until they are ready to release Drupal 7.x in the near future.

As I wandered around the Gilbane Boston 2008 show last week, the question I heard people asking each other most often was some variation of: "How's business?" Almost everyone is trying to figure out what the economic train wreck is doing (or might do) to IT spending.The Good News is that showgoers were, by and large, surprisingly optimistic. It seems in particular that government spending on Web and Search technologies hasn't abated (yet). "We've seen deals take longer to close," one vendor told me, "but they do eventually close. They don't just evaporate. At least, not yet."

The technology marketplace has seen consistent growth in the acceptance of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models, and Web Content Management is certainly no exception. Yet, the major SaaS-based Web CMS vendors that we evaluate - Clickability, CrownPeak, and OmniUpdate - are all relatively small players, and they have had to evolve to meet changing customer demands. In particular, our recent research for the latest edition of The Web CMS Report 2009 uncovered several inter-related trends in the SaaS Web Content Management space:

Open Text has announced today the release of “next generation” Web Solutions. The fancy name is, in essence, a new release of the company’s Web CMS child — RedDot. It’s a name change and a total rebranding makeover. With all the underlying RedDot WCM technology still in the backbone, it is now called Web Solutions. The focus of this new release is on intranets, extranets, Enterprise 2.0 solutions and Web 2.0 tools that come armed with greater security and control over social media initiatives.

PacktPub has begun announcing the winners for the 2008 CMS Awards. The competition has been stiff with names like Joomla, Drupal and WordPress dominating the news. Fortunately, PacktPub offers a category for Other Open Source CMS. The winners of this category, announced today, may surprise some. The category for Best Other Open Source CMS focuses on the CMS’s that are not based on PHP/MySQL and this year’s competition was closer than expected, according to PacktPub.com. With a large base of CMS’s covered in the public phases of the competition the judges had their work cut out for them. But the four of them agreed…someone has to win.

Web CMS vendor Bitrix announced new editions of Bitrix Site Manager for managing enterprise portals, media portals, large e-stores and other sites with high traffic or content volume. You can now choose from the Bitrix Site Manager Premium or Ultimate Editions — both touted as “robust and proven technology frameworks.”

At a client meeting this morning, I was reminded that the Percussion Rhythmyx Web CMS supports roles, but not groups. For larger, distributed enterprises, or those with multiple web properties, the distinction can become important. As Web CMS Report 2009 readers know, a surprising number of tools support roles but not groups, or groups but not roles. (To be fair, Rhythmyx has a kind of poor substitute called "communities.") Why does this matter? Well, roles helpfully circumscribe what a contributor can do, but groups are handy for defining where and how. And groups can often be nested, which is useful within larger or more complex operations. The screen from our WCM Education course shows some example roles and groups.

In research for the Web CMS Report 2009, just released today, I've undertaken vendor briefings, customer de-briefings, product demos, and miscellaneous discussions with key personnel (including some senior VPs) from more than a dozen Web CMS vendors, ranging in size from tiny 20-person boutiques to billion-dollar behemoths. It's interesting to compare where the various companies are now to where they were six months or a year ago. Not just the companies themselves, but their products, customers, partners -- the whole CMS ecosphere.

In the crush to support public websites, I think (too) many Web CMS vendors are ignoring Intranet scenarios. Nevertheless, the practice of managing Intranets continues to march ahead globally at a rapid clip. Today at KM World and Intranets 2008, I had the good fortune to catch up with several Intranet leaders and gurus alike. If you care about Intranets, two things you should know about: StepTwo Design has issued its second annual Intranet Innovations Awards. A quick perusal of just a handful of the global winners suggests that at least within some enterprises, Intranets are alive and well.