This rapid adoption of the Internet as a serious business tool has created a new organizational need- content management. In fact, the Gartner Group reports that by the year 2001 80% of Fortune 100 companies will be using content management to reduce costs by automating their content creation, management, and publication.This growing market has naturally attracted many new and established software companies looking to fill the needs of these businesses.
Types of Content Management Software Products
There are many types of players in the content management market, each with unique strengths and weaknesses, and with new capabilities being added by the month. Due to the rapid growth of this market segment, there is every reason to believe that this software volatility will continue. The following breakdown provides some insight into the current content management market and some of the companies competing within the market.
Established
These companies began in SGML and document management technologies. They have strong stories for XML and enterprise content management where the main input is office documents. Where they do not have particularly strong support is in Web-based technologies due to their history. These products tend to have a higher price tag ($200,000 and up).
Newcomers
These companies are fielding young product offerings and have the strongest story for supporting Internet companies. However, their support on the enterprise level, such as integration with legacy systems is not as strong. These products tend to fall in the middle of the price range. ($50,000 to $150,000).
Market Leaders
These companies were in early on the content management game. They have name recognition and a full spectrum of services and case studies. They tend to have a fuller product offering with such add on elements as merchandising and eCommerce solutions. Solutions in this category also tend toward the upper end of the pricing spectrum ($200,000 and up).
Evolution of Content Management Software
Since this market is not mature and in heavy flux, companies need to have very clear requirements when they go to product vendors. It is vitally important to be sure to judge the software on how it can meet the specific needs of your company. According to Gartner, companies should choose a system tactically, not strategically. Meaning, that they should pick something that will work for 2 to 2-1/2 years, with the assumption that they could very well reevaluate and replace it at that time.
Those organizations that want to compete successfully on the Web will require management of more than just text and code. They will need to look carefully into the following areas:- Change Management-versioning, scheduling, etc.
- Dynamic Content-expiration, inclusion of more than just text elements, such as video feeds, etc.
- Workflow
- Repository
- Templating
- Replication, Mirroring, Deployment, Load Balancing, and Failover
- Security
- Integration and Development Tools
Gartner anticipates that the evolution of these systems will probably be towards those supporting enterprise needs such as application server centered systems with a higher level of flexibility through technologies such as Enterprise Java Beans (EJB).
Content Management and my site: What can I expect?
There are four categories of Web sites, each mapping to a company's level of technical ability and business agility. In order to realize the competitive advantage that the Internet can provide, a company needs to progress down the levels at a greater pace than their competitors and at an equal pace with their customers.
Basic Web Presence - Consisting of an inexpensive Web server with low functionality, producing brochure-like content. The costs on this type of system run about $50,000.
Database Driven - This type of site provides more information and interactivity than the previous type. The site is usually used for sales prospecting, with a heavy channel focus. Personalization is provided to only large groups, such as a type of channel partner. The costs for this type of site runs anywhere from $200,000-$500,000.
Integration - The companies running these type of sites are the main group that is currently purchasing content management systems. Gartner classifies this as the maximum level that most businesses have reached to date. This type of site includes an application server and associated functionality such as load balancing, media asset management, search engine, and chat rooms. It may also contains eCommerce, extranets, advanced search functionality and interactivity, and may integrate with legacy data, ERP, customer relationship management and call center systems. At this point the costs begin to vary substantially, based on the type of functionality required, however tend to run from $500,000 to $2 million.
Transformation - Companies having this type of site have made the Internet and a strong Web presence core pieces of their business. The site would include tight partner integration, EDI, advanced personalization, multiple database servers, multiples app servers, backend integration, and a global scope for a price tag anywhere from $2 million and up.
As with any anything in the high tech world, the future of content management technology is unclear. However, one thing is guaranteed, the market will continue to grow at an astronomical rate. In fact, Forrester Research Group reports that organizations' Web content doubled between 1998 and 1999, and is expected to double again in 2000. The real question lies with you. Are you going to let the content manage your organization, or are your going to take control and manage it?