IBM`s Web content management (WCM) technologies have been stagnating at a time when competitors are paying greater attention to Web publishing tool sets, according to CMS Watch, a vendor-independent analyst firm.
This analysis stems from CMS Watch`s 2008 "Web CMS Report", released early October, which evaluates 30 major WCM offerings.
As part of its ongoing research, CMS Watch interviews hundreds of Web managers around the world.
IBM`s competitors have been busy in the past year, explains CMS Watch. Microsoft rebuilt its WCM services from scratch under Office SharePoint 2007. EMC is reinvesting in Documentum`s WCM capabilities. Oracle acquired Stellent, an ECM vendor with a strong focus on WCM.
None of these products are without their flaws, EMC Watch says, but each has seen substantial attention of late.
IBM`s Workplace Web Content Management (WWCM) product remains a generation behind, and it is conceivable that IBM may simply elect to acquire a WCM vendor to fill the gap, explains CMS Watch.
Furthermore, it cautions that IBM WWCM customers may risk the kind of painful upgrade or even replacement of the kind endured by Microsoft Content Management Server licensees when the company rewrote that tool under SharePoint.
WWCM customers have told CMS Watch that the product remains weak in the following areas:
* WWCM comes in two different versions (a Java edition associated with WebSphere and a Lotus edition attached to Domino), which is confusing for buyers and appears to have dissipated development energy.
* The product is comparatively feature-poor, especially with respect to globalisation services, at a time when many large customers are re-examining their Web publishing operations in a global context.
* WWCM suffers from a legacy of "bugginess" (somewhat redressed in a recent dot-release), a comparatively quiescent customer community, and much less publicly-available information than other IBM server products.
* Experienced WWCM consulting and integration talent appears in particularly short supply.
"Workplace WCM seems lost at IBM," argues CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne. "That doesn`t mean current licensees should stop using it," Byrne adds, "but it does mean that Big Blue customers should not automatically implement WWCM without carefully considering other alternatives."
The 2008 Web CMS Report includes detailed comparisons of 30 vendors across 18 key feature categories, as well as evaluations of individual product suitability for 12 universal CMS scenarios.
A separate European edition focuses on vendors active in that region.
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