Content Management Solutions
Browser-based Solutions For Web Site Management
Webworld has been creating web Content Management System (CMS) solutions since the early days of the web. At that time there were no off-the-shelf CMS products, so we cut our teeth developing custom-coded CMS solutions. For example, in the late 90's we designed and developed large-scale, custom CMS solutions for Cable & Wireless USA (more) and CareerBuilder.com (more).
Since that time we have implemented a number of different proprietary CMS solutions and have even developed our own third-generation CMS product, the Webworld Content ManagerTM (more).
Different Categories of CMS Solution
We believe that CMS solutions generally fall into a few basic "needs" categories. While this is somewhat of an over simplification--and there can be exceptions that cross these lines--in our experience most client's CMS needs fall into one of the following three categories:
| Category |
Description |
Solution |
| SMALL |
This category covers web sites with less than 100 pages or so and with few content administrators, generally no more than one or two. |
Low-priced client-server web publishing software. We recommend Macromedia's Contribute product and their new Web Publishing System. |
| MEDIUM |
In this category fall web sites with hundred's or thousand's of pages. Some level of document management (to manage via the web site such document types as Word, Excel and Adobe PDF files) is typically required, as well as some content approval workflow. There may be as many as 50 users including content authors, editors and site admins. |
Webworld's product, the Webworld Content Manager, is our recommended choice in this category. |
| LARGE |
This is the enterprise category. In this category the site may have tens of thousands of pages and files (or more), hundreds of users (or more) and very complex content authoring and workflow requirements. This is the most expensive of implementations. Costs include the software licensing as well as usually costly installation and configuration consulting. |
There are many choices here including such products as Vignette Story Server, Interwoven and Documentum. |
We Can Help You Figure Out What You Really Need
There can be a lot of overlap between products within these admittedly arbitrary classifications. There is also a huge range of costs involved: both hard costs--for example software licenses and hosting infrastructure costs--and soft costs, such as paid consulting time for the installation and configuration stage. Buyers also need to take into account the often-overlooked costs to migrate existing content into the new system as well as costs to train your staff on using the new tools.
Further, it is not uncommon for custom programming to be required to meet a specific requirement that the CMS software does not meet "out of the box." This is a more common occurance than many CMS purchasers realize--and it is often underestimated by CMS sales people. (For more on this see our CMS Lifecycle page.)
We recommend that organizations carefully evaluate their business-critical CMS needs and select a product that closely fits their most important requirements. We advise purchasers to try not to get caught up in the distraction of "features" that you may or may not ever need.
With our long-term experience in CMS deployments we can help you assess and select a CMS that is the right fit for your needs and budget. We can also help with the implemention, customization and training for your CMS solution.
Contact us today to find out how we can help you with your CMS decision--click here.
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