[australia] Why home grown CMS?

Tue Oct 10 02:20:06 EDT 2006

Apologies in advance for length ...

Marius, thanks for the heads-up on the numbers, I don't remember seeing such
a breakdown before. It certainly sheds some light on the CMS Marketplace and
although I agree with Xavier, it is not surprising (or wrong) that more than
50 per cent are do-it-yourself or open source integrations. I think a number
of factors drive this result and at the same time are driving the
proliferation of products/vendors. Let me give you some examples ...

(1) The CMS Market is not homogenous
Despite what Gartner, Forrester and others would have us believe, this is
not a mature or rationalizing market (except at the top end). Why? Because
two forces are at play - innovation and change (this is not a mature IT
discipline and exploration still outstrips commoditization), and
fragmentation (this is not a single market but actually an aggregation of
completely different classes of product).

(2) Range of needs
Most organisations need a website, many need extranets and intranets and
some need digital asset and document management. This ads up to many, many
millions of organisations with needs that vary from your local Bridge Club
to CNN and from a sole-trader to Boeing. Content Management is not like web
browsing or word processing, one product doesn't work across the multitude
of needs. Heavy-metal ECM systems are the right fit in some cases,
enterprise-grade web CMS for others, lower spec for yet more, and of course
the range of open-source, do-it-yourself, static, FrontPage, Contribute,
etc., etc. Let me take a flight of fancy and try an analogy of comparing an
organisation's CM need with their office need (since probably as many
organisations need offices as websites).

Shiny CBD tower (Big name ECM) ... Some organisations need both the
functionality and image of using the biggest and the best. It may not be all
about practicality and it certainly isn't about cost, but it may be about
symbolism, image, expectation and risk.

Elegant and functional (Quality WCM) ... A bit flashy, someone else looks
after it for you, you use just as much as you need and you are never
(rarely) embarrassed by your choice.

Home Office (Do It Yourself) ... Only what you need, handcrafted to suit,
built on a shoestring and like homemade clothes all unique (warts and all),
usually either a learning experience or a step toward something more
serious, unless of course it works and your business wants to stay just as
it is. Of course it is hard to attract other resources to this model and
once the puppet master is gone, so is the office/CMS.

Office Manager (Open Source) ... You are running multiple sites, you do all
the administration, configuration, fit-outs, etc. If you want to be in the
engine room and get your hands dirty, this may be the way to go. The great
thing about Open Source is that all the office managers get together and
help each other out (as long as you back the right group). None of the
choices are wrong, if they fit the situation.

(3) Market confusion
No one knows all the products, what they do, their strengths and weaknesses
and where they fit best. Given that even the experts are poorly informed, it
is no wonder that those new to the field (or new to needing CM) end up
trying to do it themselves. Often this is the start of a process or
education that exposes alternatives if the 'builder' is willing to see it as
an education and let go. We tried our own home-grown CRM once. When we
finally found the right commercial product, it was difficult to let go of
our own system, even though the commercial one was cheaper than continuing
to build ours, better, growing faster and improved our processes. Sometimes
this is a hard lesson to learn. Lets face it, EGO plays a role.

(4) Path dependence
Many organisation charge their CM needs to 'web developers'. Web developers,
develop. Web designers, design. It is not surprising that if an organisation
chooses a designer they get a well designed but functionally poor website.
If an organisation chooses a web developer, they will develop a custom
outcome, strong in some areas, weak in others and often poorly conceived
from an information and design perspective. The web is/was a field of
development and it takes a long time for the momentum to change. In most
areas, the web is not a strategically guided medium of corporate
communication that is fully invested and resourced by organisations. How
many major businesses still let a manager's son's school friend build their
website? Not so many anymore, but still too many ... A sign that the web and
related digital media is still not mainstream in many circles.

All of these issues, confusion, proliferation, complexity, breadth and
diversity of need are all arguments for us acting to distribute knowledge
about CMS.

Although we all have our barrow to push, preferences and prejudices, the
great thing that CM Pros can offer is information, experiences and advice
that may help some of the DIY organisations find a cheaper, quicker and
ultimately better path, or at least help them build the right tool for them.

At the end of the day, these are all legitimate and suitable models if they
are the right fit and no one can or should own this whole diverse
marketplace.

Cheers,

David

P.S. Marcus / Xavier - thanks for yet another great thread!

On 10/10/06 2:24 PM, "Xavier Brouwer" <xbrouwer at autonomy.com> wrote:

> Eight years ago I put together a "home-grown" Perl-based global CMS system
> for HP from scratch because:
> 
> -there was nothing in the open source or commercial space which could do
> multibyte Asian languages (in fact the products struggled even with European
> languages back then!)
> -there was nothing which could process and transform messy unstructured
> legacy data into something presentable (Perl regexes came to the rescue!)
> 
> However, the industry and open source community have now matured, CMS' have
> become commodity products, and there should be few occasions now where a CMS
> needs to be built from scratch. In fact, a "home-grown" CMS built today will
> probably be heavy with open source components and perhaps even include some
> commercial components/tools.
> 
> Xavier Brouwer
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org
> [mailto:australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org] On Behalf Of Marius
> Coomans
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 1:45 PM
> To: australia at lists.cmprofessionals.org
> Subject: [australia] Why home grown CMS?
> 
> Why do Web developers prefer home grown Content Management Systems
> over commercial and open source CMS.
> 
> "Survey shows 36.75% use a homegrown system, 23.8% use an open source
> system, 10% use a commercial CMS" -
> http://activeweb.com.au/weblog/archives/2006/10/why_do_they_1.html
> 
> Marius Coomans
> _______________________________________________
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> australia at lists.cmprofessionals.org
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> 
> 
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