CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: THE NEW MATH FOR …lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/bsx/ContentManagement.NFS... · enlightened organizations continue to maintain separate information silos thus

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: THE NEW MATH FOR SELECTING YOUR PLATFORM

The Definitive Guide to Today’s Content Management Systems and Vendors

Jonathan B. Spira

Chief Analyst

Cody Burke

Senior Analyst

September 2009

“CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: THE NEW MATH FOR SELECTING YOUR PLATFORM” copyright © 2009 Basex, Inc.

All data, opinions, and projections in this report are based on Basex’ judgment at the time of publication and are subject to change.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the express written permission of Basex.

Basex, the Basex logo, Knowledge. Analysis. The Right Decisions For Your Business, Collaborative Business Knowledge, Collaborative Business Environments, KWIQ and Knowledge Worker Impact Quotient are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Basex, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Editorial Direction: Basilio Alferow

To remain competitive, businesses need access to information and the

strategic advice to use it wisely.

That’s why many organizations turn to BasexBasex is the world’s foremost authority

on the issues companies faceas they enter the knowledge economy.

www.basex.com

http://www.basex.com


INTRODUCTION TO CONTENT MANAGEMENT ..1

CORE FUNCTIONALITY ..................................3Core Features of ECM ................................3

THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT MARKET ...........5

NAVIGATING THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT MARKET .......................................................9

THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT INTEROPERABILITY STANDARD ....................12

THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY ......13TIER 1 (ENTERPRISE) PLATFORMS ............13TIER 2 PLATFORMS ......................................14TIER 3 PLATFORMS .....................................15TIER 4 COMMERCIAL OPEN SOURCE .......16TIER 5 OPEN SOURCE .................................16

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP .......................17

True Open Source v. Commercial Open Source ..........................................19

THE NEW BUILD V. BUY EQUATION ...............20

RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................23

Contents

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NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

C O N T E N T M A N AG E M E N T S Y S T E M S :

T H E N E W M AT H F O R S E L E C T I N G YO U R P L AT F O R M

1

In the knowledge economy, business information – the lifeblood of any organization – arrives in many forms via a variety of technologies and devices. While as recently as ten years ago critical business information might have arrived on your desk once a week in the form of bound reports, today we are constantly confronted with text documents, spreadsheets, XML files, images, Web pages, e-mail messages, instant messages, text messages, streaming audio and video, and presentation files, just to name a few.

What we call “content” arrives via a desktop computer, laptop, netbook, smartphone, printer, eBook reader, and still occasionally, a fax machine. Included somewhere in all of this are sales reports, projections, marketing collateral, architectural drawings, and contracts.

Compared to the neat columns and rows that, for example, accounting systems maintain most of this information is unstructured. It also comprises ca. 80% of all content within the enterprise. As a result, companies need to exercise care when managing these assets.

On a very basic level, content management (CM) refers to the software and systems that create, edit, publish, and manage various types of content, including what one finds on a Web site or corporate intranet. Such tools are by necessity frequently aimed at the non-technical user.

An enterprise content management (ECM) system systematically captures, organizes, stores, and delivers this unstructured content, both within the enterprise and beyond its borders. The system manages its content in accordance with pre-established business rules, policies, and procedures, taking into consideration requirements for archiving and compliance as well as how the information is used. A good content management system organizes what it collects using categories and metadata so that knowledge workers using the system can locate needed information quickly and accurately.

The rationale for an enterprise content management system is simple: today, content management in most organizations is haphazard. Much content resides on the knowledge workers computers’ individual hard

INTRODUCTION TO CONTENT

MANAGEMENT

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2

drives; other content is found on shared network drives. Still, other content is found in the thousands of long-forgotten Lotus Notes databases and SharePoint sites that knowledge workers created on an ad hoc basis. Despite what we know about the dangers of such practices, even the most enlightened organizations continue to maintain separate information silos thus limiting access and information sharing. By breaking down barriers and making content accessible throughout an organization, an enterprise content management system can facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across departments, business units, and even beyond an organization’s borders to business partners and customers.

Managing content in this manner also reduces the amount of information overload that knowledge workers within an organization encounter on a daily basis. A typical knowledge worker loses as much as 25% of his day as a result of information overload’s symptoms, including not being able to find the information he is looking for. In this case, the typical response is for the knowledge worker to recreate it, something that may result in inferior content and incorrect information, not to mention a significant waste of time on the part of multiple participants.

Finally, more so today than at any other previous time, knowledge workers and business partners require access to information that crosses traditional boundaries such as when creating new products or updating existing ones, collaborating on a new corporate strategy, engaging new customers, or monitoring existing relationships.

It is important, however, to choose a content management system that meets your organization’s needs, now and for the foreseeable future. Choosing the right system is far from straightforward; finding one that’s “just right” for your organization requires an in-depth understanding of your organization’s needs as well as a clear understanding of what the market has to offer.

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The content management market varies from the high end, with sophisticated systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and support thousands of users, to the low end, with tools intended for single site management. Despite the variation in the market, some components are common to almost all ECM packages.

CORE FEATURES OF ECM

Document management Manages so-called library services, such as document check-in and check-out, version control, and security.

Document imaging Captures and manages images scanned from paper.

Records management Manages document archiving, retention and compliance policies, and compliance issues.

Workflow Routes content, assigns work tasks, and creates an audit trail.

Search Allows search within structured and unstructured information in various repositories.

Web Content Management Controls the content that is presented on a Web page or intranet page and can include support for templates and workflow.

Collaboration Supports document sharing and team support through the use of team rooms, discussion forums, and social software tools like wikis and blogs that are integrated into a content management system.

Access control and security Allows managers to limit which users are authorized to edit content on specific pages or documents.

Templates Allows the system administrators to change the look and feel of the Web site.

User interface Many content management systems utilize a Web-based interface, accessible from any Internet browser.

Link management Ability to automatically update other links and content based on content changes (such as deleting links to deleted pages).

Lifecycle Services Series of business rules and business policies for documents that include create, modify, review, approve, publish, and retire.

Classification Services Analysis and classification of content to improve search accuracy. This can include metadata and the development of taxonomies

Business Process Management Content-intensive business processes require tools to monitor and manage them across the enterprise.

Content Delivery Provides content to applications and other systems and platforms, generally based on business rules that define what content is to be distributed as well as how often it is to be updated.

CORE FUNCTIONALITY

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4

In addition, many systems sport more advanced features, which include:• Revision control and editorial history.• Generation of dynamic pages (as opposed to flat HTML

pages).• Advanced workflow capabilities, to pass documents along

according to certain processes, before they are published on the sites.

• Staging and testing servers.• Social software tools.

Overall, content management systems can be as complex or as simple as needed. Not all features are needed by all organizations. Indeed, the hard part is assessing individual user and organization-wide needs to find the appropriate system.

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The content management space continues to be one of the major growth areas in the IT sector. Basex estimates that the U.S. market for content management achieved $4.1 billion in revenue in 2008 and will reach $10 billion by 2014. The worldwide market should see a steady growth rate of 15% for the next two to three years.

In the past decade, the market has also been marked by tremendous consolidation, which indicates a maturing of the market. Ten years ago the market was made up of multiple small players, and many larger organizations were reticent to purchase software from smaller players. The largest players in the content management space today, including EMC, IBM, Open Text, and Oracle, solidified their position through multiple acquisitions.

Despite the consolidation, mid-tier vendors, such as FatWire and Day Software, still remain strong and report unprecedented growth. In

part, this is because many mid-sized companies are adopting content management tools while, prior to 2001, content management was largely the province of the world’s largest companies. Indeed, growth in the true enterprise market is somewhat stagnant; the real action is for those supporting content in small- and medium-sized businesses.

Open source content management is gaining more traction in some circles and the overall open source software market is growing rapidly in terms of public- and private-sector adoption. For those organizations with IT staff that can support such tools, open source software can create significant value and allows companies to pursue projects that would otherwise be shelved due to cost. Some organizations, however, do not have the experience or the bandwidth to support open source projects; still others refuse to

adopt them due to political reasons, a lack of understanding about the quality or reliability of open source, confusion about software licensing, or a general lack of understanding of the open source market. Nonetheless,

THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT

MARKET

Fig. 1 Bluenog’s HTML editor in ICE CMS, based on the TinyMCE HTML Editor.

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open source content management projects, such as Drupal, Joomla, and Plone, have seen substantial growth in the past few years.

In addition, a new category of vendor, commercial open source, has emerged, with companies such as Alfresco and Bluenog leading the charge. Commercial open source vendors offer their customers the advantages of

open source code with the security blanket of a traditional software company’s support.

Finally, for very basic content management requirements, there is another option, namely to use a blogging platform, such as Wordpress. Either through the use of plug-ins

Fig. 2 This team workspace was developed using EMC CenterStage.

Fig. 3 Autonomy TeamSite’s SitePublisher module for modifying page content..

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and modifications to templates and administrative panels or a working knowledge of PHP and MySQL, it is possible to recast Wordpress as a basic CMS. The Web contains a wealth of information on how to fine tune the platform to meet basic CMS requirements. Although its use is not suited

for large deployments or enterprise level use, Wordpress has proven to be a powerful tool and has been successfully deployed as a CMS for libraries, community sites, and personal and small business Web sites, due to its ease of use, track-backs, in-line linking, and built-in RSS feeds.

There are still untapped opportunities and unfulfilled requirements in the content management space. Globalization continues to play an expanding role here as more and more organizations are starting to standardize on a single platform for all markets in order to provide translated content and

a global presence for their products.

Finally, knowledge workers face more types of content than ever. It’s no longer just about managing Web pages, intranet pages, and extranet pages – or even blogs. Now managers have to contend with wikis,

Fig. 4 Open Text’s LiveLink administrator personal page, showing events, communities, questions, and active items.

Fig. 5 This screenshot of Fatwire Content Server shows the user’s content management interface home page.

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RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, podcasts, and video. Content management tools need to coexist with or even manage many of these technologies to ensure consistent content control, ensure compliance, and reduce wasted cycles and duplication of effort.

Organizations are discovering that customers and business partners have developed new and innovative ways of using content that weren’t anticipated and content management systems need to address these.

It’s therefore not surprising that content management platforms have now been accorded the status of essential IT infrastructure; however, given their mission-critical status, choosing the right content management system for your organization is more important than ever. In addition, the increase in content creation makes it even more critical that companies manage content more carefully so as to avoid contributing unnecessarily to the problem of information overload.

Fig. 6 This site was built with Acquia Drupal, a packaged collection of essential Drupal modules. Acquia is a commercial open source company that offers a special version of the CMS based on Drupal 6, as well as support on a subscription basis.

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Today, organizations increasingly need content management systems that address multiple needs; content management is no longer just for Web sites. In addition, while content management was once the domain of large companies, low-priced basic systems have allowed smaller companies to benefit as well.

Content management tools permit a knowledge worker with limited or non-existent technical skills to create and manage content. The emergence of increasingly simple tools to publish content has led to a reduced reliance on IT departments and the need for specialized training. As a result, not only is more content being created, but it is being generated at a faster pace than ever before.

This makes having the right content management tool for your organization more important than ever.

Fortunately, it’s gotten simpler to find the right tool. The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) market consists of tools that integrate a broad range of content management functionality that previously would have required the use of multiple tools and platforms.

Companies typically end up deploying a variety of content management tools within their organizations. Sometimes companies end up with dozens of ways of managing the same content. Such “technology sprawl” results in disparate systems that may not work well together, unnnecessary friction being introduced into knowledge sharing, and ultimately, information overload as multiple tools compete for the knowledge worker’s attention.

In addition, compliance and information retention requirements are gaining higher visibility within organizations, often at the CXO level. An increase in the reliance on mobile technology makes it incumbent for organizations to make information available across a plethora of different device types without compromising security. Finally, alternative delivery models, such as SaaS and open source licensing, are garnering interest at the highest levels of organizations.

NAVIGATING THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT

MARKET

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The increased visibility and importance of content management in the enterprise means that it is increasingly being delivered by such major vendors as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and EMC, as opposed to smaller, niche vendors. Typically, several if not all of these vendors are already present and playing key roles in organizations providing them with entree to infrastructure and information silos that form the basis of content-centric applications.

Four vendors, Autonomy, IBM, EMC, and Open Text, hold more than 50% of the content management market. Vendors whose sole focus is content management, such as Day, FatWire, Percussion, and Xythos, must now compete with the 800 pound gorillas in the room, while “alternative” vendors such as Alfresco and Bluenog, which rely on open source projects, are gaining increased attention as alternatives.

Microsoft has gained an increased presence in the market at the low end, probably at the expense of smaller traditional CM vendors such as Clickability, Crown Peak, and Ektron. Indeed, Microsoft has driven significant change in the space with the introduction of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Not only has Microsoft gained significant traction with its offerings, but other vendors, such as Open Text, have used the Microsoft platform as a building block for new offerings that use SharePoint as their foundation.The SharePoint platform, however, is destined to remain limited to workgroup and departmental applications, coexisting with ECM platforms by allowing companies to use simpler and more cost effective tools for simpler tasks. Ultimately, however, the cost of maintaining a dual-tier structure for content management may go by the wayside as higher-end systems become more user friendly and become integrated with standard desktop productivity tools such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes.

Today, fairly sophisticated content management systems are within reach of the budgets of many small- and medium-sized enterprises, commonly referred to as the SME market.

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The current content management market may be divided into five tiers. The first tier is comprised of enterprise-level software that can handle almost any content management task. This versatility comes, however, at a price: Tier 1 content management systems, be they from Autonomy, EMC, IBM, or Open Text, are excellent examples of the functionality, reliability, and scalability of CM software, but their daunting price tags make them an impractical choice for an SME buyer. In that grouping, Open Text stands alone as a vendor focused solely on the CM market. Tier 2 companies such as Day Software, FatWire, Hyland, Percussion, and SDL Tridion, tend to focus more on the content management space than the diversified Tier 1 companies and offer much — but not all — of the functionality of the Tier 1 products at a somewhat lower cost. Microsoft’s SharePoint offering falls into this category as well.

The third tier, which comprises a significant portion of the CM market, is made up largely of smaller players such as Crown Peak and Ektron.

Finally, the two remaining tiers comprise commercial open source (such as Alfresco and Bluenog) and open source software (Drupal, Joomla, and Plone). Simple content management software can be designed fairly easily by those with the technical know-how using open source tools. Many end-users have tried to design such software themselves, with varying levels of success.

Open source software is software that is compliant with the criteria promulgated by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The license and distribution terms call for making the software freely distributable and modifiable, with access to the source code (for complete details, see “OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP” on page 17).

Open source CM vendors typically offer their software through business models that incorporate one or more of the following strategies:

• Create and offer an open source platform, charging for licenses, enhancements, and support (e.g. Acquia and Bluenog)

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• Create two versions, one meeting the OSI model and one for commercial distribution (e.g. Alfresco)

• Create derivative closed-source offerings that have an open source core (e.g. IBM’s use of Apache in WebSphere)

THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT INTEROPERABILITY STANDARD

For organizations with multi-vendor, multi-repository content management environments, the time and money that must be spent to integrate these systems with other enterprise tools, as well as to get disparate content management platforms to somehow talk to one another, is significant. Until such integration occurs, a significant amount of content is accessible only within its original platform. This means that most organizations have not even come close to unlocking the full value of their content.

As companies move deeper into the knowledge economy, content management is no longer a platform that can evolve separately from other key application platforms in a company’s information infrastructure: it has to be fully integrated.

The future of the knowledge workers’ desktop lies in a fully-integrated Collaborative Business Environment, a workspace that supersedes the traditional desktop metaphor and provides the knowledge worker with access to all forms of information, resources (including people), tools, and applications that support his work. A true Collaborative Business Environment will include systems that integrate multiple content repositories and provide seamless access to enterprise content.

Content management vendors recognized that a common standard was needed; one that would allow knowledge workers to access disparate repositories and, in 2006, EMC, IBM, and Microsoft began discussions towards that end. The result was the Content Management Interoperability Standard, or CMIS. The new standard is a jointly developed specification that uses Web Services to enable application interoperability with disparate content management repositories. By the time CMIS was announced in September of 2008, the three partners had been joined by Alfresco, BEA (now Oracle), Open Text, and SAP. At that time, the standard was turned over to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for advancement through its standards

development process.

The goal for CMIS is to reduce the impact on IT stemming from maintaining multi-vendor, multi-repository content management platforms. Companies typically incur high costs in order to create and maintain code that integrates different ECM systems within their organizations. Software vendors have to create platform-specific applications that work with a specific CM platform. The CMIS specification is designed to support integration

between multiple vendors and repositories, making the added expense a thing of the past.

CMIS, which is development platform and language agnostic, is designed to support existing content repositories, meaning that organizations will be able to unlock content they already have built up, in some cases, over several decades. It will decouple Web services and content from the repository itself, thereby allowing organizations to

manage content independently. It also supports the development of composite applications and mash-ups.

Currently, multiple vendors and platforms support CMIS including Acquia, Alfresco, Day Software, Drupal, Ektron, EMC, Fatwire, IBM, Joomla, Microsoft, Nuxeo, Open Text, Optaros, and Vignette (recently acquired by Open Text) among others.

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THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY

TIER 1 (ENTERPRISE) PLATFORMS

Company Year founded Offerings Date

releasedNext

versionNo. of

CustomersEntry-level

System Price

Autonomy 1996Autonomy Interwoven TeamSite 6.7.2 Mar. 2009 NA Not disclosed Not disclosedAutonomy iManage WorkSite 8.5 Jun. 2009 NA Not disclosed Not disclosedAutonomy Interwoven LiveSite 3.1.02 Jun. 2009 NA Not disclosed Not disclosed

EMC 1979 EMC Documentum 6.5 Jul. 2008 NA 20,000 $100,000 * $200,000 **

IBM 1919Lotus Quickr 8.2 May 2009 Q3 2009 Not disclosed

$10,000 * $100,000 *** (not product specific)

Infosphere Content Collector 2.1 Feb. 2009 Oct. 2009 Not disclosed

FileNet Content Manager 4.5.1 Aug. 2009 NA Not disclosed

Open Text 1991

Open Text ECM Suite includes: Open Text Content Lifecycle Management (CLM) 9.7.1, Open Text Records Management and Open Text Workflow

Mar. 2008 NA50,000 (total Open Text customers)

$239,148 (CLM license for 250 users)

Imaging 9.5.4 Jan. 2008 NACollaboration 9.7 Jun. 2009 NAOpen Text Web Solutions 10 Jun. 30 1st half 2010

Oracle 1977

Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite 10gR3 includes: 2007 11g –Not

disclosedOver 7,000 (total ECM customers)

$150,000 (ECM Suite per CPU)

Universal Content Management May 2009 Not disclosedWeb Content Management Jan. 2009 Not disclosedUniversal Records Management 2007 Not disclosedImaging and Process Management Jul.2009 Not disclosedInformation Rights Management Jul. 2009 Not disclosed

Vignette 1995 Vignette Content Management (VCM) 7.6 Dec. 2008 2nd half 2009 500 $95,000

Xerox 1906Xerox DocuShare Content Management Platform 6.5 Jun. 2009 NA Not disclosed $3,600 (20 users)

DocuShare CPX Mar. 2009 NA Not disclosed $18,000 (10 users)DocuShare Express Mar. 2009 NA Not disclosed $1,800 (10 users)

* small deployments ** midsize deployments *** large deployments NA = Not available All prices are approximate

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http://www.autonomy.com

http://www.emc.com

http://www.ibm.com

http://www.opentext.com

http://www.oracle.com

http://www.vignette.com

http://www.xerox.com



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releasedNext

versionNo. of


System Price

Alterian 1997Alterian Content Manager Enterprise Edition (CME) 5.9 Jun. 2009 NA 500 (WCM

customers) $100,000

Alterian Content Manager Corporate Edition (CMC) 6.1 Jul. 2009 NA $25,000

Day Software 1993

CQ5 5.2 (includes CRX ECM, WCM, DAM, and Social Collaboration content applications)

Mar. 2009 Q4 2009 250+

$50,000 (CRX ECM) $120,000 (CQ5 WCM, includes CRX)

FatWire 1996Content Server 7.5 Dec. 2008 NA 500+ Not disclosed

TeamUp Jun. 2009 NA

Content Integration Platform Jun. 2009 NA

Hyland 1998 OnBase 9 Summer 2009 Fall 2009 8,200 Not disclosed

Microsoft 1975Microsoft Enterprise Content Management 1 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Nov. 2006 (business)Jan. 2007 (consumer)

NA 100,000+ NA

Percussion 1994 Percussion CM System 6.7 Jun. 2009 NA 200+

$72,000 (Standard Edition, Shared Development Server, and 1st year Support & Maintenance)

SDL Tridion 1999 SDL Tridion 2009 May 2009 NA 600+ Not disclosed

NA = Not available All prices are approximate

TIER 2 PLATFORMS

At Press Time Open Text recently announced plans to update its suite of Web Content Management (WCM) offerings with technology and products from Vignette, which Open Text recently acquired. The company announced that Vignette Social Media Solutions will be the foundation of the new Social Marketplace offering that will be added to Open Text’s Social Media solutions.

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http://www.alterian.com

http://www.day.com

http://www.day.com

http://www.fatwire.com

http://www.onbase.com

http://www.microsoft.com

http://www.percussion.com

http://www.sdltridion.com

http://www.sdltridion.com



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TIER 3 PLATFORMS


releasedNext

versionNo. of


System Price

Clickability 1999 On-Demand CM Kangaroo Release Aug. 2009 NA 400+ websites $30,000 (annual subscription)

CrownPeak 2001 Crown Peak CMS NA NA 100+ $4,000 (monthly)

Ektron 1998 CMS400.Net 7.6 Sep. 2008 NA 200+ $5,000

EPiServer CMS 1994 EPiServer CMS 5 R2 SP 2 Jun. 2009

EPiServer CMS 6 - Q4 2009

2,500 $15,000

Ingeniux 1999 Ingeniux CMS 6.0 Jun. 2008 NA NA NA

PaperThin 1993 CommonSpot CMS 5.1 Jun. 2009 Fall 2009 300 $20,000

Sitecore 2001 Sitecore CMS 6.10 Jun. 2009 NA 1600+ $15,000


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http://www.clickability.com

http://www.crownpeak.com

http://www.ektron.com

http://www.episerver.com

http://www.episerver.com

http://www.ingeniux.com

http://www.paperthin.com

http://www.sitecore.net



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TIER 4 COMMERCIAL OPEN SOURCE


releasedNext

versionNo. of


System Price

Alfresco 2005 Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.1 Mar. 2009 2nd half of 2009 800+ $15,000

Acquia 2007 Acquia Drupal 6 Feb. 2008 NA 250 $349 (annual subscription)

Bluenog 2006 Bluenog ICE CMS 4.5 Jun. 2009 NA 100

$15,000 per server(ICE CMS) $25,000 per server (ICE Suite, adds BI, Collaboration, and Portal)

Hippo 1999 Hippo CMS 7.0 Jun. 2009 NA 150+Free under open source Apache license

Nuxeo 2007 Nuxeo Enterprise Platform 5.2 Mar. 2009 Q1 2010 400

$25,000 (annual subscription) $3,600 (cloud subscription, 1-14 users)

Magnolia 1998 Open Source CMS Magnolia 4.1 Jun. 2009 Fall 2009 55 $12,000 (annual subscription)

Mindtouch 2005 MindTouch 2009 Lyons Mar. 2009 Aug. 2009 1000 $5000


TIER 5 OPEN SOURCE


releasedNext

versionNo. of


System Price

Drupal 2006 Drupal CMS 6.13 Jul. 2009 NA Not disclosed no charge for license

Joomla Project 2000 Joomla CMS 1.5.14 Jul. 2009 NA Not disclosed no charge for

license

OpenCMS 1999 OpenCMS 7.5 Jun. 2009 NA Not disclosed no charge for license

Plone 2004 Plone CMS 3.2.3 Jul. 2009 NA Not disclosed no charge for license

NA = Not available

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http://www.alfresco.com

http://www.acquia.com

http://www.bluenog.com

http://www.onehippo.com

http://www.nuxeo.com

http://www.Magnoliaconsulting.com

http://www.mindtouch.com

http://www.Drupal.org

http://www.Joomla.org

http://www.Joomla.org

http://www.opencms.org

http://www.Plone.net



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Open source is at its core a development methodology that is based on accessibility to the product’s source, which in the case of software is the source code. Perhaps the most visible product of open source development methodology has been Open Source Software (OSS). OSS is by definition free and includes access to the complete source code, allowing for the modification of and full control over the software. True OSS must also comply with distribution criteria that ensure no restrictions on selling or giving away the software as part of a larger software package.

Open source software has many benefits. First and foremost is cost; open source software is freely available (although the only thing that is completely free is the software, this excludes support, deployment costs, and any sort of warranty or indemnification), while commercial software can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Having access to the source code is a large draw as well; it provides an organization with a level of control and security that commercial software lacks. Fears of vendor lock-in, where a single vendor goes out of business and their software loses value and ceases to be updated, can largely be avoided with open source software. Once the source code has been released, anyone can use, modify, and develop from it, so vendor lock-in is not as much of an issue as it is with a commercial product.

When considering open source solutions, an organization should take note of the following:

Total Cost of Ownership. Hidden costs such as extra staffing needs for deployment, integration with existing systems, support from third party vendors, and down the road developmental costs for expanding and customizing the software. In order to prepare a complete and thorough evaluation of TCO for open source when compared to commercial software, organizations must consider multiple factors, including consulting, licensing, training, maintenance, and support.

With an extremely low initial cost, open source software is well-suited for piloting a project. Indeed, many users first download

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND TOTAL COST OF

OWNERSHIP

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and deploy an open source project, which comes with unrestricted access, prior to contacting the vendor.

Support. Because an organization has full access to the source code, companies can develop technical skills to support their system in-house and customize it to their needs. Popular open source products also have large networks of users who continuously contribute to product development via enhancements and fixes. Organizations can leverage this community and tap into a talented developer base as needed. Organizations can also avail themselves of multiple paid support options. While support for commercial software is frequently limited to the original developer, the open nature of open source means that popular open source projects have a robust network of commercial companies to provide that support.

On the other hand, some less popular open source projects may rely on a community that may fluctuate in size and frequency of updates and new releases. It is therefore important to consider the size and scope of an open source project’s community of developers before deployment. An active community will lead to more frequent and regular updates and improvements to the software; likewise an open source project with an inactive user and development base will stagnate and perhaps even be abandoned.

Quality and Functionality. Open source software may be powerful and full featured but lack the ease of use of a fully developed commercial offering or suffer from quality issues from a lack of testing and documentation. The adage “you get what you pay for” is apt in this situation: by investing time and money in customization and optimization, open source tools can bridge this gap; nonetheless, out of the box functionality and quality may be lower than a commercial offering.

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TRUE OPEN SOURCE V. COMMERCIAL OPEN SOURCE

It is important to differentiate between open source tools and commercial or professional open source products. Open source software is freely available with no included support. Support and guidance is typically provided by the developer community. For this reason, open source tools require either in-house technical expertise or the addition of the appropriate staff to deploy and maintain the software.

This has made open source software a difficult sell in many organizations. CIOs have a legitimate fear of being stuck with an unproven system for which they have no maintenance or support. While such support can often be provided by third-party companies who specialize in specific open source software, it can nonetheless be a nerve-racking decision for an organization.

Many open source vendors use a commercial open source business model to drive revenue and provide support. This model has proven successful for these vendors, and is premised on providing open source software with no license fees. Instead, these companies sell support, maintenance, and professional services. Open source vendors such as Liferay, RedHat, JBoss, and Sun (MySQL) have advanced this model, and it has now become an accepted business strategy for many companies.

A third derivative of open source software also exists: professional software solutions that are built from open source tools and provide enterprise level support, deployment, and integration services to drive revenue (e.g. Bluenog ICE). Vendors in this space do not claim that their offerings are source; indeed, they emphasize that they are neither true open source nor commercial open source, but instead a hybrid model that leverages the benefits of both. Their offerings are integrated suites that are assembled from open source projects. This hybrid model emphasizes the enterprise-level functionality and support of the offering and the cost savings associated with the use of open source tools as a foundation. Products in this space arrive fully assembled, just as a commercial product would, with the support and services that would be absent from a true open source offering.

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Once a company has determined it requires a new or updated content management system, its managers may increasingly be considering open source tools as an alternative to more costly traditional commercial offerings. This is somewhat reminiscent of the choices managers faced almost a decade ago, in a far less mature content management market, namely to buy or build one’s own content management tools.

Eight to ten years ago, there was a strong case to be made for building one’s own content management system; indeed, a significant portion of Fortune 500 companies used CM software that had been developed in-house. Much of this software, however, had been built before the market for CM software was well established. Today, given the relatively mature market for content management applications, corporate managers must first fully understand both the complexities of the market as well as their own needs in order to make a smart decision.

There are multiple cost factors to consider with open source that, while free, does involve significant overhead. For example, a company’s in-house resources, such as people and expertise, need to be taken into account in order to paint a clear picture of the total cost of ownership (TCO), as should the complexity and purpose of the project for which the system is being deployed. The particular needs of the organizations and the time available to deploy the software are also important considerations.

The total cost of ownership, taking into consideration selecting, acquiring, deploying, and subsequently maintaining an enterprise content management solution, has been a big driver for managers to increasingly evaluate open source and commercial open source platforms. Managers surveyed by Basex for this report indicated that they expected to pay a minimum of $500,000 to implement a commercial content management platform including software licenses and consulting. Maintenance on such systems is traditionally 20% of the software license per year. By contrast, tools from open source vendors such as Alfresco and Bluenog are free; although companies should expect to pay similar fees for consulting and deployment.

THE NEW BUILD V. BUY

EQUATION

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In terms of features and functionality, the questions managers need to ask have changed as well. Managers were previously concerned as to whether pre-built, all-purpose CM software could possibly meet their own specialized needs. Most vendors build CM software that is designed to deal with common situations and issues; in fact, it would appear that vendors have anticipated as much as 80% of the potential scenarios that might arise. As a result, managers making a CM purchase decision today need not be overly concerned with the idea that their needs are unique.

Those companies that find that they need the 20% of features that are not commonly available are candidates for either open source or commercial open source. Several managers interviewed by Basex stated that the commercial open source solutions they deployed addressed their needs in a more comprehensive manner than competitive commercial packages largely due to vendor responsiveness and community support. These managers stated that their selection was also influenced by the fact that the open source platform was more standards based (compared to commercial software) and was built using newer technology.

Managers Basex interviewed also cited the extensible nature of open source tools as another major factor influencing their selection. This was especially important to organizations where they had to integrate systems that used multiple legacy tools.

While commercial software vendors sometimes add new features after multiple companies make similar requests, companies that deploy commercial open source software benefit from a community of developers who may already have added such features and can duplicate the functionality with little additional effort. A hallmark of open source is the inclusion of additions and improvements made by the community of customers and developers in new versions; for the enterprise, a single commercial open source vendor can provide a safety net that is necessary for large scale adoption, or in simpler terms, one throat to choke.

Organizations must carefully gauge their needs and resources before attempting to make the new build v. buy decision. Companies often overestimate their needs, and purchase products whose use is akin to

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trying to swat a mosquito with a Sherman tank. Most companies should be able to find something that does present all the needed functionality within their price range. For some, the openness and opportunity to customize open source and commercial open source may trump all other considerations. And for those companies that have already determined that existing tools will not fully meet their needs, open source or commercial open source may be the best route to go.

Given the depth and breadth of today’s content management market, there is clearly a system out there that will meet everyone’s budget and requirements. You just need to look carefully.

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Most companies have content, and many have content management tools, but few have mastered the art of managing content. The options are straightforward: buy a commercial content management platform, download an open source one for free, or go the commercial open source route.

While much is made of the phrase “enterprise content management,” most such platforms are not true enterprise class in that one platform does not serve an entire organization. Instead, content management systems typically serve far more local constituencies such as groups, divisions, or locations.

Since so many companies already have some form of content management platform in place, a new CM platform will frequently augment or replace an existing one.

If one is augmenting an existing platform, one should make sure to have good reason not to use the platform already in place (see the “THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT MARKET” on page 5, for references to “technology sprawl,” a phenomenon one is well-advised to avoid).

If replacing a platform, the first order of business is to determine why the existing platform was deemed insufficient. One must guard against decisions that are made as a result of shiny object syndrome, an affliction which causes managers to be seduced by the newest and shiniest toys.

High-level selection criteria should include:

• The complexity and purpose of the Web site (both present and future).

• The resources available (financial and technical; present and future).

• The needs of that particular enterprise or industry and whether existing packages satisfy these needs fully.

• The time available to deploy the system.

RECOMMENDATIONS

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In addition, one must always look at offerings from existing vendors first. While the identity of the current vendor should not drive the selection process, it is important to take into account the benefits of superior integration that comes when working with multiple products from one supplier.

The next set of criteria is to determine how well the potential platform will integrate with other tools. Today, it is almost impossible for a content management platform to exist in isolation. It will need to work with existing search, e-mail, workflow, instant messaging/presence awareness, unified communications, and other platforms that are used within the organization.

There are three primary sources of content management software available today: commercial, open source, and commercial open source. Commercial packages range from several thousand to several hundred thousand dollars just for the software license while open source is free. Commercial open source licenses are also free but the companies behind the software will sell consulting, maintenance, and support packages and prices are comparable, if perhaps a bit lower, than what one would pay a commercial software company for the equivalent range of services. While, in this space, it is not necessarily true that one gets what one pays for, it is true that many companies do overestimate their needs and make their purchasing decision accordingly.

While open source is free for the taking, it is also not for the faint of heart. The true advantage of open source is that one has the source code and can make modifications and improvements as required (most commercial vendors won’t turn over their source code to the licensee). Saving money is not necessarily one of open source’s advantages. The cost of deployment and integration can, in some cases, significantly exceed what one would pay for commercial content management software.

The market today for content management software is robust enough so that one should be able to find a package for almost any need (see charts beginning on Page 13 for a range of options). If the organization’s needs are truly unique, and are not addressed by commercial software,

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commercial open source should be considered. Many vendors in this space will customize their platforms to the organization’s needs – and since some of this customization may have already been done for other companies it may be available at no additional cost.

Properly deployed, commercial open source software has the potential to support virtually all content management needs in the organization. As such, it should at a minimum be on its CIO’s short list.

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Jonathan B. Spira, CEO and Chief Analyst, founded Basex in 1983. The author of Managing the Knowledge Workforce: Understanding the Information Revolution That’s Changing the Business World (Mercury Business Press, September 2005), he is recognized as one of the technology industry’s leading thinkers and pundits, having pioneered the study of Collaborative Business Environments, the intersection of content, knowledge and collaboration within the enterprise and beyond. He is an authority on the productivity of knowledge workers and how information technology affects them, and helped create the Knowledge Worker Impact Quotient (KWIQ) to answer the needs of IT buyers for a better understanding of the impact tools and technologies have on both the workplace and on the people who use them. Mr. Spira, who directs all Basex research and analytic activities, is a widely published author and acclaimed speaker who makes frequent appearances speaking on the future of technology and has authored hundreds of papers on business and technology issues. He is the co-author of The History of Photography (Aperture, November 2001), which was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He conducted graduate-level research at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (Munich).

Cody Burke is a senior analyst at Basex. He conducts research and has co-authored reports on knowledge worker productivity, educational technologies, and information overload. He has done independent research on a variety of topics including open source intelligence, international affairs, and security issues. Mr. Burke received a M.A. in International Relations from Bond University in Australia.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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Basex is a knowledge economy research firm that serves IT vendors and buyers with an expertise in knowledge worker management and productivity.

A trusted advisor to some of the world’s best-known companies, Basex provides holistic research and analysis across 22 market categories on leveraging Collaborative Business Environments, the workplace that supports new, organic ways for companies to conduct business.

With more than 24 years of trusted analysis and a range of time-tested offerings, Basex works to accomplish two simple, yet elusive goals: leverage knowledge assets and make the right IT decisions.

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Basex is the independent research and analysis firm that pioneered Collaborative Business Knowledge research. Basex provides clients with expert intelligence on the technologies, benefits and best practices that facilitate the exchange of critical knowledge and information.

We are the recognized experts in Collaborative Business Environments, the intersection of content, knowledge and collaboration within the enterprise –with a 20-year track record of accurate research and visionary analysis that drives its clients to make the right technology decisions for their business.

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