Content Management

Companies are turning to a new crop of tools—content management systems—for help with managing content assets.

• By Clara Parkes
• 09/01/2001

Companies either must try to rework existing systems or turn to a new crop of tools for help. These tools, commonly known as content management systems, offer great promise. [See "Get Your Content Under Control!"—Ed.]

Content management systems manage all of a company's information assets, from text to images, video, databases and application code. The systems provide such features as workflow, version control, metadata management, templated content creation, XML-based data storage, and the ability to customize almost any facet of your Web site's look and feel without needing to touch the underlying information.

AMR Research estimates that b-to-b sales will reach $580 billion by the end of 2001 before jumping to $5.7 trillion by the end of 2004. Although acquisitions and closures still shake the content management market segment, getting a handle on content is still your best bet for securing the future of e-business.

The Major Players: Content Management Systems Scorecard
Technology consulting firm Forrester Research conducted hands-on tests of the most popular content management systems and reported the results in its eBusiness TechRankings. The tests indicate how products perform across several attributes: capabilities, integration, performance architecture, reliability, security, customer support, momentum and cost.

Below are the content management systems rankings as of June 2001. To put the list in context, we've also included the rankings from December 2000.

Trends: Going Global
Giga Information Group estimates that by 2005, more than half of the Internet's users will be non-English speakers. This makes it critical that companies be able to globalize their content and adopt strategies for non-English-speaking audiences.

Content management systems drive this by facilitating a distributed approach to content creation while maintaining centralized management. In a recent Giga report, Kathleen Hall and Connie Moore explain that this is the best approach for balancing a centralized control and local responsiveness "so that content is adapted to local marketing initiatives, local languages and local culture, without diluting global brands and corporate messages."

The key ingredient for globalized content and collaborative business is an adherence to standards. In particular, industry experts predict that XML will be as pervasive as Java, especially in the areas of content syndication, b-to-b and wireless.

XML enables companies to exchange content in a consistent format. According to a recent report by Forrester Research, "Content management products must support XML and Java standards in particular. Proprietary—or absent-object models and messaging formats slow down a firms' path to launch."

Long-Term Viability: Surviving the Shakedown
In the last six months alone, we've seen significant movement in the content management market. Most of the stir has been created by large companies acquiring smaller companies to gain entry into the content management market.

Most industry experts agree that this acquire-to-enter approach is not a sign of weakness. Forrester Research insists that partnering is best for creation, publishing and delivery factors. "To help firms build scalable Web sites," says a recent Forrester report, "content management products should focus on design, and integrate with supporting technologies."

The High Cost of Control
High costs remain a barrier to widespread adoption of content management systems. Initial product costs alone are only a small portion of the overall cost of implemention.

According to the Giga Information Group, the average licensing fee for a high-end Web content management system is $500,000. An average price for a midrange system is $300,000. Once the cost for systems integration services is added, a typical midrange implementation could be $1 million.

However, Giga also estimates that a company with $500 million in annual revenues stands to save $5,270,000 over a three-year period by implementing a content management system.

With such high prices, it may come as no surprise to learn that content management vendors are among the few vendors who are currently turning a profit. In February 2001, Documentum was named by Investor's Business Daily (IBD) as one of the 10 most profitable companies in the e-commerce economy. With the recent acquisition of NCompass Labs by Microsoft, expect to see product costs shift downward as Microsoft introduces lower-priced competition.