Re: [Microsoft-based solution for a portal + CMS system]:Microsoft SharePoint portal + Microsoft CMS ?

This probably belongs off-list as we work for competing vendors, but as 
CMS, Internet, software and just general professionals we should ensure 
the archives of this list are as accurate as possible.  I take issue 
with a number of points in this post, although my experience with Ektron 
is somewhat dated.  A lot of companies have been burned by vendors that 
basically say anything in sales demos, etc.

Is ektron.com built with this product?  Are you 100% sure that it is 
just a .NET application, no old technology or proprietary scripting 
languages anywhere in the product?  Can I just unzip the installation 
media, drop it in my document root and be up and running without 
setup.exe or reboot? 

One apparent goal of .NET CMS products is to make content edits through 
a browser.  For instance, external international translation agencies 
may be using browsers other than IE.  Requiring that all browsers 
support ActiveX controls largely defeats this purpose and means that 
this is not a .NET product as this is a legacy technology. 

"We have more customer installations of our CMS software than any other 
commercial CMS vendor."

More than the market leader?  You're not calling EWebEditPro a content 
management system, are you?

"Ektron products are used in 850 of the top Fortune 1000 companies."

Yes, but how many use the Ektron CMS?  Anyone who has worked with 
EWebEditPro in an enterprise knows that SMS updates, standard builds and 
other administrative processes can wipe Ektron software off client 
machines, which is a major problem as admin rights are required for 
reinstallation.  If I remember correctly, it was still installing 
vbrun300.dll or something on all clients and sometimes required reboot - 
not exactly 2005 technology.  After working with Interwoven  TeamSite 
for about 5 years, I just stopped installing it on new machines after a 
while.

Another critical aspect of CMS implementation is to increase consistency 
and potential for data reuse by separating content from presentation 
through data structuring.  EWebEditPro completely defeats this purpose 
as demonstrated by a quick glance at almost any news articles on your 
site, for instance:

http://www.ektron.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=1964
http://www.ektron.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=2052
http://www.ektron.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=1512

Notice how the location and date are formatted differently (err, this 
may be corrected shortly after I post this, so I kept screenshots for 
anyone interested).  If you browse through these news articles you are 
likely to find many different formats of this leader, as the onus of 
formatting control is now on the user of which there may be more than 
one, and not all are cutting and pasting from old, correctly-formatted 
news articles.  This is a minor example, but critically important as in 
the general case it reduces the professional quality of the site.  Also, 
structured data is important for parametric search (for instance, find 
all articles created in 2004 released from San Jose).  Note also that 
these are not very user-friendly URLs, and they don't indicate any kind 
of hierarchy to search engines which could be used for relevance 
ranking.  Maybe this was put together hastily and is not Ektron best 
practice, as there must be a date associated with these articles as it 
as in some cases they are filtered by date.  Not exactly content 
re-use.  The more I look the less I like the URLs.  For instance, 
without taking your eyes off this message, within 10 seconds tell me 
which of these URLs is the events page and which is the contact us page:

http://www.ektron.com/corporate.aspx?id=1004
http://www.ektron.com/corporate.aspx?id=949

I tend to wonder how users create links and how links are managed in 
such a system.

Worse than not structuring the data is not structuring the information 
architecture.  Be sure to choose a CMS that lets you control what types 
of records users are able to create in different areas - you probably 
don't want someone creating job postings in the news area.  CMS products 
that don't structure content are unlikely to structure information properly.

Tim Denby wrote:

>I am compelled to answer...
>
>Ektron is one of the only commercial CMS vendors that has been profitable in
>the last several years (Although I'll concede that Microsoft has been
>profitable too ;^).  We have been profitable for the last three years out of
>the six years we've been in business.
>
>We have more customer installations of our CMS software than any other
>commercial CMS vendor.
>
>Look at the other major CMS systems on the market - Interwoven, Vignette,
>Documentum, Silk Road, Medseek, Fatwire, and others - and look at the
>WYSIWYG HTML editor control.  That's an OEM version of eWebEditPro or
>eWebEditPro+XML, Ektron's HTML and XML editing controls respectively.  So
>every time one of those CMS solutions is sold an Ektron product goes with
>it.
>
>Ektron products are used in 850 of the top Fortune 1000 companies.  We have
>strong partners across the globe and our CMS is deployed on every continent.
>(Okay, I'm not sure about Antarctica.)
>
>We aren't Microsoft but our viability is beyond question.
>
>Tim
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email protected]
>[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Daniel Reardon
>Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 11:57 AM
>To: Jerry Santelli; [email protected]
>Subject: RE: [CMS] [Microsoft-based solution for a portal + CMS
>system]:Microsoft SharePoint portal + Microsoft CMS ?
>
>
>Jerry
>
>Unbelievable!!!!!!
>
>Your comments below are 100% , irrefutably incorrect regarding MCMS
>future. We are on the Microsoft Global Advisory Council for Portals
>advising Microsoft on the next version of CMS and SPS right now. I can
>confirm there is further development and a very strong new release is
>being built as I type. Although under NDA, rest assured a very strong
>strategy is in place.
>
>That said Ektron is 100% .NET based. However if you are concerned about
>Microsoft's commitment to CMS (which is entirely unfounded!!!), surely
>you must be equally concerned regarding not just the future of Ektron
>CMS 400, but also Ektron as a company. Let's face it Microsoft are not
>likely to go bust, I'm not so confident about Ektron.
>
>Either way, I guess you choose!!!
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email protected]
>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jerry Santelli
>Sent: 24 February 2005 16:10
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: RE: [CMS] [Microsoft-based solution for a portal + CMS system]
>:Microsoft SharePoint portal + Microsoft CMS ?
>
>
>I see a lot of people recommending the MS CMS.  We actually chose not to
>use it for clients that require an ASP .NET based CMS based on the fact
>that the product is in maintenance mode for what I have read.  This
>means no further development will be done to the development of the
>product.
>
>We have used Ektron for client installs where we can write ASP code and
>use the .NET architecture.  They have a CMS built on the .NET framework
>called CMS 400 (http://ektron.com/cms400.aspx).  One thing that is
>attractive to us was the release schedule of new updates and features as
>well as the stability.  When a new version was released we knew that it
>was going to work.  It also has an integration to SharePoint.
>
>Just my 2 cents.
>
>-Jerry
>
>Jerry Santelli
>Fusion Productions
>http://www.fusionproductions.com
>ph: 585-872-1900
>fax: 585-872-2014
>
>
>
>
>
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