Byrne Tony Byrne

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WCM, Marketplaces, and Maturity

25-Oct-2007

Tags: Web Content and Experience Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Vendor Viability & Financials

Traditional business theory posits that as technology marketplaces mature, basic features get commoditized, followed by rapid supplier consolidation, leaving a handful of big players and some very small, very niche-y independent vendors.

Earlier this decade, major analyst firms argued that this would happen in the Web Content Management (WCM) marketplace as it transitioned out of infancy.

It hasn't happened, for a variety of reasons:

That last point is perhaps the most important. From a web publishing process standpoint, we all remain immature, albeit to varying degrees. Technology won't commoditize until markets agree to standardize, on things like operational practices.

Does this mean, then, that the WCM marketplace is immature? Only if you're a financial analyst. If you're a customer, I think quite the opposite: nearly all the 40-odd Web CMS systems we cover have been around for a decade, sometimes longer. I'll never suggest that any vendor -- or product -- is too established to fail. Nonetheless, even the smallest of the vendors we cover can boast large, longstanding client bases. If anything, some of the tools are starting to get a little old, but for some customers, that's actually comforting.

So while the wide array of plausible WCM solutions might induce vertigo, you should know that you can find a solid, stable -- dare I say "mature" -- platform, while joining a decently large collection of fellow customers of that product. And instead of accepting whatever a vendor oligopoly dishes up, you can get exactly the tool you need for your particular web publishing operation.

The marketplace is not without its major blemishes, but there's good reason for you the customer to be optimistic.

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