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Adriaan Bloem

A Hippo in Drag

19-Jan-2009

Tags: Web Content and Experience Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Hippo CMS

Perhaps not an image you'd want lingering in your mind, but yes, in software, you can get a Hippo in drag; a Web Content Management tool called "Bluenog CMS" is actually open source Hippo CMS.

I was reminded of this while researching the Web CMS Report 2009. What's interesting here is that Hippo recently released version 7 of their CMS, which is quite a departure from the previous version. Bluenog CMS, however, is based on version 6 of Hippo. Uh oh...

Hippo CMS is, of course, open source, and a minor update 6.05.06 came out just two weeks ago, so there is no sudden end of life for v6. However, it still presents a bit of a challenge to Bluenog going forward. Will Bluenog CMS fork version 6? Will the company take its time to rebuild its ICE ("Integrated Collaboration Environment") around the new version 7?

I asked the company last year, and got a reply from Scott Barnett, Bluenog's COO: "We are currently evaluating Hippo 7 alongside the other CMS options we're considering for the next version of Bluenog ICE. One major consideration we have is how to seamlessly upgrade our existing customers to the next release of Bluenog ICE, regardless of the underlying technology we ultimately choose. We also need to consider how Bluenog CMS will integrate with Bluenog Rich Portal and Bluenog BI in the next release. It's true that no matter the choice, we certainly have a good amount of work ahead of us, but it's no different than what we've had to date bringing our current version of ICE to the market."

So, while Hippo (the company) is moving forward with its new architecture in version 7, for now, Bluenog will still be offering the old Hippo in disguise, while you could also opt for open source version 6.

For you, the buyer, this means more choice -- but it also means that even if you've decided on this one CMS, you'll still have to look carefully which one exactly. I'd say the logo on the software isn't the most important thing; the underlying technology, however, matters a great deal.