What should you make of a new product "distribution" that a Web CMS vendor develops in an effort to supplement its very platform-like offering with a more out-of-the-box product?

First, a little background. We see the Web Content Management marketplace along a spectrum of more platform-like offerings to more productized tools (see "How the New Platforms vs. Products Debate Impacts Your Success" for more details). We've also reviewed the pros and cons of the "distro" phenomenon in the Web CMS space ("Keep 'The Module Problem' from Ruining Your Web CMS Project").

This brings me to venerable Web CMS vendor Percussion, who recently added a new product, "CM1," alongside it's longstanding, Java-based WCM platform, Percussion "CM System." We took a look at CM1 in our most recent update to The Web CMS Report. CM1 is really a kind of locked-down, dressed-up application built off the CM System platform, but without the broad range of extensibility, API hooks, and customization options available in the original platform. You should not consider it a "starter" package, since you have to run it separately from the main CM System product. Additionally, do not assume that there's a clear migration path from CM1 to CM System, or vice-versa; you'd want to commit to one or the other. To us, this feels like stripping down a Mercedes to compete with Kia.

More generally, I'll warn: beware vendors bearing multiple CMS offerings. Selling multiple tools in the same product category to different types of customers always seems like good business at the time, but for various reasons, it almost never works out. C.f., divine, Alterian, OpenText, and others.

You should recognize a platform offering for what it really is: a complicated, expensive, but potentially very worthwhile investment for enterprises who are organized and resourceful enough to master the technology. It's the rare enterprise that requires something as advanced as Percussion CM System, but when the fit is right, CM System can present a very good match indeed.

Alternatively, if you want something "lite," then find a different tool that's natively simpler and designed for fast roll-out, rather than a stripped-down platform. We evaluate twenty such Web CMS tools that reside more on the product end of the spectrum, so you have no lack of choices.