Real Story Group. Make Better Technology Decisions.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video may be worth a thousand pictures." Enterprise production and distribution of time-based media (video in particular) calls for specialized technology to support the process. In this Advisory Paper, we provide essential definitions and vendor categories, as well as present key factors to consider when selecting Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and Online Video Platforms (OVPs).

Our new Version 20.3 of the Web Content Management Report has arrived! Version 20.3 includes updates to: HP/Autonomy: Interwoven TeamSite 7.2, IBM: Web Content Manager 7.0, Plone: Plone 4.1, TYPO3: TYPO3 4.3, CrownPeak: CrownPeak CMS, e-Spirit: FirstSpirit 4.2R4, Limelight Networks: Dynamic Site Platform (formerly Clickability), OmniUpdate: OU Campus 9.12, and TerminalFour: Site Manager 7.1.

It's a fact of business life that software vendors sometimes go out of business or vendors sunset their products. This actually happens less than most customers fear, but when it does happen, the results can range from damaging to catastrophic. Therefore, a prudent customer will monitor key technologies and suppliers for potential problems. Fortunately, a failing vendor or product will exhibit telltale signs of coming failure. Led by RSG founder Tony Byrne, this webinar will share ten key "early warning signs," so you can conduct your own risk mitigation accordingly.

With rare exceptions, most enterprises do not employ business software "out of the box." Rather, they create applications. Applications are a specialized implementation of a piece of software that achieves a particular business purpose, and they are critical to obtaining value in your specific business environment. However, creating applications requires development expertise, time, and funds. Applications also require configuration management: the process of synchronizing and testing multiple concurrent changes. Yet even with testing, bugs and instability frequently haunt them. SaaS (Software as a Service) and cloud-based services obviate only some (but not all) of these challenges.

It's been over 10 years since we first came across SharePoint and so much has changed in that time. Changes both in terms of the products, but also in terms of buyers and market expectations. Alan believes that SharePoint is approaching something of a crossroads, one that users of the platform may be more aware of than Microsoft and its partner channel. The times they are a-changing...and SharePoint has evolved in ways nobody could have expected. The competition, meanwhile, is far from rolling over and giving up. In fact it has adapted remarkably well. Who is buying SharePoint in 2011, why are they buying it and when might this Microsoft steamroller of success finally begin to run out of steam?

When you or your software vendors provide mobile access to business applications, there are two broad choices:

1. Create downloadable applications (or mobile apps) that are optimized for different device/operating system combinations.
2. Create web-based applications (web apps) that target a broader mobile population of browser-enabled devices.

Proponents of web-based apps claim that technologies such as HTML5 will make mobile apps obsolete. There is merit to this argument, but it's not completely valid. Both approaches will continue to coexist, and therefore you need to decide which approaches are suitable for your scenarios. This paper helps you make these choices.
Download this advisory paper here.

We've just published an update to the Web Content Management Version 20.2 Report. Version 20.2 includes updates to seven product evaluations:

• OpenText: Web Experience Management 8.1 (Vignette)
• Oracle: FatWire Content Server 7.6
• SDL: Tridion 2011
• Sitecore CMS 6.5
• Hannon Hill: Cascade Server 6.8
• Joomla! 1.7
• TerminalFour: Site Manager 7.1

SharePoint's licensing structure has always been complicated, and with new variants and options, SharePoint 2010 is no exception. Moreover, with the advent of BPOS and its successor Office 365, you have recourse to new deployment options with distinct licensing models.

Depending on which version of SharePoint you deploy, the licensing cost can range from nearly zero to hundreds of dollars per seat. This is because Microsoft sells several versions of SharePoint, but each version is packaged with different capabilities and licensing schemes. If you don’t understand the varieties, you'll only get half the story.

As a buyer, in order to budget for SharePoint accurately, you need to assess the various levels and deployment options carefully.

It's a fact of business life that software vendors sometimes go out of business or vendors sometimes sunset their products. This actually happens less than most customers fear, but when it does happen, the results can range from damaging to catastrophic. Therefore, a prudent customer will monitor key technologies and suppliers for potential problems.

Fortunately, a failing vendor or open source project will exhibit telltale signs of a coming failure. By identifying these signs as a customer, you can conduct your own risk mitigation accordingly. This paper identifies ten potential warning signs and offers an approach to distinguish between simple technical or business hiccups, and potentially serious trouble. It includes a simple quiz for you to rate likely risk levels among your key technology suppliers.

The word adobe traces its roots to spoken Arabic, where it was al tub, or "the brick." Adobe's recently announced Digital Enterprise Platform (ADEP) can be best described as a tub of bricks for building tablet, mobile, web, and desktop applications. The "tub" in this case is CRX -- the repository layer that Adobe took over via the Day Software acquisition. ADEP also incorporates Adobe's longstanding LiveCycle offering, along with other related services and glue code. Although the first version of ADEP won't go live until August 2011, it represents an important attempt to rationalize and integrate a variety of Adobe tools and services under one framework, with multichannel "Customer Experience Management" as the unifying theme. There's important long-term potential here, but the real customer value remains unproven at this time. This paper looks at the promise and the potential pitfalls of ADEP from that perspective.

Download this advisory paper here.

We've just published a major update to the Web Content Management Version 20.1 Report. Version 20.1 includes updates to eight product evaluations:

• Adobe CQ5.4
• Ektron 8.2
• Kentico 5.5 R2
• eZ 4.5
• DNN 5.6.2
• SharePoint
• Alfresco 3.4
• Autonomy Interwoven TeamSite 7.2

The software engineering community has spawned many different methods to estimate levels of effort for implementing projects. You could debate the validity or accuracy yielded by these projection methods, but the fact remains that they're widely employed. However, in our experience, established methods generally don't fare well for packaged software implementation efforts in general -- content management projects in particular. In this advisory, we examine the shortcomings of traditional approaches, and explore more useful alternatives.
Download this advisory paper here.

Content persistence refers to how you store digital information while maintaining your regular content management activities. In any content management system -- albeit web content management (WCM), document management (DM) or digital asset management (DAM) -- how content is persisted is an important (but oft-ignored) aspect of the overall content lifecycle. Business users typically want easy access to content and don't tend to care where content is persisted. However, the mechanics of persistence have always been an important consideration for IT and system admin specialists -- particularly since these decisions can impact the business user experience, as well. A content management system usually persists content in a file system, a database, a custom repository, or some combination of the three. Different product vendors take different approaches to persisting content, with some offering more flexibility than others. In all cases, you have critical trade-offs to consider before finalizing your approach.

Download this advisory paper here.

"Portal" has always been a highly misused term. Depending on the context, people will say "portal" in reference to an intranet, a dynamic public website, a self-service application, a secured social network, a user interface on an ERP system, or all -- or none -- of the above. These represent vastly different business scenarios, and as such, there is no single set of technology that automatically applies in all cases. Today, the modern enterprise faces demands for multiple portal-like applications. To meet those demands, you can select from at least four major technology options, ranging from out-of-the-box tools, to custom solutions. This advisory explores the pros and cons of these alternatives, so you can make the right choice.

Download this advisory paper here.

In this major overhaul to the Web Content Management (CMS) evaluation research, we had two goals: 1. To make it easier to compare vendors' strengths and weaknesses at a glance, which we did by switching to "Harvey Balls" instead of check marks 2. To significantly update and revise the evaluation criteria, based on current trends in web content management technology. This briefing provides an in-depth look at -- and the rationale for -- the many structural revisions in the new version.

Download this advisory paper here.

We've just published a major update to the Web CMS Report. Version 20 includes a broadly revised set of evaluation criteria across all 43 vendors, along with updates for Ingeniux and FatWire.

Today we published two new advisory papers that address critical questions around what technologies you should consider for your public website.

• Should you use SharePoint 2010 for your public website?
• Should You Employ the Same Web CMS Tool for Public Sites and Intranets?

In this release, we've updated the following evaluations: CrownPeak, Joomla!, OpenCms, Alterian, CoreMedia, e-Spirit: FirstSpirit, TerminalFour, Telerik: Sitefinity, and Percussion. Download the evaluations here.

Prospective Web CMS customers should take a multi-dimensional approach to identify the best solutions for each individual scenario. To supplement our technical evaluations, this research brief applies a "Cross-Check" methodology to compare potential risks for buyers. Download here.

We've updated five Web CMS evaluations -- Drupal 7, IBM Lotus WCM, Magnolia, Plone, and Typo3 -- as well as added a new vendor, Atex, and its Polopoly CMS.Download the new evaluations here.

Web CMS vendors and open source community leaders frequently brag about the growing volume of add-on modules for their particular system, but for customers this landscape can be confusing and ultimately quite disappointing. Fortunately, there are strategies you can pursue to minimize risks. Download here.

Requests for Information (RFIs) will help you gather information to make better decisions, and eliminate suppliers that cannot or should not be working with you. Download the advisory paper here.

Our newest advisory brief lays out ten myths you may hear from Web CMS vendors, along with advice on how to counteract them. Download here.