At any given time it seems like we're advising at least a couple major enterprises as they transition away from OpenText "Web Site Management,"-- a.k.a., RedDot.

We stopped covering RedDot in 2010, after OpenText tried to more-or-less hide the product in favor of the Vignette platform it acquired. OpenText still supports a now mostly-European base of RedDot licensees, but that base shrinks yearly and has nearly completely evaporated in North America.

When we discontinued evaluating the product, we received some push-back, especially from RedDot partners. A product in long-term decline can be painful for partners, but the consequences for customers are almost always far worse. I feel bad for the RedDot licensees who signed on to that platform as late as 2010, convinced by someone, somehow that RedDot would actually thrive, as opposed to simply remain undead.

Decades from now, when I reconsider how much value RSG did or didn't provide to technology customers, I won't regret the criticisms we've made of vendors. I'll regret the criticisms we didn't make. You know:

• The vendors who seemed to pause inexplicably in growing marketplaces (like RedDot did circa 2007)
• The vendors who seemed to get by mostly by locking in their existing install base and relying on partners to keep hyping the platform
• The vendors -- like RedDot -- who got lost in the R&D shuffle after an acquisition by a large, clueless competitor...

If you're an RSG subscriber, you might want to review our advisory paper and accompanying webinar, "Ten Signs of a Failing Vendor or Product" for more thoughts on how to avoid this sort of roadblock in the future.

In the meantime, you're welcome to a copy of the last update we did to our RedDot chapter, in late 2009. Note that our evaluation methodologies have evolved quite a bit since then, but if you want the short story on RedDot, just skip to the Conclusion section on the last page of the PDF. The findings still hold true today.