Vignette: a tale of two channels

This article from Australian IT magazine comes with an alluring headline: "Vignette chases small end." If you think that means you can now buy Vignette's Web CMS product cheaply, think again. The article highlights Vignette's document management product, which came with Vignette's 2004 acquisition of Australian vendor Tower Technology. Some types of ECM projects — like imaging and collaborative document management — lend themselves to specialized resellers, and through that channel a software vendor can successfully market to small- and mid-sized businesses. But Vignette's flagship Web CMS platform targets a higher-end customer with more complex integration needs of the kind fulfilled by major systems integrators, or Vignette Professional Services, or (frequently) both. It's priced accordingly. The article points out, "Despite the focus on SMEs, [Vignette CEO] Mr Hogan said, the vendor's main market remained the Global 2000." Vignette is not alone in this dilemma. Interwoven has a similar split personality.

Other ECM & Cloud File Sharing posts

ECM Standards in Perspective

In real life I don't see ECM standards proving particularly meaningful, and you should see them as a relative benefit rather than absolute must-have.