The real story here is that the Sitecore we all know now appears to be going away

What's a Sitecore to do? And what does this mean for you?

The vendor's focus on core R&D and channel-based selling proved a winning business strategy, but I think Sitecore has hit a ceiling in recent years.

Many vendors today will declare they can support omnichannel content management and delivery — yet few really can.

Letting a Web Content & Experience Management (WCM) vendor also serve as your general integrator is generally a bad idea.

RSG has covered both vendors since practically their inception in our WCM and DAM evaluation research streams. Here's three quick takeaways.

What if we could do simple "tasting notes" for certain WCM vendors, like wine critics do? What would we say? Quite tongue-in-cheek, here's a sampling

I sometimes refer to Episerver in shorthand as "a poor man's Sitecore," but as you'll see below, that's a real over-simplification

They have each innovated in their own way and built up channel networks, but also have benefited heavily from Microsoft's abdication of this space. Yet, there's one glaring weakness that limits them among the larger enterprise customers they all covet.

The past few years have seen the universal decline of big established Enterprise Content Management (ECM) players when it comes to Web Content & Experience Management (WCM). In their place has arisen a new set of alternative vendors offering alluring and feature-rich — yet complex and expensive — WCM offerings.

These quick bullets only scratch the surface of the 10- to 14-page reviews we publish of each vendor and their technologies.

We're all still waiting not only for the next chapter of this novel to be written, but even just for the author to get clear on the outline of the story

This deal puts to bed the absurd rumors that Microsoft would acquire Sitecore (would have been a very poor match). Microsoft might still make a move to buy a true cloud WCM, though still doubt it in the near term

Should you go the DAM pure-play route, or invest in a broader platform like Stylelabs Marketing Content Hub? We weigh in

We increasingly see WCM vendors putting pressure on their SI partners to become more like loyal resellers. For WCM, you don't want a reseller. Look for independent services firms that know a small handful of tools really, really well. Then work only with those integrators and consultancies who will sit on your side of the table, rather than just parrot the vendor line