In this month’s round-up, we take a look at what’s happening in web content management industry.

New Version of TerminalFour Site Manager 8 Strengthens Higher Ed Presence

TerminalFour, CMS vendor specializing in Higher Ed, has won eight new university clients since the launch of its major release of TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 8 and TERMINALFOUR Engage.edu in December 2014. To meet the needs of these new clients, the Boston office is recruiting for 15 new positions.

When it comes  to Web CMS for Higher Ed, TerminalFour ticks a lot of boxes, so this recent success does not come as a surprise. First and foremost, over the years the company has developed a deep, extensive knowledge of the challenges in Higher Ed. Those include highly devolved organizational structure, admissions process specifics, high volumes of content assets, integration challenges, and the stigma around the role of marketing in academia. Second, TerminalFour consistently provides customer service through training programs, industry events, and high quality support. Third, product development – new features and improvements – is continuous. Strategically, recent developments indicate appetite for further growth.

TerminalFour is on a path to transitioning from the role of a strong contender in Higher Ed selections to a leadership spot. For this transition to be successful, TerminalFour has to move away from the tempting comfort zone of meeting client’s requirements, and take the stance of a visionary, a leader, a vendor that challenges status quo in Higher Ed organisations, and establishes, rather than conforms to, best practices of Web Content Management for Higher Ed.

Pictured, left to right, are Seán Walsh, head of marketing; Elaine Barry, director, operations & client services,
and Piero Tintori, CEO and founder, TERMINALFOUR. Photo courtesy of TERMINALFOUR.

The New Chapter for eZ Systems

eZ Systems is actively working on the new generation of its products: eZ Platform, eZ Studio, and eZ Studio+. Its current system eZ Publish has grown organically over more than 10 years and, like many other Web CMS platforms, became a complex, feature-rich solution. This raises questions. Should the product continue to offer complexity and flexibility, even though utilizing it requires a fairly steep learning curve? Or should the product focus on ease-of-use and follow ‘less is more’ approach, enabling more customers to use more features in the real world? eZ Systems addressed this dilemma by starting an extensive UI review combined with the re-packaging of the current product into three layers:

1. eZ Platform for technical, advanced users (think APIs, development framework, user rights and permissions, and so on.)
2. eZ Studio for web editors and business users (editorial environment for creating, managing and delivering content.)
3. eZ Studio+ for customer experience managers (personalization, analytics, marketing automation.)

Roadmap for delivering this ambitious plan is available on eZ Systems website.

What’s New in CoreMedia 8

CoreMedia, now positioned as a digital experience company, announced CoreMedia v8, a new version of the Java-based web content management and experience platform. CoreMedia’s vision is built around three concepts: connect (companies with their customers), create (content and experiences), and control (technical aspects). The new version 8 sees improvements across all three categories, and includes:

• User interface enhancements such as modern design refresh, keyboard shortcuts, progressive disclosure, page-grid layout editor.
• New e-commerce capabilities.
• Continued focus on omni-channel delivery and responsive design.
• Improvements in personalization and user generated content capabilities.
• New collaboration and workflow tools.
• Multi-site and multi-brand management, localization and translation tools.

The Arrival of Mura Experience Platform

Blue River Interactive Group, the company behind Java-based Mura CMS, announces the arrival of the Mura Experience Platform. Mura Experience Platform provides an easy integration path to popular marketing automation tools (such as Marketo, Silverpop, Eloqua, Pardot), or even remotely hosted applications, microsites and landing pages. This allows Mura customers to track and ‘remember’ customer journeys from start to finish, even when parts of those journeys happen outside the main website. This announcement signals the company’s strategic intent to move beyond basic content management and publishing, and to offer web experience management capabilities that drive business requirements for most CMS projects today.

The importance of Web CMS training

HannonHill, another CMS vendor specializing in Higher Ed, revised its Cascade Server Bootcamp training. Previously this course was delivered over two days. Now HannonHill provides training videos ahead of the course and conducts the training over one full day instead of two. This new format gives customers an opportunity to learn the basics at their own pace, and come to the course ready for advanced learning material. With a lack of platform expertise still being one of the most common reasons for CMS implementation failures, the importance of Web CMS training can hardly be underestimated. HannonHill is already known for its loyal, happy user base; further improvements to training courses will boost the company’s track record in terms of customer satisfaction even further.

Awards and Industry Recognition

• Kentico Site of the Year 2014 Award goes to tea experts Twinings. Recognition for this success extends to Ridgeway, the London-based web design agency  and Kentico Gold Partner that designed and implemented the website.
• Adobe, iAAPS, and TerminalFour are announced as finalists for the 2015 SIIA Software CODiE Awards, in Best Web Content Management Platform category.
• OmniUpdate wins two Stevie awards at the 2015 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. More than 1,900 nominations from organizations of all sizes and industries were evaluated in this year’s competition. OmniUpdate is the only Web CMS vendor honoured with this prestigious award.
• Better connected 2015, a report by Socitm, which provides a snapshot of UK local authority websites, is out. The report assesses websites of 410 local authorities in the UK and identifies best practices for website design and user experience in the government sector. GOSS, Jadu and Drupal-based websites feature heavily in the report.

Kentico Site of the Year 2014 Award goes to Twinings Tea website, designed and developed
by Ridgeway web design and digital marketing agency

Upcoming Events and Conferences

• J. Boye Philadelphia 2015 will take place on May 5-7, 2015. Digital Clarity Group readers can use discount code dcg-20 for a 20% discount on any registration fee.
• DrupalCon Los Angeles will take place in May 11-15, 2015. For the first time, DrupalCon will host a Higher Ed Summit as part of the event.
• As part of re\VISION speaker series, eZ Systems will host re\VISION New York: We Are all Publishers: Keys to Content Marketing on June 10, 2015, in New York.
• JahiaOne International User Conference will take place in Paris, June 10-12, 2015.
• Magnolia will host its first Magnolia Conference Americas to support a growing customer base, partners, and prospective clients in North America. Magnolia Conference Americas will take place on May 5-7, 2015, in Silicon Valley, California. Magnolia will also host its annual Magnolia User Conference in Europe, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, in Basel, Switzerland.
• Umbraco annual conference Codegarden will take place on June 10-12, 2015, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Can’t wait? Other Umbraco events take place at various locations throughout the year.

Panel discussion at Magnolia User Conference 2014, with Mike Johnston (CMS Critic), Tim Walters (Digital Clarity Group), Adriaan Bloem (MBC Group), and Janus Boye (J.Boye); moderated by Christopher Justice (Magnolia).

These are the highlights of the recent news and events in Web Content Management industry. Stay tuned for our next Web Content Management Round-up, due in May.