In this latest issue of Web Content Management Round-up we take a quick look at the Gartner’s WCM Magic Quadrant, discuss challenges of managing content in Higher Ed, contemplate Drupal 8 upgrade path, take note of the new OpenText partner program, dotCMS webinars and upcoming industry conferences.

Gartner’s WCM Magic Quadrant 2015

Vendors that made it to Gartner’s WCM Magic Quadrant 2015 are:

• Sitecore, Adobe, Acquia, Oracle, OpenText, HP, SDL, IBM, EPiServer – ‘leaders’;
• Automattic, CrownPeak, CoreMedia – ‘visionaries’;
• Progress Software (Sitefinity/Telerik), Microsoft, Hippo, e-Spirit, Squiz, GX Software, eZ Systems – ‘niche players’.

If one or more of these vendors is on your short list, you can be certain that the Magic Quadrant will appear (dare I say, magically) in the respective vendor’s sales demo. It will be presented as  a badge of honour, a major achievement, a success indicator that differentiates the vendor from its competition. And that’s not all wrong. What would be wrong, however, is to assume that other vendors, those that don’t appear on the Quadrant, are not worthy of your consideration.

One of Gartner’s inclusion criteria requires the WCM product to be marketed in more than two vertical markets. This immediately excludes vendors who are deeply invested in serving a specific industry. Leading Higher Ed players such as TerminalFour, Zengenti, OmniUpdate, Ingeniux and HannonHill fall squarely into this category. Their success is based precisely on what Gartner penalizes them for – deep, intimate understanding of the Higher Ed market.

The second criteria worth mentioning is the global presence requirement: “The vendor must actively market its WCM offering in at least two of the following regions: North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific.” There go missing another set of established CMS vendors that serve local customers in their own geography (think Typo3, GOSS Interactive, Bridgeline iAAPS).

The problem with the Magic Quadrant is that many large organisations misuse it as a shortcut to quickly arrive at their short list, thereby excluding valid, perfectly suitable options. “Don’t simply select vendors from the Leaders’ quadrant,” Gartner tells us towards the end of the report, implying that the remaining three corners should be considered, too. Our advice is:“Don’t simply limit your vendor selection to the whole of the Gartner’s MQ.” Consider vendors who are not in the quadrants at all.

But now that you’ve seen the magic elephant, can you get it out of your head?

Can you?

Web Content Management in Higher Ed

Web Content Management in Higher Ed faces a unique set of challenges. From exceptional volumes of content, to highly devolved content ownership, to muddled vision and decision-making, web content management in Higher Ed is no easy task. In terms of technology, the industry is mostly served by CMS vendors with exclusive focus on this vertical (OmniUpdate, HannonHill, TerminalFour, Zengenti/Contensis, and so on), whereas larger players, like Acquia/Drupal and Adobe, develop their understanding of the industry through dedicated divisions. All companies targeting Higher Ed invest heavily in the research of the industry trends and changing customer expectations.

TerminalFour and Omniupdate share their insights in these recent reports:

• 2015 Higher Education Web Survey Report
• What 10 Years of Research Has Told Us About College E-Recruitment

OpenText’s Global Partner Program

OpenText announces a new global partner program which includes a marketing development fund, loyalty and referral programs for its partners. If you are a digital agency or systems integrator seeking to expand your technology partnerships, now is a good time to consider OpenText. If you are an OpenText customer, you might find your service provider to be more in tune with recent product developments, and the choice of OpenText partners wider than before.

Are you ready for Drupal 8?

As exciting as Drupal 8 is, you’d be forgiven for feeling apprehensive about the actual upgrade process. CMS upgrades are never easy. Every module used on your website will have to be made compatible with Drupal 8, and every CMS customisation will need to be double-checked and possibly modified to work with the new version. It’s a complex and tedious task.

To make the upgrade process easier, Drupal agency Provonix launched a d8upgrade community initiative, which notifies Drupal customers of the modules that have been made compatible with Drupal 8. To benefit from this service, register your Drupal website, along with all the Drupal modules you’re using, at d8upgrade.

DotCMS Product Education

DotCMS, a Java-based content management vendor, which is often considered alongside Hippo, Magnolia CMS, OpenCMS, and Oracle WCS, announces the new webinar series under the title of Build with dotCMS. Previously, dotCMS has been known to use the product itself as its main marketing tool – you can download dotCMS community edition for free, and/or request a 30-day trial for dotCMS Enterprise Prime. There’s nothing stopping you from evaluating the product fit to your heart’s content. The newly launched webinars provide useful context and guidance – which doesn’t come included with the product installation.

Events

Autumn is a peak season for industry events and conferences. Here’s a quick overview of what’s coming up in November.

• J. Boye Aarhus 2015 will take place on November 3-5, 2015 in Aarhus, Denmark. If you haven’t been to J. Boye conference before, you might be interested to read notes from J. Boye Aarhus 2014 and J. Boye Aarhus 2013. This year Tim Walters and I will be speaking on the following topics:
  – The total impossibility of customer experience management, by Tim Walters
  – Web Design Trends 2016, by Marianne Kay.
• eZ Content Technology Conference will take place on November 3-5, 2015 in New York City.
• Mura CMS Training will take place on Nov 2-6, 2015 in Sacramento, CA and in London, UK.
• Enterprise World 2015 will take place in November, 8-13, 2015 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. Meet DCG’s Cathy McKnight, Scott Liewehr and Connie Moore at this annual user conference by OpenText.
• EPiServer Ascend takes place on November, 8-11, 2015 in Las Vegas, NV, USA. Meet Scott Liewehr at this annual user conference by EPiServer.
• Liferay Symposium North America takes place on November 16-17, 2015 in Chicago, IL, USA.
• 3rd CMO Europe Summit takes place on November 17-19, 2015 in Dublin, Ireland. Roundtable themes include:
  – Brand Engagement, moderated by Cathy McKnight
  – Consumer Behaviour, moderated by Tim Walters
  – Content Remains King, moderated by Scott Liewehr
• MODXpo 2015 takes place on November 21-22, 2015 in Munich, Germany.

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 November.