What is the best car? When you ask this question most people will respond with the usual suspects: Porsche Carrera, Ferrari Enzo, Lamborghini Diablo, etc. These are all fantastic cars. But if these were the best cars, why do participants in the Dakar rally not use them and why do families prefer a minivan when they go on vacation? The answer is simple: Because they are expensive and not meant for any terrain or more than two people.

When you are deciding on a content management system you go through the same decision process: You have a certain budget your organization is willing to spend. There are a set of functional requirements that the solution needs to meet, such as the ability to manage web content, documents, video, compliance workflows, etc.; and finally there are non-functional requirements to be met as well: The level of security, the number of users and so on. The good news is that there is a large variety of content management systems in the market.

We have specialized in two types of systems: Web content management (WCM) and Enterprise content management (ECM). In general, ECM systems consist of different modules that encapsulate specific functionality. In mature ECM systems these modules include Document Management, Web Content Management, Records Management, Collaboration, Workflow and Business Intelligence. As you can see, web content management is only one single aspect of enterprise content management. Does this imply that standalone web content management systems are ready for the enterprise? Absolutely, but they serve a more narrow use case than complete enterprise content management systems.

What are existing WCM and ECM solutions? I realize that this is the section where I will lose friends and make some enemies, but I will give it a try.

Web Content Management Systems (WCM):