[Sigia-l] "Study: Content Management Tools Fail"

[Mark Burgess]

>You could blame the vendor for the failing ("You should have known we didn't
>know what we were talking about!"), but that's foolish. If you expect the
>vendor's sales force to do anything other than the minimum to sell the
>product, well, I've got a very nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

Speaking as a consultant rather than a vendor, I can certainly take 
the time to learn what the client's needs are, and recommend 
something that I have no particular stake in (having good open-source 
options helps a lot, for a variety of reasons). And because I'm 
trying to build the relationship, not trying to "close the deal," 
it's in my best interest to figure out what will really work -- what 
will make the client's job easier, what will save them time or money, 
etc. In some cases the solution could very well be a full-blown cms. 
In others it could make more sense to simply help the client with 
their workflow and existing tools (e.g. maybe they're not using their 
copy of Dreamweaver as efficiently as they could, or need to empower 
a couple of the marketing folks with an ftp client).

This part is interesting:

"Of just under 100 companies surveyed, the report found in 2003, only 
27 percent of companies surveyed planned to continue using their Web 
content management systems as they do now. Forty-six percent said 
they would try to expand their existing platforms. Close to one-third 
(27 percent) said they had so many problems they would build another 
system from scratch."

100% of the companies do plan to continue using a cms -- it's just 
that two-thirds of them feel that the current system is not a good 
fit.


-- 
Mark