Recommend me a content management system

[Richard Martin]

Please?

We have a website, intranet and extranet and are looking for a reliable but fairly inexpensive content management system. We had the Percussion Software people in yesterday demonstrating their Rhythmyx software. A great piece of kit but a little pricy at £45,000.

Any recommendations/good or bad experiences are appreciated.

Thanks,
Richard.

 

[jigsaw81]

Hi,
I know teamSite, which is very famous CMS tool & reliable too in terms of after sales support but don't know the exact cost But if you had good CMS developer then you can use open source content management in free of cost, some of I know is
EPOS CMS, Joomla
And many more...

Cheers

 

[ken_uk]

45k could get you a lot of work done on a open source CMS site, lots of customisation, lots of quality SEO, lots of support.

 

[RedEvo]

You need to carry out a detailed needs analysis on this to make sure you don't box yourselves in.

On the Open Source front we have built many commercial sites using Joomla!.

d

 

[mobyme]

Joomla. Somebody is swearing again, absolutely awful. The code is crap and it is not secure; use it at your peril.

 

[asonda]

Joomla. Somebody is swearing again, absolutely awful. The code is crap and it is not secure; use it at your peril.

I Know plenty of web developers that use/integrate Joomla and swear by it! Has lots more 'Extensions' than it's rivals, that are mostly free, and hassle free.

 

[RayB]

I know lots say Joomla, but we use Farcry open source CMS, and its does everything we need it to and our site is also extremely SEO friendly (try finding holes in it )

You need a competent cold fusion coder to make it sing

 

[Ravenfire]

http://www.templedene.net/

 

[Gavin Harris]

Guys, you're all shouting Joomla without knowing what Richard's requirements are! It's like saying I'm looking for a car, and you all saying that a SmartCar is great - but without realising I need to lug around 20 computers every day

We custom create our own CMS system. That way we build something that's big enough to contain all of our requirements, without having too many "extras" that not only pose a security risk, but also make it more complicated as there are more buttons for the end user.

Richard, I'd be interested to hear what you're looking for the CMS system to do. Feel free to drop me an email to [email protected] or call me on 01252 758329.

 

[awebapart.com]

Richard, you mentioned in previous posts that you work for an insurance company so I will assume it is a medium sized company, and my advice here is for a medium sized company, not the typical small startup business.

£45000 sounds a lot, but for large companies looking for enterprise or large scale content management systems, it is not the most expensive system, there are companies like Vignette selling their solutions to some companies for 6 or 7 figure sums! Are these systems worth it? Personally I doubt it, unless they give you what you need and are cheaper than making it yourself in a bespoke or semi-bespoke way.

At the other end of the financial scale you have the free open source systems, which I would certainly consider as park of a semi-bespoke project if I was in charge of a medium/large size company's IT strategy.

But a lot can be down to what your company's IT strategy is, regardless of what your business needs are. You might be open source all the way, on the other hand you might be Microsoft platform and tools all the way, so this might limit your choice from day 1.

Either way, analyse what your tie ins would be with any supplier. Would you get the source code or would there be an escrow agreement in place? Any company that is just focused on selling their own CMS will have a hard time over the next few years and might not be around for long, since they will face increasing competition from the open source crowd below and the main players in this market above. If their system is good enough and better priced than the main player's systems then they might be able to de-throne the main players and have a more secure future.

 

[RedEvo]

Perhaps read the thread Gavin.

"You need to carry out a detailed needs analysis on this to make sure you don't box yourselves in."

d

 

[Gavin Harris]

Perhaps read the thread Gavin.

"You need to carry out a detailed needs analysis on this to make sure you don't box yourselves in."

d

I appreciate that you brought that up, but you were in the minority of those willing to actually look at the requirements of this project.

It's a common problem that I see in the web design industry of people jumping in with solutions without even finding out what the client's needs are. Unfortunately, there are only a few of us who will take the trouble to do a complete fact find of the business and to develop the best solution for the client. Sometimes it's something completely different to what the client thought they needed.

Fortunately, it seems you do have that approach too, which is great to see.

 

[awebapart.com]

shouting Joomla without knowing what Richard's requirements are! It's like saying I'm looking for a car, and you all saying that a SmartCar is great - but without realising I need to lug around 20 computers every day

Heh heh... I agree. In fact I wrote something similar in the FAQ section of our website recently (to answer the frequently asked questions "What is the best ecommerce solution?" and "What is the best shopping cart?" - questions that often get asked on forums).

To Richard's credit, at least he has given us some information about his needs and he hasn't just asked asked "What is the best CMS?". From his previous posts we can gather he is working for an insurance company (maybe medium sized), they need to manage content on intranet, extranet and website (so we know its not a simple public website only CMS), we know he's been looking at and liked one particular solution (Rhythmyx) so we can get an idea of the sort of problems that solution addresses, and we have an idea of budget (less than or around £45000).

But as with any solution recommendation, the more you know about the initial problems, needs, constraints of the business, the better informed you are to make an appropriate recommendation. For medium sized companies that often have strict IT strategies, e.g. a Microsoft only platform and tools strategy, it is often worth asking this question first, as it might save wasting time recommending solutions based on non-MS tools (e.g. Joomla, PHP).

 

[stugster]

Three words: Operational Requirement Specification.

Without one, we may as well sell you some cheese.

 

[Richard Conyard]

Somewhat harsh Stuart. Before being able to go further some form of requirements listing would be needed, but for a few suggestions and Paul has said there is more than enough info.

 

[stugster]

More than enough information?! Are you mad?

 

[Richard Conyard]

Not really, if read the post above yours from awebapart.

To Richard's credit, at least he has given us some information about his needs and he hasn't just asked asked "What is the best CMS?". From his previous posts we can gather he is working for an insurance company (maybe medium sized), they need to manage content on intranet, extranet and website (so we know its not a simple public website only CMS), we know he's been looking at and liked one particular solution (Rhythmyx) so we can get an idea of the sort of problems that solution addresses, and we have an idea of budget (less than or around £45000).

There are lots of bits and pieces we can pull back and infer from the original post, in fact I'd go as far to say in that we could quite happily get rid of @ 80% of content management systems. Obviously there isn't enough to quote on, but in terms of guidance it's fine.

 

[stugster]

Yes, and an Operational Requirement Specification would be used for quoting, not advice.

Also, I commented on selling a product, not just guiding the OP to a pre-made product already on the market.

 

[pairpair.co.uk]

Hi Richard,

there are some good comments on here.

We develop systems from new but do most of our work supporting and modifying existing open source solutions and with many CMS open source solutions available it can be a daunting task for you to choose one.

At the moment all we know is that you want something reliable and inexpensive and that you want a CMS, As some previous comments suggest your requirements are key in making the right decision so the best place to start is defining business objectives.

If you have a Website, Intranet and extranet already, are these going to be replaced with a new CMS - an objective of your business being to self manage content and reduce cost of outsourcing management tasks, or is the new CMS an addition to existing?

Many questions need answering to make the right decision!

 

[Richard Martin]

Thanks for all the replies, been away for a while and nice to see some responses.

All of our development work is carried out externally, from major site enhancements to simple text amends. We have recently employed someone internally to assist with (and speed up) the developent work as we are currently adding new functionality to the site. We are looking for a CMS that will allow a couple of designated staff to add new content/amend text easily and will also be compatible with the work our web development guy is doing.
Yes, it's Microsoft all the way.