In the middle of 2002 I went to a document management expo - The buzz there was web solutions - content management in this context, that is - but, after talking to the sales people on the exhibition stands I kept feeling that there was something missing: No-one seemed to be able to explain exactly what it was that their product would do or how it might do it.

I came away with a lot of glossy paperwork, several T-shirts, stress balls, armchairs for mobile phones and suchlike, but not much confidence in the British CMS applications market.

This rather bleak outlook has improved but I think the market still needs to be treated with some suspicion.

A number of companies - from small through to large - have now completed deployment of a CMS solution and lessons have been learned. A significant number of these companies have had to make a second attempt at getting content management to work, their first having fallen short of its target (if not having failed altogether)

This piece looks at what's available and what it's intended to do for you.

The content management market is increasing rolled up with workflow and document management, with business process management and with portal technology.

Since almost all medium- to large-sized companies now have at least one corporate web site on the internet and (according to most surveys I've seen) more than half have a corporate intranet, management of what goes onto web sites is a significant requirement.

Although the zeitgeist seems to give authors the important concept of ownership of documents, a number of items in the trade press have indicated that it is rare for a document's owner to control its web publishing. In a survey carried out by PMP Research (http://www.pmp.co.uk) and published in Consultants Conspectus (September 2002, http://www.conspectus.com) it is revealed that in most instances departmental managers decide what goes onto a web site (both intranet and internet sites) with material requested by a specialist web team coming a close second. The research indicates that in only 6% of cases does an individual have the authority to publish work on an intranet site, a figure that falls to 2% for the internet site.

This is a review of a little of what's available - some of the descriptive text has been taken from the vendors' respective blurbs. I have trawled the trade press and - with luck - these should be among the more reliable offerings.

I've tried to select out something representative of each major style - I have to confess to having some Adobe products (but none of the Accelio range) installed on machines I use, together with FormScape and Macromedia's Contribute, alongside Dreamweaver.

(or specialist) requirements, the idea of developing a solution shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. This is especially true where existing applications are used to manage documents and, perhaps, scripting technologies are available.

I also have to confess to having worked on bespoke CMS developments, so I cannot claim to be free of bias in any area.

But, while you're considering any of these systems - or a bespoke solution - don't forget the process!

Managing web site content
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