Today J. Boye posted a shortlist of vendors that “you should always consider” when selecting a web CMS. While many will take issue about what products were included or excluded from the list, what surprises me the most is that they published such a list at all. Here is why:
- J. Boye is very closely partnered with CMS Watch, which covers 42 products in its Web Content Management Report. Putting out this list would seem to undercut CMS Watch’s flagship product.
- The CMS Watch messaging has always been that there is no “magic quadrant” in CMS and I would tend to agree. J. Boye is the first reputable buy-side analyst to come out with one. The title “Web CMS Shortlist 2009″ suggests that they will come out with one every year.
- J. Boye does a lot of CMS selection consulting. This list implies that their selection services will start from these 10 products. I think that undermines the value of their consulting services.
I am sure that the J. Boye website will get a lot of traffic from this post and there will be a lot of angry comments from the vendors and open source projects excluded from the list. Hey, all publicity is good publicity, right? It is very interesting to see what J. Boye considers to be “go to” products and what is a global footprint. But this list will not influence what products I consider during the CMS selections that I facilitate.
Related posts:
- J. Boye: Philadelphia 2009 The conference schedule for J. Boye Philadelphia 2009 (May 5th-7th)...
- J. Boye on CMS license negotiation Janus Boye has a great post on negotiating contracts with...
- J. Boye: Best Practices for Creating a Web Strategy In my technology consulting engagements the first step is to...
- How to Post on an Open Source Mailing List I was going through some slide presentations on my computer...
- J. Boye: Wiki in the Enterprise Because of the inherent simplicity of the technology, wiki projects...
Seth,
Thank you for your constructive comments.
We work for our members, who are exclusively practitioners. Publishing a list like this is a way to assist our members navigate their way around a highly complex marketplace. I am very happy if this enables practitioners to do more of the CMS selection process on their own and need less consulting from us, or anyone else.
I have the utmost respect for the work carried out by CMS Watch and enjoy working with them. I don’t see how a list of 10 vendors undercut their detailed product evaluations. As you might have noticed, Tony Byrne has already commented with very helpful input directly on the blog.
Yes, we have received a few angry comments from upset vendors, but that was expected. Our intention is to make CMS selection easier, not harder.
Which products do you consider during the CMS selections?
Seth – Have to say that I was a bit surprised by this as well, particularly as Janus and his team seem to have some of the highest standards around in NOT pigeon-holing “the best” and in remaining vendor neutral (as we are as well).
Yes, people need to spend less time chasing their tails in identifying potential solutions, as well as avoiding simply defaulting to “we’re a Microsoft/IBM/Oracle/opensource shop” as the shortcut.
But to even hint that there are 10 that should be the first choices on the short-list – I believe that is asking for a world of hurt downstream, for users, vendors, consultants and the market at large.
For the same reason that I smell problems when people (typically in IT – and I *was* IT for a dozen years or so) go on and on about ’scability concerns’ – then I sense a desire to avoid thinking and fall-back on ’safe choices.’ Unfortunately, the safe choice is almost never the right choice, and certainly not the BEST choice.
Hi guys,
Aren’t you simply ignoring the fact that customers most of the time prefer a list of vendors that have enough staying power to make up for any temporary technical challenges or missing feature in the long run. Most customers will appriciate help in putting togeher their short list.
I dont see why different analyst cannot have each their own favorite list. It probably reflects the type of customers the analyst serves with their research. Companies in the Fortune 2000 Enterprise segment probably look to Gartner or Forrester. Local SME’s might look to local “experts”.
Sure we would love to be on any list with our product Dynamicweb (I work for this company) and it is annoying when we are not mentioned for whatever reason. But I cannot see why publishing a list is such a big deal from an analytical point of view. It is no different than trusting a particular critic to help you decide the next movie you want to watch. If you dont like the movie – you probably will find another critic to listen to.
Soeren – if analysts are supposed to be objective (and they are), then having a pre-determined “favorite list” is clearly against the very concept of objectivity.
A list of what clients most typically buy? Fine. A list of those that are most typically thrown out the window because of failed implementations? Fantastic.
But a list of favorites – runs completely against the very purpose of an analyst firm. I’m all for helping people to reduce the list of potential solutions from hundreds to a handful, but there are too many factors to produce “the” top 10 list, IMHO.