Jul 16, 2002
Matching content tools to business requirements

Fifty-three percent of the companies surveyed recently by Jupiter Media Metrix said they will have deployed a new document or content management system by the end of 2002; a fifth of those surveyed will be involved in content management consolidation projects.

But many of these businesses will spend too much, Jupiter said. The survey found that overly optimistic and overly broad content management strategies have led some companies to spend as much as $25,000 per nontechnical employee per year to handle their Web sites' content.

''We're finding that some of the companies are spending a lot more than they should have relative to the task,'' said Jupiter research analyst Matthew Berk. Jupiter's view that businesses are overpaying for content management is by no means the consensus of all analysts.

''Most software-buying decisions right now are being based on the individual business unit, so people are not really over-buying,'' said Yankee Group senior analyst Rob Perry.

However, there is a consensus on at least one point: that content management infrastructure is important on the enterprise level.

This need, analysts say, is part of what's driving trends in the technology. It explains why vendors increasingly market their technology as enterprise-wide solutions, platforms that include the previously separate categories of document management, digital asset management and brand asset management.

Another catalyst is the growing popularity of corporate portals. IT departments increasingly understand that for a portal initiative to work, it has to have a content management infrastructure.

Build or buy?

Some companies, especially larger ones, must tap multiple repositories of information to form their site's content-a complex undertaking that requires a complex, often home-grown content management system. Other organizations can achieve success with commercial software.

...

But complex content management hurdles don't necessarily require building rather than buying. IBM Global Financing, which runs customer-facing Web sites in more than 30 countries, previously managed its content on six servers around the world, at a cost of $1.2 million a year.

Today, the IBM unit uses a single content management system from FatWire. The single server costs ''a couple hundred thousand a year'' to run, said Chuck Thomas, IBM Global Financing's director of e-business solutions.

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Publication: B To B
TED KEMP