How many
organizations are using a CMS for their intranet? What about a portal
solution?
Respondents to the
Intranet
2.0 Global Survey provide
(530+ organizations ranging from small to huge, in all corners of the
globe: 36% come from the U.S.; 24% from Europe; 60% have more than
1,000 employees; 32% have 6,000 or more employees) some very good
insight into the use content management systems (CMSs), as well as
portals and Intranet 2.0 tools.
Key findings:
Less than 2/3s
of organizations use a CMS for their intranet (62%)
24% use a
custom built CMS (home grown CMS)
25% use an
off-the-shelf solution
11% use a
portal solution
There is no
dominant CMS solution – no one vendor has more than 20% market
share
Microsoft
SharePoint is used by 20% of those that use a CMS
Interwoven,
Documentum and Vignette each have 4% market share
No other
solution was cited by more than 8 organizations (2.5% share)
Clearly SharePoint's
dominance in the market is showing here. Though only 20% of the
respondents are using it as a CMS. For those that have implemented
Intranet 2.0 tools, SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is present in 46% of the
organizations (though some organizations are using multiple tools
including SocialText, Confluence and MediaWiki). In other words,
SharePoint is being used as a CMS, but its not its strength which is
collaboration sites, document sharing, and portal functionality /
features. SharePoint is more often being used for collaboration and
portal functionality.
My full presentation
on the Intranet
2.0 Global Survey
findings is next week at J.
Boye – Philadelphia 2009. There are still spots left if you
want to register
now (and some great case study presentations as well).
The full study findings will be sent to survey participants only in
mid-May (TBA) followed by a participant only webinar (yes you have to
take the survey to get the results).
This webinar is free and designed for university professors, instructors, and students. Topics
for discussion include the role of the new media, how the Web is
evolving, and what to expect in the future. Best practices and tips
for how to engage with others and build trust in a virtual world will
also be discussed. Hosted by Plank Center, the one-hour discussion
and presentation is on May 1, at 1:30 CDT.
Moderated
by Keith Burton, President, InsidEdge, presenters include Robert
French, Instructor, PR & Digital Media, Auburn University; Jeff
Beringer, SVP, Dialogue/GolinHarris, and Toby Ward, Founder and CEO
of Prescient Digital Media.
Like
the content of your website or intranet, planning and governance is
technology agnostic; whether its SharePoint or another portal or
content management platform, the necessity for and the approach to
governance is the same. Given its technology neutral status in the
realm of website and intranet evolution this module on planning and
governance is largely applicable to any technology platform and as
such is generic to start.
While
generic in nature, there are some components of SharePoint that
require specific consideration, and are discussed and addressed by
the interviewed subject matter experts and the included case studies
(see Planning
for SharePoint Success).
“Without
proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that
SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon
Consulting,
addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.
In
particular, the powerful Team Site features and easy deployment
features (Site Collections) of SharePoint make it even more demanding
of a rigorous plan and detailed governance model. While
intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles,
roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and
contributors.
Sadly,
very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model,
and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of
dollars on their website or intranet – amounting to extraordinary
investments left to chance and execution on a whim.
only
47% of organizations have a defined governance model (32% have 6,000
employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more);
of
the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a
whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.
Intranet
Sprawl
As IP
technology has advanced corporate intranets have become more complex
and interactive including human resource and purchasing applications,
collaboration tools, business intelligence and real-time reporting
tools. Some organizations without intranet governance and enterprise
standards (for web page and content creation) have seen the birth of
individual intranets for every department and work team.
“Do-what-you-like” was the only rule and the corporate network
became the wild west or ‘intranet sprawl’.
'Intranet
sprawl' can be a poisonous side-effect of SharePoint Team Site and
site collection use without the proper “rules” for deploying and
managing sites. However, its not merely a SharePoint problem. At one
point at the turn of the millennium, IBM's network was choked with
approximately 10,000 intranet sites before they undertook a
governance process and federation (consolidation campaign) that saved
the company untold millions (IBM claims its saved more than a $1
billion).
Perhaps
more so than most, SharePoint (MOSS 2007 or WSS) requires a
governance model. I categorize intranet governance by four broad
approaches or models:
Decentralized
(no single owner; do-what-you-like)
Centralized
a single owner or department controls it all; highly bureaucratic;
common in small organizations)
Collaborative
(shared ownership via committee)
Hybrid,
centralized
(single owner, with collaborative accountability, decentralized
content ownership)
Learn
more about planning and governance for the corporate intranet, with a
specific focus on MOSS 2007, during our free webinar Planning
for SharePoint Success (April 13).
“I'm
not really sure who owns the intranet.” This is a far too common refrain
cited by many clients and conference attendees alike when answering questions about intranet ownership. Shockingly, even the folks in
Communications and IT often answer with confusion -- even sometimes believing that they
are at least a part owner, but unsure who the real owner is.
How
can you operate a successful business or system if there is no clear
owner? You cannot; it is simply impossible to achieve any
long-lasting success without a clearly defined ownership and
management structure. Far from being a buzz word or consultant
jargon, intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the
names, roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers,
stakeholders and contributors (be it content, technology or other).
Imagine
a platoon without a lieutenant, your HR department with no head, or
your public website without an owner. All might might survive for a
few weeks, maybe a year or two, perhaps, but all would die a slow
death until someone put it out of its misery.
Politics
and the issues of control, ownership and standards go hand-in-hand
with intranet management and perhaps these issues more than any other
have driven the requirement for defining governance models. Sadly,
very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model,
and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of
dollars on their intranet – amounting to extraordinary investments
left to chance and execution on a whim.
According
to the Intranet
2.0 Global Survey only
47% of organizations have a defined governance model (of which 32%
have 6,000 employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more). Of
the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a whopping
47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.
However,
SharePoint is not getting the governance it deserves. According to
the Global
Intranet Trends 2009 report,
which highlights detailed intranet findings and lessons from 227
participant organizations, 55% of organizations have implemented or
are considering implementing SharePoint; a pitiful 30% of those
SharePoint implementers have an intranet strategy. A stunning
finding; I would be amazed to learn how the intranet managers or
executives in these companies actually got their jobs.
However,
if ever there was a platform or tool that required governance, it's
SharePoint. “Without
proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that
SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon
Consulting, addressing the annual Enterprise
3 conference in San
Diego.
One
MOSS expert, who prefers to remain anonymous when citing this
particular client, tells of a major bank in the U.K. that upgraded
to MOSS in 2007. A little more than a year later the bank had 23,000
instances of MOSS – a a massive problem for the bank. “The way
it was deployed and structured was deplorable… but that’s the
bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s.”
As
I'm fond to continually reiterate, an intranet is one part process,
one part people, and one part technology – and the technology is
the least important component. An intranet cannot work on software
and hardware alone. More specifically, Microsoft provides the
software, it is the client's responsibility to build the plan and
intranet governance.
When
building an intranet a governance model for MOSS, or any other
intranet, the major components should include:
Defined
ownership structure (names and titles)
Roles
and responsibilities (jobs and duties)
Decision
making process (who is responsible for what and when)
Content
and development policies & standards (the rules of establishing
pages, sites and content)
Implementing
proper governance for MOSS (or any intranet) does require some
experience and an outside third-party expert or intranet consultant
is strongly recommended if there is any hint of internal politics or
competing priorities amongst intranet stakeholders. An outside
intranet consultant is considered mandatory if HR, Communications, IT
and all the key departments and business units are not in explicit
agreement as to who should own the intranet and what the model should
look like.
SharePoint may be the World's most popular intranet platform that is loaded with bells and whistles, but without the proper planning and governance, a MOSS intranet project could become your organization's most expensive productivity drain.
“The Web
content management market is mature and expanding,” says Gartner’s latest
MarketScope for Web Content Management (MacComascaigh, Gilbert, Bell, Shegda, Andrews). “Vendor
consolidation has fallen (slowed)… functions such as workflow, ease of use and
multi-site management are no longer differentiating factors; they are the
norm.”
Findings:
Open source solutions (OSS, represents only 3% of the
total WCM market) are increasingly stable, robust and growing in market
share
Web 2.0 phenomenon is driving
WCM innovation
Change management and user
adoption will need to be applied to both internal and external users
The total WCM market, at $750
million per year, will grow at an annual rate of 15% through 2012
(representing 25% of the total ECM market)
Recommendations
for implementing a new WCM system (CMS):
Develop specific business
goals and link these to business objectives
Understand the cultural shift
represented by Web 2.0
Interoperability (multiple
systems working together or migrating from one to another) needs to be
considered, as does rationalization of multiple WCMs
Hosted SaaS solutions are not
growing as fast due to business and technical reasons
Total cost (TCO) of OSS solutions should take into
account initial price tag
Highest
rated vendors (strong positive):
Interwoven
Ektron
Lowest
rated vendors (caution advisories):
IBM (Lotus)
Mediasurface
Also of
note:
Vignette gets a positive
rating but with caution due their financial performance (also read Vignette
still in transition)
Microsoft SharePoint (MOSS)
is listed as a very average “promising” with lots of caveats and listed
weaknesses (see What the experts say about SharePoint (MOSS)
Gartner estimates a typical
replace of a WCM system to be around 5 years
My
analysis:
Gartner’s
MarketScope is somewhat different from the average Magic Quadrant in that the
qualifying vendors must have $10 million in licensing revenue to qualify, and
there is no magic quadrant but rather a 5-point rating scale:
Strong negative
Caution
Promising
Positive
Strong positive
While
there are hundreds of WCM solutions (thousands, really) only 17 qualify.
The
report is concise and solid intelligence for a representative snapshot look at
the current marketplace. This report is a good starting point to understanding
the market, but is not an adequate tool for helping an organization select a CMS. If you have significant
experience with WCM (CMS) and have very detailed and documented requirements and
plans for WCM, then a better report is the CMS Watch Web CMS Report 2009. If you
don’t have a solid understanding of the market and solutions, and what to watch
out for then you better consider Prescient’s CMS
Blueprint service.
Additional
notes on vendors:
Interwoven – Though due for a major tech upgrade, I
like how Interwoven has evolved in the past couple of years. The updated, AJAX-powered
U; the campaign management functions, etc. This is a
very powerful system, but overkill for an intranet… it’s sweet spot is the
external, product marketing website.
EPiServer – the Swedish-based
vendor is a real up-and-comer – and it’s average contract value is below
$10,000 which gives all the others a run for its money.
IBM (Lotus) – despite its
caution rating, this is still a reasonable solution… if you’re a Lotus
shop and/or use WebSphere. Outside that, there are far too many good-looking
alternatives.
Microsoft – I think it’s
generous to label SharePoint (MOSS) as WCM. It really is a portal /
development platform that is really quite weak bang-for-the-buck for WCM.
Garter cites its weaknesses particularly “ease of content reuse, multisite
management, workflow and enterprise-level federation capabilities such as
replication and multi-farm synchronization.” MOSS is a good enterprise
portal solution in a small to medium-size organization.
What is
absent:
The Content
Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification or standard was
ignored in this report.CMIS defines a
model or framework ensuring that content can be used by one or more Enterprise
Content Management repositories or systems. Frankly, I wouldn’t buy a WCM (CMS) if the selling vendor hasn’t
agreed to implement this standard.
(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) You’ve seen American
Idol, and perhaps even the brutally awful version from Canada, Denmark, the UK and others… and now there’s Web
Idol, for CMS vendors.
A
fast-paced, entertaining set of competitive demos alla American Idol. Five CMS vendors present 7-minute demos
showing the best features of their CMS systems. Five succinct,
comparative presentations are judged by an expert panel of judges that offer
pithy commentary. However, like Idol, the audience vote for the winner!
Sitecore led-off and did
competently in the 7-minutes provide for the demo. I like the insite
editing alla Red Dot. The ciritcs were fair, but critical.
SDLTridion followed and was…
confusing. I like the on-page AJAX driven editing without
having to load multiple windows. I like the Tridion folks, but the critics were harsh.
Open-source CMS Hippo was next-up. More
focused, I like the drag-and-drop AJAX interface under user
management. I don’t like the lack of in-site editing – it’s the 21st
century. To quote Tony Byrne, “…like a hippo it’s (the CMS) potentially fatal to
humans.” Overall, the judges appear to like Hippo best… thus far.
eZ ran in 4th. The
two-time defending champ and open-source CMS led with a very smart demo
site that included advertising and lots of multimedia, and even Google
maps. I like the integration of commenting and Web 2.0 with the in-site
(in-context) editing. The judges seem confused and uncommitted.
e-Spirit in the anchor
position had a very competent, but lightning-fast confusing demo. The
presenter was very quick and the system seems quite capable… but drab. The
speed of the demo confused me greatly… I couldn’t follow what he was doing
or why. Unlike the other vendors, e-Spirit finishes early… but I’m
confused. I shall not be casting my vote for e-Spirit. The judges also
seem confused.
Tony was
a very good judge with some very good remarks, analysis, and quite funny. Erik
and Claudia however looked and sounded lost… Where have all the good judges
gone?
VOTING
Remember,
like Idol, this is not comparative analysis of which CMS is best, it’s a popularity
contest based on a lightning fast demo. The winner is voted on by the audience.
I voted for eZ Systems. I like the AJAX, multimedia and Web 2.0. The demo
site was nice and progressive.
The
audience cast their votes…. And the winner is…Denmark-based Sitecore (1st time winner).
(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) “MOSS is
very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments,” says Alan
Pelz-Sharpe, analyst, CMS Watch and his
presentation on Evaluating SharePoint. “It’s not traditionally very good for
5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users.”
Content and Code's visual representation of the SharePoint Platform
CMS
Watch’s approach / focus to evaluating MOSS:
Customers
that are making a purchase today (or shortly)
Independent,
specific advice for end users and buyers
We
never work for vendors… and in fact can be (even) ‘rude’ or
honest about some products
We
have a reputation of being anti-SharePoint; not true, we’re
independent and in fact we’ve recommended MOSS to many
Sometimes
however MOSS has not always been accurately advertised; not they’re
(MS) dishonest, but it (MOSS) not always the best fit for an
organization
PROS:
MOSS
is really unusual: a lot of different dynamics
Most
people are fairly happy with SharePoint
SharePoint
is an end-user’s dream with some exceptions; users are usually
very happy
For
building small collaborative environments, it’s nearly perfect
(I’m exaggerating for affect)
File
sharing
Team
sites
Well
priced for small organizations
CONS:
Those
that aren’t happy with it are those that use MOSS where it’s not
a good fit
Those
that aren’t typically happy are those that are in-charge of
governance, legal, etc.
Before
MOSS there was chaos… now the chaos is more visible with MOSS (and
its bringing more visibility to this chaos)
Enterprise
content management (ECM) which demands strict controls (compared
with Documentum, Oracle, FileNet and IBM)
Very
poor at index/search of non-MOSS info
Search
results can be unexpected out of the box
Project
/ task tracking
Social
networking
Discussion
& collaboration and communication
Trouble
consuming its own RSS feeds (authentication issue)
Pricey
for larger organizations
Case
study example (editor’s note: SharePoint sprawl):
There’s
a bank HQ’d in the UK and they have SharePoint… started using it
as a test in 2006 and immediately upgraded to MOSS in 2007… and
now have 23,000 instances of MOSS… and it’s a massive problem
for the bank
The
way it was deployed and structured was deplorable… that’s the
bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s
“How
to bring it under control? I’m not entirely certain…”
MOSS
SharePoint history:
Initially
a countermove to the success of Lotus Notes
When
SharePoint was formally launched in 2003 MS had very low
expectations
The
initial success was very high… MS was stunned and very pleased
MS
managers were stunned… “Why is it such a big success?”
The
success was in users deploying it as a light-weight portal
MOSS
launched in 2007 and updated to .NET 2.0 / 3.0 as a development
platform
Recurring
Threats:
Separation
between underlying “free” Windows platform and richer portal
product with extra services, for a fee
If
you’re an MS enterprise client, you will get most MOSS services
for free
Traditional
disconnect between SharePoint and .NET (mostly resolved in 2007)
(e.g. MS is very large but very much like a college campus with many
different groups and departments… that don’t necessarily talk to
each other… and there are times that products get ‘out-of-sync’
with each other
Endemic
confusion about what resides in SharePoint and what does not (and
licensing implications)
MOSS
is very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments (it’s
not traditionally very good for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users)
(e.g. Oracle on the other hand focuses on larger enterprises and are
traditionally “terrible” at the workgroup level
deployments)
MOSS
has to run on a MS technology stack (.NET, Windows Server, SQL
server)
“I’m
not really convinced that there really is any business intelligence
(in MOSS)… though MS says there is.”
Current
SharePoint Product Universe:
WSS
Foundation
components, free with Windows
Basic
collaborative features
MOSS
Fee
based server product that extends WSS
Advanced
features like CMS, personalization, forms processing and Excel
services
Some
enterprise features not included
SharePoint
Search
Search
engine for MOSS
Can
crawl a number of different content sources, including Exchange
(email)
MOSS
Standard can only index 500,000 pages
Forms
Server
Form
rendering and processing (“One of the best features of MOSS… I
love this. Really good value add.”)
Used
in conjunction with InfoPath to deliver electronic forms via the Web
Still
retain interactive attributes provided via InfoPath
Key
functions:
Functional
capabilities:
Enhanced
search
Business
data catalog
Excel
services
Forms
services
Shared
services: farm-level services
User
import/management
Search
engaging configuration
Basic
usage reporting
Profile-based
site for individual users
MySite
Both
profile and personalizable home page
Somewhat
controversial
Actually
provisions entire site collection
Things
that can affect pricing:
Extent
of external connectors and licenses for “Internet Site” licenses
Bill Ives
brought to my attention ECMHUB 2.0
“described as the world's largest mashup focusing on the ECM and KM industries
and married it to web collaboration.”
”First they created a generic Yahoo Pipe that reads Google Spreadsheet
information that lists hundreds of ECM industry RSS feeds including blogs,
news, webcasts, questions, RFPs, and videos. Then they take the feeds and
caches them into Google. Using Google App Engine they built an "on
demand" feed caching and refresh application. This means the latest
articles are instantly retrievable within only a few seconds and the individual
feeds are automatically rebuilt with a push of a button. They then built
"cloud communities" around the feeds adding comments, ratings, web
conferencing, and 3D chat. Currently, they have support for over 40 communities
with over 5,000 daily articles. Finally they wrap the entire application using
Javascript with an AJAX foundation. The site says that
"this means instead of navigating from page to page like a traditional
website, you navigate by retrieving web page data on demand. When you click on
a community, for instance, the main page area will clear and show an animated
star indicating that new data, such as the latest news, is currently
loading."
