I’ve spent much of the week highlighting what I refer to the immaturity and ‘smoke and mirrors’ of the CMS market (see Ziff Davis event shows immaturity of CMS market). Of course, don’t take my word for it. Ask Tony Byrne, the founder and editor of CMSWatch.com, who wrote a very timely and bang-on piece on the industry, Sex, Lies, and CMS Vendors

“Most CMS salespeople I know are good educators, but they also have quotas to meet,” writes Byrne. “Under these circumstances, vendors will sometimes short-cut important discussions about functionality and pricing with simple -- but not always completely truthful -- answers.”

Byrne lists his top 10 most common myths you might hear from a CMS salesperson (and they are all too accurate - in green below):

MYTH: "Our interface will sell itself" (This is the sex part)

As I have noted in the past, everyone says they have a WSIWYG editor. Few actually have one.

MYTH: "You only need XY thousand to get started"

It always costs more than they say. Licensing is often a fraction of the cost – implementation is where it adds up.

MYTH: "You can recoup your software expenses by re-assigning the web team"

Only in some rare organizations does a CMS mean saving headcount.

MYTH: "Our open-source solution means you'll get off cheap" & "Our commercial solution is better supported than open-source alternatives"

Open-source has the same implementation story – and it needs support too. Commercial solutions require paid support and they rarely have open communities of support (discussion boards, shared code, etc.).

MYTH: "Access to the source code protects you in an uncertain marketplace"

“Source-code escrow or open-source licensing is nice, but having to muck with source code is faint solace if your vendor expires,” writes Byrne.

MYTH: "No requirements? No problem! Our business analysts can get you started"

Content management requires three major components: technology, people and process. Technology is the often the least problematic. Defining a plan and all requirements requires experience and skill – and time. CMS vendors rarely focus much beyond the technology.

MYTH: "Most enterprises deploy our solution within 4-6 weeks" 

Ha, ha, ha! Sure it is possible… in smaller, extremely well organized companies.

MYTH: "Our migration scripts will take care of your existing content"

Bad content is still bad content on a content management system – regardless of the migration system.

MYTH: "Our product is better than Vignette, for a fraction of the cost"

Yes, Vignette is expensive, but there’s a reason why Vignette is the market leader for enterprise content management. There’s a reason why there are thousands of CMS vendors with very few name client implementations. I’d recommend Vignette for very few organizations, but there are a lot of CMS vendors I’d never recommend to any.

MYTH: "We're the only product with..."

Sure. There are thousands of vendors… what are the chances that someone else has a polling feature too?

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Oh speaking of sex, lies and CMS vendors… since uninviting me to their wine tasting and CMS event (sex), Ziff Davis has sent me the same spam invite four additional times (lies)!!! Since the event organizers never responded to my email or my article (see Ziff Davis event shows immaturity of CMS market), I wrote Ziff Davis’s PR director about their PR mess…. surprise, surprise – no response!!! Outstanding PR (can you hear the tongue boring a hole in my cheek?)

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media