graphicpush

Kev, 37Signals has every right to sound higher-than-thou. After all, you just gave a very clear explanation of why. Their products are awesome, their experience shows it, and their numbers back it up, doncha think?

Hard to recommend w/o knowing the projects, however, consider Drupal. I have looked at dozens of CMS packages and Drupal came out way ahead for it’s architecture and the way you can pretty much write custom modules to do anything you can imagine. The learning curve is hard for devs, but a shop can certainly build it for you. A lot of huge sites are moving to it, NWSource.com, TheOnion.com, Amnesty International, and more!

@ Micah — without diving into a psychoanalytical response, suffice to say I just have difficulty wasting time with a company who (I feel) lacks humility. I feel the same way about Coudal. It’s not with any kind of scientific metric that I say this — it’s just a gut thing.

@ mahalie — The mandate came down from upper management that we had to purchase a solution from a company that was accountable from a support perspective. Drupal was on my personal short list (so was Expression Engine), but the decision was to avoid open source software.

I highly recommend (I know you said no to open source) Alfresco. There is the free community version and the paid SLA (gold or platinum) versions which basically do the same thing but come with accountability.

I work for a large online brokerage and we are in the midst of a redesign. We looked at Drupal, Wordpress and Expression Engine and in the end decided that technically, and administratively Alfresco was the best option.

Drupal has commercial support – check out Acquia.

To be more specific, we researched companies that appear in the Forrester Wave for WCM; Vignette, Tridion, Fatwire, etc. Original manufacturers, so to speak. Believe me when I say I advocated for open source products even without knowing about Acquia; also believe me when a firm “no” came down from those writing the checks.

I feel your pain. When I worked for VML (a great local Kansas City company) they used Vignette as their content management system. It was used internally and externally for clients. We hardly ever produced any real content for it- most of the time was spent figuring out the system. Navigating multiple drop-down/fly-out menus, multi-function buttons, etc. was a disaster. Like you, I have never understood why companies that are accountable for support don’t make their products more-user friendly. I guess since they make a significant profit by providing support, they don’t want make their product easier to use.

It’s pretty annoying when you are mandated to choose from a Forrester wave of products when there are much better open-source products out there. I believe that Expression Engine has a pro version (not sure on that one) with full support.

<sarcasm>Still, I can't imagine that the Lotus Notes duct tape WCM still isn't viable…</sarcasm>

The organization I work for went through this same evaluation over a year ago. The group tasked with making a recommendation reviewed the top 3 according to Forrester, made a recommendation and we still don’t have a WCM due to the cost of doing a next step evaluation with the selected vendor. Complicated and expensive!

Kev,
Just found this via delicious, apparently, you’re not the only one with with that gut feeling.

Why is 37signals so arrogant?

I went through the same process a year or so ago and don’t envy your task. I’m among those that slog through swamps of menus and forced work flows on a daily basis.

And you’re right, so many of the enterprise solutions are poorly designed. Our short list was Stellant (now Oracle), Percussion and RedDot and the decision ultimately came down to UI. However, I wish I’d spent more time looking at each vendor’s documentation.

I’ve come to believe that no matter what you choose, there’s a wicked learning curve. And no matter how good the interface looks, you’ll still find that random menu or settings dialog in the most illogical place.

Since CMS platforms aren’t simple and intuitive (as say 37signals), look for products with great documentation, detailed user guides and active user forums. Ask for these resources up front. They can turn the journey into a somewhat bearable learning curve.

If WCM vendors can’t copy the simplicity seen in open source platforms, they should at least take a cue and spend more time documenting the random and intricate nature of their platforms.

Thanks for sharing your take-aways thus far – let us know where your research leads and how the implementation goes.

We just launched: http://www.cushycms.com

Although it’s no enterprise level CMS we like to think it is the easiest you’ll ever use.