What the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management Tells Us

Gartner recently released its 2012 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management and we’re excited to share that Ektron has moved into the Leader’s Quadrant (which is where you want to be). It’s an exciting step forward that helps validate our company and product’s direction. But for me, as someone that’s been around web content management (and really the many flavors of content management in general) for the better part of a decade, it’s interesting to read these kinds of reports to see not only what they’re saying about our product, but also our competitors, and the market as a whole.

After reading through the latest version, it’s indeed confirmed a couple of thoughts that I’ve long agreed with as part of the space:

1. Most products can meet 50% to 60% of core functional requirements; they’re definitely not going to do it all the same way (as evidenced by where they place), but features like WYSIWYG authoring, workflow, taxonomy, and search will be found in most products. That means that when you’re evaluating web content management (WCM) tools, it’s important to focus on the differentiators of each product, weighing how important they are as opposed to the common functionality.
2. It’s not just where you are, it’s where you’re going; reports like Gartner’s Magic Quadrant often discuss the company (and product’s) strategic direction. It’s important to understand whether that direction aligns with your needs. WCM is not a short-term purchase, so it should not be purchased with only your initial needs in mind.
3. Being on top might not make your product the best fit; it’s easy to look at any ranking system and assume that the top ranked solution is the best product. However, it’s important to understand the ranking system and see how the solution’s rankings are identified. Some of the criteria that pushes one solution higher may have absolutely no bearing on your needs, so it probably shouldn’t be a determining factor in your evaluation.
4. Best of breed seems to be the consensus direction; a common theme in the report discusses the concept of an all in one or best of breed solution and from what I can tell, it seems to be clear that the upper mid-market and enterprise space is really favoring the best of breed approach (which is good, because that’s the approach Ektron takes!). A one-size-fits-all approach simply isn't practical in organizations where "good enough" simply isn't good enough.

I definitely encourage you to download the report (it’s free!) if you’re interesting in learning more about the web content management space in general or if you have an upcoming project. However, I’m always interested in your feedback and I’d love to hear what you think of what Gartner has to say not only about Ektron, but about the market as a whole.
Please comment below or tweet at me to let me know what you think!

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