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TYPO3 and Other Open Source WCM Systems Dissed Again
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I have written about this before in a four part series ending with "Spending money is better than saving it on ECM and CMS." I have also done a pretty objective comparison between TYPO3 and its primary open source competitor, Drupal, in "TYPO3 is the Best Enterprise Content Management System (CMS)."
I have an empirical science background, so I am well aware that we all have biases. However, unless one is intentionally trying to deceive or is just plain not that bright, when writing comparison or advice articles or consulting with clients, one has to be completely honest and as objective as possible.
In the US, I find that discussions about open source software anywhere but within the open source community itself are completely nonobjective, biased, and often out right false.
Recently, two examples smacked me in the face and really made me angry. This kind of thing actually affects my company's earnings, so they are not trivial matters. These kinds of things must be stopped or at least exposed for what a scientist would call bogus science masquerading as real science.
First, I received my periodic email newsletter from CMSWatch.com. Their slogan is "Get the real story, meaning...
- Impartial product evaluations for technology buyers, rather than software vendors
- Hard-hitting, critical analysis, debunking marketing hype in favor of the truth
- Detailed insights and education based on real end-user experiences
In their latest newsletter, they were promoting their ECM Suites Report 2009, starting at $2,950. I wanted to see what Enterprise Content Management systems were included, so I took a look at the table of contents. Neither TYPO3 nor Drupal are anywhere in the table of contents, not under ECM class, mid-range, or specialty. Only one open source product is, as far as I know, listed and that product is not a free open source product, Alfresco, if you want the Enterprise version.
So, it appears that products that made the cut were mostly proprietary and all had a licensing cost associated with them. The implication, of course is that, if it doesn't cost you a lot of money, it must not be good. This report is a disservice to anyone who wastes their money on it as it omits options that are better than many, if not all, of the products covered.
I dug a bit more and found their Web CMS Report 2009 list of vendors. Here, I finally found TYPO3 and Drupal. But, the plot thickens. Here are the main categories the WCM solutions were classified under:
- Enterprise Platforms
- Upper Tier
- Mid-Market Mainstream
- Mid-Market Challengers
- Hosted Services
- Commercial Open Source
- Open Source
Obviously, the above listing goes from perceived best to worst, that is the obvious implication to a reasonable person. TYPO3 and Drupal are in the last category. According to this report, neither of them are Enterprise level, upper tier, or even mid-market level products. Again, the more it costs, the better it is, even commercial open source is ahead of free open source. Again, the report is deceptive and does a great disservice to excellent Enterprise and Upper tier free open source CMS products. Companies pay up to $4,500 for the ECM report and up to $3,975 for the CMS report.
If a company uses these reports to make decisions, they will not even consider the Enterprise level solutions that do not cost thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet do as well as or better job. Reports like this also directly cost companies like mine real dollars with their deceptive reporting. Is it intentional due to pressure or sponsorships from the big boys or it is ignorance in believing the myths prevalent in the US about open source software? I have no idea, it doesn't matter. What I do know is that it is wrong and that generally Europe gets it and most of the US is clueless.
Next week, I'll cover the second thing that angered me this week on the topic of open source myths.
Please share your comments, we're really interested to know what you think and if CMSWatch will respond.
Keywords:
- typo3,ecm,cms,wcm,enterprise,content management system,enterprise content management system,cmswatch,drupal,open source
Add comment
* - required fieldFirst of all, the assumption seems to be that it is some kind of outrage that TYPO3 isn't considered to be ECM by CMS Watch. I find that mildly amusing. ECM, by our standards, is not *better* or of some higher class than WCM. It's just a completely different scenario.
Secondly, you are quite quick to assume that "the listing goes from perceived best to worst". Why would you think that? Shouldn't it be the other way round, from your perspective? There's quite a few different ways to read the categorizations and I'd encourage you to explore some different viewpoints there -- as we try to encourage our readers to do, as well.
There are many different angles we cover, and you've only skimmed the surface: the list of vendors covered. You might also want to check out the free sample, which actually contains the description of "how we categorize", before you run off in anger.
Thirdly, we don't particularly care what the licensing or revenue models of products we cover is like, since we're only concerned about what that means to the customers (and it is only one of many relevant factors). If anything, the vendor listing of the ECM Suites report should tell you we take open source quite seriously. You seem to have missed the fact that we list Alfresco in the same category as Documentum, Open Text, and Nuxeo. You also seem to bee unaware of the fact that Nuxeo is open source, as are Knowledge Tree and Infrogrid, which are covered, as well.
Finally, a question to you. Why would you write an "objective comparison", then go and name it "TYPO3 is the Best Enterprise Content Management System (CMS)"? That kind of FUD does a disservice to your readers, who might be better off seriously investigating why TYPO3 would or would not be the best suited to their particular uses.
Thank you for commenting from CMSWatch.
What do you consider the standard for classify systems as WCM, CMS or ECM? Is there a web link outside of the PDF? It'd be great to share and educate folks.
In reading through Virgil's article on the category ordering, it does seem that open source is on the bottom. I think the real concern or ill perception is why does the open source software need to be separated out in the first place?
Being a developer with 20 plus years of experience, I've found it's better to use the right tool for the job and with TYPO3's flexibility, there's quite a few situation where it fits in just fine. However, as an example, if all a client needs is a blog, then I'll be among the first to recommend WordPress.
Have a great weekend!
Thanks for commenting. I realize many of your comments are defensive. By the way, I just wrote this yesterday, so it hasn't been going around the past month.
First, I have read your categorization methodology and used your site a lot over the past years. There is a lot of good information there, but one does have to sometimes read between the lines. Every time one of these reports comes out, I think the same thing, I just never have written about it before like this.
The order of lists is perceptual. In a review context like your reports, things at the top of lists tend to be perceived as the best, things at the bottom the worst. It doesn't matter what your intent was, lumping all the free open source products at the end sends a message that they are not to be taken seriously. It also lumps TYPO3, Drupal, and Joomla into the same class, certainly not an accurate thing.
I am a big believer in using the best tool for the job and recommend Wordpress a lot. I have also used Joomla where appropriate. I have a couple of direct experiences (as a user in a corporate setting) with two of the super expensive systems in your ECM Suite Company listing and both implementations were disasters. This is at least partly the fault of the software itself that was too difficult for an average user to grasp, coupled with other variables, I'm sure.
Just a couple more comments. ECM is many things to many people and no two ECM implementations are the same. Same with WCM. Both TYPO3 and Drupal are considered ECM class solutions by many. I think anyone would put them at least in your mid-range category.
For your WCM report, if you really want to be objective, get rid of the commercial open source and [free] open source categories and place these packages into their rightful place in the hierarchy. You may want to change the category names, but certainly TYPO3 and Drupal belong in the Enterprise Platforms category or, at the very least, Upper Tier. Joomla would be a mid-market choice and I would bet that Joomla has more implementations than your Mid-Market Mainstream and Mid-Market Challenger categories combined. And, if you have been keeping up with some of the things being done with Wordpress, it should have made this report, as well.
As far as your ECM Report, leaving out TYPO3, Drupal, and Plone was a mistake, in my opinion. All three are being used for ECM purposes one way or another.
Again, thanks for engaging is civilized dialog. All I want is for software that deserves it to get mentioned in industry reports properly.
As for your last question, I called the article what I did because that was my conclusion based on my experience and research. You can decide for yourself if I made my case.
Interesting reading. I think that there are two separate discussions here. I might confess I don't know TYPO3 all that well, so apologies if I'm talking rubbish.
On the ECM report discussion, I'm in the camp that wouldn't consider TYPO3 or Drupal an ECM. I think the recently released ECM Maturity model gives a decent overview of what (the report at least) considers ECM: http://ecm3.org/
Note that this report doesn't just leave out you guys. Many popular Web Focused vendors (SDL Tridion, Alterian, RedDot, SiteCore, EPiServer, etc, etc) aren't there either. The clients of mine that are interested in this report are not at all interested in content delivery for a web site.
Your WCM argument less clear. I do think the casual reader might assume that the products are listed in "best to worst" order. Maybe this is going to change in the future, and your suggestion to place the Open Source vendors in categories that are more to do with their use cases than their licensing model is a good one.
I've got some thoughts on something similar here:
http://jonontech.com/2009/03/22/the-cms-word-on-the-tweet/
That's all for now
Jon
a) The titles of the reports might as well have been colors. (Actually, the reports do have different colors.) I can understand why you wouldn't want to be Mr. Pink, but as anyone who has seen Reservoir Dogs would probably agree, that discussion is mostly amusing and has little relevance to the task at hand. (At any rate, WCMR is blue, which I think is pretty cool).
b) The categories might as well have been "luxury", "family car", etcetera. Those are just broad categorizations -- just so buyers can easily find what they're looking for when browsing the reviews. What you're saying, then, is you want to be compared to a Ferrari, and not a Volkswagen, because there's this vague notion it just sounds better to be in the supercar league. Of course, the categories are debatable, and will probably change over time, but as you can understand, we'd change them on the basis of what our readers find more logical -- never on the basis of what some car manufacturer thinks. (Or, in your case, a car dealership, and even when the car in this case is not manufactured by some old-fashioned factory).
So, in that light, you may understand why I'm amused at discussion about whether TYPO3 should be in the blue report or the brown report, and that it's a shame that WordPress is in the red one instead of the blue one.
Let's face it, is "ECM class" anything more of a meaningful statement than "it's brown, not blue"?
And sure, "open source" may be as broad and relatively nondescript a category as "stick-shift cars", but it's not much of an implicit criticism, either. I hold our readers in high esteem and I'm sure they understand that, as well.
Finally, and just to stretch my metaphor to its limit, if you're running a car dealership, it's not very polite and probably bad business to get angry and insinuate reviews of your cars are examples of "trying to deceive" or the reviewers are "just plain not that bright". Especially if you're almost literally judging the books by their covers.
It's one of the reasons people don't like car salesmen, even if the cars they're selling are really special.
Thanks for your comments, I also read your post - http://jonontech.com/2009/03/22/the-cms-word-on-the-tweet/ - which was a good read and recommended.
I think that open source (PHP/Python) CMS/WCM/ECM, whatever the hell you call them, none have absolute definitions and it doesn't really matter, are seen on Twitter more than the closed source proprietary or even fee based open source products is because the free open source community are the early adopters AND, most importantly, they still embrace the original intent and meaning of the Internet.
Most of the software junkies on Twitter are early adopters, the big proprietary CMS companies aren't interested in sharing. Honestly, we are looking at the stereotypical American capitalist greed vs the free flow of information and knowledge folks. This is nothing new, but what gets my goat is when the greed factor dismisses the free alternatives and costs me money directly due to people's reliance on expensive reports that either do not even mention TYPO3 or place it at the end in the dreaded free open source category. They can't even let TYPO3 go head-to-head with its commercial competitors on the same playing field. That is bias of the first order.
We all want to make money, but, in the US, greed rules. And only in the US have the big proprietary companies convinced most mid-size and larger companies that if it doesn't cost a fortune, it isn't any good. As someone who was on the Internet when it was still limited to universities and has seen it change over the years, this is quite sad.
But, it is reality and my company embraces an enterprise level open source product, TYPO3, that is is not portrayed by the powers that be as a product worthy of consideration. We can save clients literally tens of thousands of dollars, but the big boys wouldn't like that, would they? In a nutshell, that pisses me off. CMSWatch is not the only guilty party, next week I have another example to share, so stay tuned.
I also read the link to ecm3.org. Pretty good read. However, there is nothing in there that would keep TYPO3 off the ECM list. Or Drupal. Or many others. Just because you have to pay $200k doesn't make it good. Repeat that 20 times :-)
Thanks again,
Virgil
I am sorry, but your last post essentially makes no sense whatsoever and has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
I never asked you to compare a Ferrari to a VW. I asked that you compare an orange with an orange and not dismiss one orange because it is free open source and thus must go in a different category than the orange that someone has to pay for.
Virgil
TYPO3 and Drupal can and readily do compete in the enterprise and mid-markets, but because of their software licensing nature, they're considered open source. True, they are open source software, but that's a licensing thing. The licensing shouldn't be used as a categorization by which to distinguish software out of the real categories that they fit into.
Heck, if licensing nature is the way to categorize software, then the only two options should then be closed and open source. At least that then compares the software on the same level.
The categorical classification of the proprietary software and then generally chucking all else under the open source category is a real disservice and disrespect to the communities and software involved.
What is really trying to be requested here, is to treat CMS/WCM/ECM software options failure. Categorize them against the same methodology.
I feel that though TYPO3 may not be ECM, but it is definitely amongst the strongest contenders in the CMS and WCM arenas, whether open or proprietary software.
Firstly, I think there is a terminology misunderstanding. Maybe because the terminology we use sometimes sucks a bit. When I say "ECM" I mean something very different to saying "Enterprise Level Web Content Management". If you say the Drupal/Joomla/TYPO3 are capable of doing a great job of a web site for a large multinational company, I'm not going to argue. However, could you point me to examples of any of the 3 products being used for what the maturity model means by ECM (Document Management/Records Management/Imaging and Workflow/Collaboration/Business Process Management) for a big company. I'm not saying for a second they don't exist - I'm just not aware of them.
Re: the categorisation of the WCM report, I think Adriaan's response makes perfect sense. The categories may well change in the future but they're pretty logical now. I have some cusomters that mandate Open Source, so having them grouped together is a logical thing for them too. Whenever my company does a vendor selection longlist for a customer, we'll always include at least one open source alternative so they get a broad spectrum of what's available.
I'm assuming you've seen The CMS Watch Subway Map (my thoughts here http://jonontech.com/2009/03/09/cms-watch-subway-vendor-map-2009/) that explains the colours in Adriaan's post. I think you're making a bad mistake by dismissing the attempts at clarity from a CMS Watch Analyst. If they're not impartial, no-one is.
Finally, I think you need to give a bit more credit to the customers that buy these reports. The reports aren't cheap (but certainly money well spent!) and the buyers read them from cover to cover.
I'd be really interested for someone from TYPO3 could comment on this thread.
Over and out.
Jon
As mentioned before on categorization, lumping the open source software together while giving the other proprietary options nice, neat labels is a true disservice. The catgorization a disservice, because CMSWatch, as CMS research and reporting leader, feels that open source shouldn't be distinguished as enterprise or mid-market, then report buyers aren't going to view the open source options in the same light.
Sure, the reports are expensive and very informative if you read from cover to cover. However, the reality is that people are busy, they skim the table of contents to see what's there and then only deeper skim the sections that they feel apply to them.
By this natural human process, the open source software isn't allowed to fairly compete where it's a viable option.
The corrected link for the CMS vendor map article is http://jonontech.com/2009/03/09/cms-watch-subway-vendor-map-2009/.
Is TYPO3 an ECM solution? I say yes because the framework is capable of unlimited scaling and expansion. And, while I am not going to fall on my sword over whether TYPO3 is ECM or not, it is certainly in the tier just below that at a minimum.
There is no ECM software that works out of the box, meaning that they all require a lot of work to get them functional in the setting in which they are bring used. Proprietary software companies make money from both licensing fees (which can be $150K plus) and from consulting/installation/branding/configuration/customization services. The customer gets hit from all sides. With a high end open source solution, you avoid the licensing fees and can end up with the same or better results in the long run.
There are good proprietary products, but why spend all that money when you don't have to? Please don't give me all the arguments (myths) against open source. I'll be writing about those next week.
Regarding the CMS Vendor map, that reminded me. I looked at that map last year and the 2009 one is no different, my impressions are the same. It looks pretty and impressive. However, it really doesn't mean much, can be confusing, and has lots of inaccuracies.
Why are there two separate blue lines for CMS software? One line has free open source and the other has software that costs. Why separate the lines? That sends a message just like separating open source from the expensive competition in the report. There shouldn't be, they should be on the same line if you are classifying them that way. This puts companies like mine at disadvantage and does a disservice to companies that should be worried about costs.
TYPO3 is classified completely separate, it appears, from Drupal and Plone, yet all three have similar capabilities. There are lots of examples of mismatches I see here, no need to point out more. This is simply a somewhat deceiving, yet impressive looking (presentation is 80% of the game, right?) diagram.
You should really look, read, and think more carefully before you post.
What should we infer from the graph then?
http://www.cmswatch.com/images/CMS-Watch-subway-map-2009-large.jpg