Vendor Ratings, VDR Nikos Drakos

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1 Vendor Ratings, Nikos Drakos Research Note 5 November 2002 Vendor Rating: Tridion Web Content Management Tridion hopes that a prudent business strategy and a flexible product line will be enough to put it ahead of its European Web content management competitors. Tridion Overall Rating: What You Need to Know: Tridion has a clear vision and strategic direction characterized by a strong product focus, extensive technology and service partnerships, and a realistic geographic expansion plan. However, users should recognize that, despite early successes, Tridion faces further growing pains as it moves from being a niche to an established player in a very volatile market. Analyst Comments: Tridion s European-focused business strategy and modern product put it ahead of local Web content management competitors. The outlook is very promising, but users must recognize that Tridion is still a small player in a volatile and evolving market. Detailed Rating: Corporate Viability Strategy Financial Marketing Organization Product/Services/ Technologies Product/Service Technology Pricing Customer Service/ Product Support Sales/Distribution Support Services Initiative Rating Caution Corporate Viability: The year 2002 continues to be difficult for all Web content management vendors. They face tight IT budgets, the overall negative economic environment and, particularly in Europe, consolidation among the many local vendors and the fewer, but highly visible and retrenching U.S.-based vendors. At best, most European vendors have static revenue and are struggling to cut costs by scaling back operations and laying off staff. When this is too little, too late, the result can be a dramatic exit from Gartner Entire contents 2002 Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 the market Reef being the latest casualty in July 2002 (see Reef s Demise Shows Risks of Web Content Management in Europe ). Tridion s biggest strength is the clarity of its vision and strategic direction characterized by a strong product focus, extensive technology and service partnerships, and a realistic geographic expansion plan. Tridion was one of the few European Web content management vendors that correctly read the early negative economic signs in the United States during 2001 and avoided a costly and counter-productive geographic expansion. However, gaining enough strength before market conditions change again should be the No. 1 priority and the biggest challenge for Tridion. Reaching Critical Mass Tridion is still a European, regional vendor. With fewer than 200 employees, annual revenue of less than 16 million euros in 2001, and a presence only in larger European countries, Tridion has to rely on distributors elsewhere. Tridion s product focus, its conservative expansion attitude and its strong product helped it to perform better than its local competition. Despite its constrained geographic presence, Tridion does have a handful of clients in the United States, most notably Schlumberger. To continue on this growth path, Tridion will need to expand operations within, as well as beyond, its home territory. It already plans to establish a local presence in the United States. The prudent attitude that was the right approach during a downturn may lead to missed opportunities if conditions change. Timing and execution is critical if Tridion is to move from niche to established player. Changing Market Conditions The second strategic challenge Tridion faces is the increasing commoditization of the Web content management market. Its development efforts have not been diluted with offerings in related areas (for example, portals, search engines, e-commerce engines or knowledge management tools). Tridion will continue to be considered seriously through 2H03 to YE03 when a prospective client is specifically looking for a Web content management solution. Tridion s competitive advantage is clearer when it competes with other Web content management systems from specialist vendors or with home-grown solutions. However, users are finding it difficult to handle the production, organization and delivery of traditional or rich-media documents in different formats for several types of content. Managing Web content may be the most-visible problem, in terms of cost or quality, and this may initially justify a Web-focused solution. However, many other kinds of content may be produced or consumed in an organization; and there is increasing frustration among users having difficulty coordinating the different systems that are used to produce and distribute different kinds of content. Other content management vendors are responding with more horizontal enterprise content management strategies and offerings (see The Reality Behind Enterprise Content Management ). The recent acquisitions of Bulldog Group by Documentum and of egrail by FileNET exemplify this trend (see Web Content Management Takes on Audio and Video and FileNET Buys egrail, Jumps Into Web Content Management ). From a different perspective, portal, e-commerce and even packaged application vendors are also adding content management capabilities that will be good enough, at least for some users. Tridion, like other Web-content-management-focused vendors, will continue to have the best-of-breed advantage for some 5 November

3 time yet; but it will increasingly become harder to partner its way into more-complete solutions. Potential partners that have document management, imaging or portal technology are already competitors, and this is bound to become more problematic for Tridion, as well as for other best-of-breed vendors. By 2006, Web content management functionality will become commoditized into infrastructure applications, including content management suites, portals and other applications, with the possible exception of the highest-end Web content management solution vendors (0.7 probability). Products/Services/Technologies: Modular Architecture Tridion s Content Management Software (CMS) 4.4 (known as DialogServer) offers a clear separation between modules for content creation (desktop integration, content conversion and importing and more), management services (authoring, version control, editorial workflow and repository) and content delivery. Tridion r.5 (expected by YE02) will add further content distribution, with transactional, multitier distribution of content to different delivery platforms and integration capabilities through business connectors to thirdparty applications. The modular architecture of Tridion r.5 allows enterprises to use only those content management software components needed within the scope or constraints of a given e-business platform. It helps to reduce the functionality overlap that so often characterizes the integration of products from different vendors. Another factor that adds to the flexibility of Tridion s product is that it provides extensive support for representing, storing and manipulating content in Extensible Markup Language (XML): Communicating with third-party authoring or graphics tools Importing and exporting content Manipulating content internally in the Tridion CMS Representing content to any delivery platform and publication format (with support for XML schemas in r.5) There is also strong support for many other standards and common protocols: Browser-based user interfaces Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) support Access to the internal workings of the system via both Windows and Java application programming interfaces (APIs) Extensible Stylesheet Language support More recently, support for Web-distributed authoring and versioning clients and Web services protocols has been added. Blueprint Mechanism 5 November

4 Tridion CMS embodies the concept of component and content reusability in its blueprint mechanism. A blueprint is a master Web site, consisting of content, navigation code, design templates, workflow rules and any other elements. Any blueprint can be cloned, specifying which of the original ingredients should be retained and which should be replaced. This borrows the concepts of encapsulation, inheritance and specialization from the world of objectoriented design and makes them available to nonprogrammers. This mechanism makes it easier to manage large numbers of sites that share common elements the common elements can be managed in one place. Apart from administrative convenience, return on investment improves because the same elements can be used in more contexts with less re-engineering. Further support for maintaining sites in multiple languages takes the concept one step further. Although this mechanism is not as sophisticated as those found in specialist globalization management systems (see E-Business Globalization Vendors: Where s the Value? ), it is good enough to support the multilingual sites of some of Tridion s clients, such as KLM or Scania. Platform Support There is at least one technology challenge that limits the appeal of Tridion CMS in some environments. This is the issue of OS support. The management system of CMS only runs on Windows NT/2000. This puts Tridion at a disadvantage against most of its competitors, which run on at least one or two of the main Unix variants and, increasingly, Linux, as well as Windows NT/2000. The Windows dependence does not exclude Tridion from Unix or Java environments, because the presentation module of CMS is OS-neutral and the internal services of the system are exposed via Java APIs. Most of Tridion s customers are committed to the Java platform and are more concerned about Java interoperability than OS support; but it will be difficult for an organization with little or no commitment to NT/2000 to choose CMS. Customer Service/Product Support: Tridion places a strong emphasis on ease of use and short deployment times. As a result, its service offering has been kept small but is enough to support its product deployments. To address inevitable integration concerns from its potential users, Tridion has forged deep relationships with a number of partners, such as Accenture, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CMG, Deloitte & Touche and KPMG on the service side, and BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Software AG on the technology side. Software AG, one of Tridion s technology partners, has committed resources to delivering and supporting CMS along with its XML products. A separate deal with Software AG, struck in 1Q02, provides global support to Tridion s customers through Software AG s call centers in the United States and Asia. This enabled Tridion to make its important tactical first step in extending its geographic presence, but in the longer term, it will be no substitute for a strong local presence. Related Research and Ratings: The 2002 Web Content Management Magic Quadrant Rating Definition: Strong Solid provider of strategic products, services or solutions. Customers: Continue investments. Potential customers: Consider this vendor a strong strategic choice. 5 November

5 Caution Strong Negative Demonstrates strength in specific areas, but is largely opportunistic. Customers: Continue incremental investments. Potential customers: Put this vendor on a short list of tactical alternatives. Shows potential in specific areas; however, initiative or vendor has not fully evolved or matured. Customers: Watch for a change in status and consider scenarios for short- and long-term impact. Potential customers: Plan for and be aware of issues and opportunities related to the evolution and maturity of this initiative or vendor. Faces challenges in one or more areas. Customers: Understand challenges in relevant areas; assess short and long term benefit/risk to determine if contingency plans are needed. Potential customers: Note the vendor s challenges as part of due diligence. Difficulty responding to problems in multiple areas. Customers: Exit immediately. Potential customers: Consider this vendor only if there are no alternatives. Core Topic Content, Media and Publishing ~ Knowledge & Content Mgmt., Collaboration & E-Learning Tridion Headquarters: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Web Location: 5 November