Market Research - Rage Against the Content Management Machine

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1 Rage Against the Content Management Machine Managing the Shortcomings of Multilingual CMS Solutions By Donald A. DePalma and Renato Beninatto

2 Rage Against the Content Management Machine By Donald A. DePalma and Renato Beninatto ISBN: ISBN: Copyright 2003 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Lowell, Massachusetts, United States of America. Published by: Common Sense Advisory, Inc. 100 Merrimack Street Suite 301 Lowell, MA USA No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Permission requests should be addressed to the Permissions Department, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Suite 301, 100 Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA , , info@commonsenseadvisory.com. See for usage guidelines. Trademarks: Common Sense Advisory, Global Watchtower, Global DataSet, DataPoint, Globa Vista, Quick Take, and Technical Take are trademarks of Common Sense Advisory, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information is based on the best available resources at the time of analysis. Opinions reflect the best judgment of Common Sense Advisory s analysts at the time, and are subject to change.

3 Rage Against the Content Management Machine i Table of Contents Meeting Global Enterprise Content Management Needs... 1 Who Should Read This Report?... 1 Interviewees Support Their Companies International Presence... 3 Just What Is Content Management?... 3 Do-It-Yourself Wins Out over Commercial CMS Offerings... 7 Why Some CMS Prospects Still Sit on the Fence... 8 CMS Buyers See Problems with Multilingual Applications Buyer Consideration of GMS Solutions Remains Low Conclusions from Buyer Interviews Domestic Enterprise CMS Is an Oxymoron, but Often the Norm Bi-Directional Scalability Will Define Enterprise Content Architectures CMS Vendors Believe Customers Don t Want Localized Software Innocents Abroad: American and European Suppliers Face Off CMS Marketing Differentiation Remains Minimal Building Blocks for a Global Enterprise Content Architecture Starting Point: Platforms and Protocol Support Global Content The Reality: Content Can Reside Anywhere Understanding the Data: Metadata Describes Content Control: Workflow Management Formalizes Process Interaction: Collaboration Integrates Colleagues and Suppliers Access: Distributed Search and Categorization Allow Multilingual Access Delivery: Transformations Morph Content for Different Users Testing: QA Must Be an Integral Part of a Global Content Architecture Product Smackdown: CMS Suitability for a Broader Global Role Where Do Globalization Management Systems Fit? For Buyers, Ten Tips for Choosing the Right Globally Enabled CMS For Language Service Providers, It s Time to Adapt to the Web Marching Orders: Technology Must Follow Process About Common Sense Advisory Future Research Figures Figure 1: Large Companies Not Yet Using Globalization Tools... 4 Figure 2: Nearly Two-thirds of Practitioners Build Rather than Buy CMS... 7 Figure 3: Language Service Providers Say Most Clients Rely on File System... 8 Figure 4: Language Service Providers Largely Interact with Clients via Figure 5: Interviewees Catalog Problems with Commercial CMS Solutions Figure 6: Do-It-Yourself Hobbles Global Content Management Figure 7: Most Vendors Offer English, Other Languages Get Less Attention Figure 8: Content Management Hot Spots Figure 9: GCM Pre-Purchase Checklist Copyright 2003 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

4 ii Rage Against the Content Management Machine Tables Table 1: Content Management Solutions Come in Multiple Flavors... 5 Table 2: Multilingual Content Manipulation Tools... 6 Table 3: Suppliers Meet Buzzword Compliance Criterion for Content Management. 21 Table 4: Global Content Management Shopping List Table 5: Standards for Content Management The Shaded Ones Matter Most Table 6: Supplier Global Technology Support, Marketing, and Status Table 7: GMS Providers Face an Uncertain Future Note: Rage Against the Machine (RATM) is a music ensemble that plays heavy rock music with rhythmic, deep hip-hop grooves, and sonic slap-back funk. The group s name emphasizes sociopolitical themes, such as the conflict between the haves and the have-nots, in their oeuvre. The machine against which RATM rages is a government that has abandoned the have-nots. In this report, the content management machine is the solidifying establishment of enterprise content management that supports multilingual product features but does little to actively market and support them. Copyright 2003 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

5 Rage Against the Content Management Machine 1 Topic Meeting Global Enterprise Content Management Needs Content management has evolved from simple systems for handling HTML pages to an enterprise platform for creating, managing, and distributing a wide range of corporate assets. In their progression from tactical web tool to corporate solution, content management systems (CMS) have embraced such a wide landscape of electronic data that we define content broadly: Content is any digitized information that is, text, document, image, video, structured record, script, application code, or metadata used to convey meaning or exchange value in business interactions or transactions. Thus, content management ranges from traditional documents to web content to cell phones to telematics and beyond. This report opens with an account of interviews with managers responsible for one or more of their firm s multilingual applications. From this base of buyer experience, we review the technology challenges that face developers of global enterprise content management applications. We analyze the ability of today s enterprise content management (ECM) solutions to make the leap to global content management (GCM). This evolutionary step will be characterized by enterprise-class support in technical, corporate marketing, sales, and customer support wherever companies deploy the solutions. Who Should Read This Report? This report provides an overview of the software products available for creating and managing global or multilingual content. Because this report discusses technology trends, business dynamics, and specific products, it should prove useful to anyone responsible for choosing, buying, or using such tools. More specifically, it should appeal to: Any group that distributes global content. Planners at multinational companies, government agencies, military and intelligence units, and nongovernmental organizations that globalize their websites, documents, products, and other materials will learn what options are available for managing content. Copyright 2003 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

6 2 Rage Against the Content Management Machine Business intelligence and knowledge management specialists. Enterprise software, content management, data warehousing, and other business intelligence developers, suppliers, and integrators who develop strategies to integrate multilingual repositories of structured data and free-form content will be interested in the tools that will help them handle global information more effectively. Suppliers of language services and tools. Language service providers (LSP) rely on software tools to increase the productivity, reliability, and quality of their translation and localization efforts. In addition, those who develop, sell, and integrate software products to manage global content will benefit from the discussion of industry, market, and technology dynamics. Copyright 2003 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.