26 January 2009 by Simon Mone
One of the most respected commintators on the WCM market space is Tony Byrne of CMS Watch. Today I read with interest a posting he made accusing WCM vendors of competing with their channel partners, read it here. He particulary cites Sitecore and Ektron for this and both companies have responded (unsurprisingly) in their own defence. My experience of Sitecore is that they go to market via partners only (in the UK at least), we do not partner with Ektron at present so I can't comment on their strategy. Where other WCM vendors sell direct they are open about it. Why wouldn't they be? We are very open with them that we will tout their competitors software if we think it's a better fit for a client and we will certainly provide support and development services to any WCM platform if asked. I am an admirer of CMS Watch and of Tony but it's easy to take the 'moral high ground' unless you are trying to ensure the survival of your business and the jobs of those that work for you. So what if they are selling services? As Tony points out they are usually (and I am generalising about WCM vendors here) ill equiped to provide those services and often turn to partners in the back ground to deliver. We have been asked to provide such services by a number of WCM vendors over the years and are happy to do so. Doug and I had a meeting just last week with the UK head of a WCM vendor that has recently been proposing services and were assured by him that they only have 5 staff capable of delivering any such services and they are usually involved at a project management (i.e. protecting the brand) level. Times are hard and no-one will turn away work at the moment.
I have always valued the truly independent analysis that CMS Watch provide but maybe they should sometimes give the guys busting a gut trying to grow the industry a bit of a break. Don't let them away with anything, just take their position into account.
Now, I'm off to try and sell our Livelink WCM migration software to anyone (including any WCM vendors) that give me the time of day.
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