Tony Byrne, CEO and founder of Real Story Group, which provides WCM technology assessments and strategies for buyers, is skeptical of a successful CMS “combination platter approach.” He told CMSWire there is no “combination play” in this market.
Byrne cited what he deemed as failed examples, some going back decades:
Mediasurface: The original combination platter was, which had three different CMS tools, Byrne noted. That failed, he said, and they all died via Alterian and then SDL.
Divine: Roll-up tech company divine had three different CMS tools, also on purpose. All died except for Content Server, which went to Oracle via FatWire. FatWire killed its own homegrown CMS when they bought Content Server from divine, another failed combination, according to Byrne.
Episerver-Ektron: We did find Ektron still with a heartbeat as recently as last June. But there is no denying Episerver's lobbying efforts to get Ektron users to abandon ship and get on Episerver (which is now Optimizely).
OpenText: OpenText at one time sold and managed five different WCM tools: Gauss, Obtree, RedDot, Vignette, TeamSite.
"In the examples of killed-by-roll-up systems, I cannot recall a single time where the vendor did not say, ‘We are going to support the new system...things will work out well...synergies…" Byrne said. "They have to say that. And they are always, always lying."