Galaxy of CMS - We are not alone!!! (updated)

Salesforce announced the public release of its long-awaited CMS platform (based on its community cloud). You may be thinking what about all the rumors they will buy Sitecore, they will buy Acquia, they invested in Contentful, they invested in WordPress. Or you may think there are so many CMS platforms on the market already why do we need another one?

Having been in this space for longer than most people, I have to say the positive of all this attention is that it shows clearly that the need to better manage 'content' is not going away any time soon. Along with that, its maturing as most things do into multiple flavors of that need. Hence my view about 'more' cms product coming to market is that they all have their purpose and not one size will fit all. Consider these as perspectives:

Basic WCM - we all know about this one, I need to manage content for my website. This space was a big battleground before between Vignette, Interwoven, Adobe, Sitecore, other opensource CMS platform such as Jahia, Magnolia, Wordpress, etc etc. This battle divided recently into headless vs DXP and now a justified "hybrid" category. The second split that has been happening is what happened when DXP was coined, it was due to the use of a WCM type application platform (my beloved Epicentric) and now more modern things like Jahia as an application interface layer, PORTAL. Yep, I said it. Portal. The front end of the CMS. When Vignette purchased Epicentric back in the early 2000s it was to be a head to the content platform that always required a custom delivery tier. Interestingly, now we are back to this (headless) for a few reasons. First, the need to manage content grew to be NOT just for the website but also for that same content to be leveraged in applications, kiosks etc. Omnichannel needs as Salesforce CMS describes it. This need to manage bits of content that are needed not just in site display but built into application logic (multiple copies now) and getting that standardized for brand control, compliance etc, created a category of need for the headless concept on the CMS side (yes for my commerce side brethren, this is different from microservices for functionality but can be same marketecture diagram). Hence you see simple easy to deploy platforms like Contentful, ContentStack and now Salesforce CMS coming to the rescue for people that need to store and deliver content BUT not a full-fledge DXP along with its cost and complexity. This has also created a category of front end frameworks like Mobify (front end as a service) and static site generator GatsbyJS for custom display requirements. Other use cases will be as basic as just needing the content within your application (labels for fields, disclaimers, etc) which you need to provide an easier way for authors to work with vs it being in code/GIT platforms.

So to me, it's not really that we have too many vendors trying to do the same thing, it's that we have too many vendors and analysts mixing up the different use cases to make it all fit in quadrants and subway maps confusing buyers who rightfully are all new to all of this and can be easily pushed in one direction or another based on a variety of factors. There are still clear needs from my dialogue with many CMO/CDO on centralized content (headless CMS), DXP (experience crafting and management), Portal (dashboard and more complex capability mixed with content) along with a unified user profile, build and release process, etc, etc. Very few can and should strive to do it all but taking a broad look at all the initiatives in your organization will help you better decide what really will work for you.

So don't be surprised if you hear more 'CMS' products being announced. More investments made in this space. Causing some level of marketing confusion along with it. CMS is the new Database. IBM, Oracle, MSFT aren't the kings of 'save and retrieve a piece of data' in this new world. For now, Drupal and Adobe have a considerable lead in one general category. Portal and purposeful 'micro-cms' are still an open battleground. Look for Salesforce, Amazon, Microsoft and even Google will want a seat at the new table. Too much of what we do is about 'experience' and experience is a combination of how something is presented, along with the 'what' is being presented. Hence CMS is still a thriving market need and opportunity that I've spent 25 years in the middle of and super excited about its future.

Piyush "Portal Pete" Patel