[thelist] Microsoft CMS

[matt newell]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Howard Cheng wrote:

> At 11:30 AM 4/4/2002 +0300, ashok at magicalkenya.com wrote:
> >Has anyone  used / deployed microsoft content management server  ?
> >I would really be grateful for any positive / negative experiences that
> >anyone has had ....
>
> I've programmed for it and I think it's a lousy product. Well, more
> specifically, it really wasn't suited to the site we deployed, so it caused
> a lot of headaches trying to build around it. On the other hand, I'm pretty
> sure we didn't use it to the best of its capabilities.

while researching a cms solution for my current company i centered on the
MCMS and Atomz Publish as the two in the price range and scope to take
care of the publishing/updating/workflow of our coprorate and support
site.

i found the vendor rep for MCMS to be clueless at best. unable to explain
the system to me (i am technically oriented) while slapping an $80k price
tag on it to account for multi-proc servers. i found it a bit hard to
swallow as i've had experience with Interwoven and a homespun xsl/xml
templated cms engine capable of cranking out hundreds of thousands of
static pages to ride on regular servers. i just didn't find them to hold
the water they claimed.

Atomz on the other hand has impressed me on multiple levels. i've been in
the sales cycle with them for about 6 weeks and they know their product
inside out. built on an xml backend with the usual bells/whistles to
satisfy uptime and redundancy requirements while also employing a /simple/
set of xsl-like tags to do the usual loops/calls/etc. they are alos
currently finishing webdav support (i might not've been supposed to
mention that, but i think it rocks). it's served up service-provider style
with a reasonable pricetag for most corporate implementations that don't
have the IT support staff or desire to host their own software solution.

i've raved enough.

> When using MSCMS, you're not building a dynamic site. You're building a
> static site that can be easily updated by people who don't know any HTML.
> For example, for most dynamic sites, you usually have a template page and
> you pass a parameter (for example, the content ID), such as
> 'product.asp?id=25'. In the MSCMS model, you would create one page for each
> product.

not to mention the hardware factor. $$$. MCMS + DB + Servers = costs
closely associated with higher end implementations.


aside, i'm happy to recommend Atomz and will continue the review once we
implement in the coming weeks.

best,
m.