Why Choose a hosted Contenet Management System solutions?

Why Choose a hosted CMS solutions?

History

In January 2003, 52 percent of respondents to an Aberdeen Group survey said they would consider using on-demand CRM/CMS services. By June 2003, the proportion of respondents who said they would consider such services had jumped to 85 percent.
Hosted CRM/CMS solutions are just the tip of the iceberg for the demand for hosted offerings. Experts predict that many companies from the SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) will spend money in 2004 on improving their online processes and workflow by using hosted content management solutions. What is the sudden infatuation with hosted content management solutions? The most obvious reason is its cost relative to the traditional on-premise solutions sold by companies like Documentum, Vignette or even Merant. Ivolution President, Ilan Klein predicts that the demand will grow as setup costs for hosted content Management solutions approach zero.
"It's one of the big selling points," he said. "You can be up and running today for peanuts."

Fits all sizes
As an improving economy and the presumed loosening of IT purse strings have helped the momentum for on-demand CMS services. Moreover, interest in hosted solutions is not limited to small- and medium-size businesses. As the functionality of on-demand systems has begun to rival that of on-premise solutions, including the ability to customize applications.
David Caney, senior consultant Rapid Objects, an application design, implementation & integration firm, told us that organizations initially may choose a hosted CMS service because of cost savings, but then stick with it because it makes them more nimble and agile than if they had saddled themselves with an on-premise solution.
"We do not see this interest being limited to small companies," Mr. Caney added. "Larger companies are still faced with similar challenges in getting more efficiency and cost savings from their online publishing processes. For them, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow might be bigger than that of a small business. Shedding unneeded processes and moving them to an outside source might save a considerable amount of money.”

Ease of Implementation
Ilan Klein, president of Ivolution, identified cost and speed of implementation as the two primary drivers for growth in the market for hosted CMS.
"With CMS as a service, not only do you eliminate infrastructure cost, you cut out most of those IT headaches," said Mr. Klein.
For example, if an organization takes the hosted CMS route, the assumption is that a network with T1 or T3 access to the Internet is already in place. In that case, the organization does not have to set up and configure hardware to implement the Content Management System. Those in charge of obtaining the hosted service simply can go online and make a credit card purchase.
Organizations still face setup decisions, such as which publishing processes to support or how to configure their publishing work flow and which third-party applications behind the firewall will be integrated with the hosted service. However, they do not need to install a dedicated server, a server operating system, a database or routers, nor do they have to contend with the problems that come with deploying such an infrastructure.

Increasing Functionality & Customization
Mr. Klein admitted that despite advances made in 2003, most hosted CMS functionality has not reached the depth in the publishing processes that traditional on-premise systems have, though he is quick to add that his company and at least some of its competitors are improving their software/service functionality in rapid strides.
Of course, developing a specialty can help a company provide richer offerings in that area. This is why Ivolution is developing vertical solutions pre-packaged for various verticals, such as law firms, educational institutions & health services companies. Mr. Klein said that Ivolution's primary focus is delivering almost complete solutions in those verticals, because it makes their sales cycle much shorter when the Content management functionality is already tailored to the needs of the vertical.
As a result, Ivolution champions a robust content management platform, which incorporates the Internet, Intranet, and Extranet & Collaboration abilities with managing companies & institutions online publishing & collaboration systems.

Competition
What's next for hosted CMS? According to Klein, the market has entered a more competitive phase, in which some companies will emerge as successful leaders, others will be acquired.
Whatever happens, Caney said, the hosted CMS model is a "creative breakthrough" that will change the way in which traditional enterprise software will be sold.

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