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While Jupiter Media Metrix reports that companies have already overspent on content management systems (CMS), the Yankee Group predicts that sales in this software category stand to triple in the next two years.

These findings seem at odds, but there's a simple explanation. Most of the money spent on CMS software has gone, and will continue to go, toward enterprise class systems from top-tier vendors. Unfortunately, companies often fail to make the most of these expensive solutions.

In other cases, an organization will deploy several seemingly redundant systems. In our sampling of about 800 companies that use content management packages, we discovered that almost 15 percent had implemented more than one CMS, often from competing vendors. That's astounding, especially when you consider that an organization that deploys two content management systems can rack up more than $1 million in licensing fees and as much as $300,000 in yearly maintenance costs. Buying a second CMS should certainly raise a red flag for any CIO or CFO about to approve a purchase order.

What's more, Jupiter's recent report on CMS indicates that some companies spend an additional $25,000 in operating costs per nontechnical employee to maintain simple Web sites. Do every three contributors to a Web site really need the financial equivalent of their own Webmaster?

The answer is obvious, but that doesn't damn the functionality of content management systems. The technology plays a vital role in most Web-based initiatives. Rather, Jupiter's findings indicate that IT managers should weigh their options carefully before implementing any CMS.

Untangling the Content Web

At its foundation, content management is about providing tools to manage the creation, storage, editing, and publication of information in a collaborative environment. As with any publishing project, as a Web site grows in size and complexity, procedures must be established to ensure that things run smoothly. At a certain point, it makes sense to automate this process. CMS handles this effectively—as long as you implement the software wisely and align it with your company's business requirements.

Until recently, young companies with loads of venture capital could make what sounded like valid arguments in favor of buying large, enterprise-class content management systems. Such systems gave them short-term value and left an array of doors open for future expansion of their Web-based initiatives. But today's companies are more reluctant to spend on IT that leapfrogs business strategy. Luckily, the CMS market has diversified enough that it's much easier to choose a product based on your company's basic requirements without spending a fortune.

The CMS marketplace is complex. Document management, collaboration and versioning tools, digital asset management, learning content management, and Web content management all fall under the CMS umbrella, which also brushes up against topics like CRM, document warehousing, and knowledge management. Each of these areas is distinct from the others, but they are often confused.

Document management system (DMS). Optimizes the use of documents within an organization independent of any publishing medium (for example, the Web). A DMS provides a document repository coupled with robust metadata to describe the content it contains. The system tracks the editorial history of each document and its relationships with other documents. A variety of search and navigation methods are available to make document retrieval easy. Highly structured and regulated content, such as pharmaceutical documentation, is often managed in a DMS.

Digital asset management (DAM). Though similar to document management in some ways, DAM generally works with binary rather than text files, most often multimedia. Metadata is still used to describe the content of each file and organize the repository, but DAM places additional emphasis on allowing file manipulation and conversion—for example, converting GIF files to JPEG. The Coca-Cola Company uses DAM to manage its advertising materials.

Web content management (WCM). Adds an additional layer to document and digital asset management that enables you to publish content both to intranets and public sites. In addition to maintaining the content itself, WCM systems often integrate content with online processes like e-commerce applications and automated syndication.

Learning content management (LCM). This subset of WCM is notable for one reason: its ability to structure online content to comply with online education standards like SCORM and AICC. This allows one piece of online content to interact with content from other sources through learning management systems that conform to those standards. The ability to repurpose content between proprietary systems will become an issue for other types of content management solutions in the near future.

The CMS software market encompasses an array of products, each of which blends these capabilities to varying degrees. Lately the trend has been to offer small-scale products with specific functionality that meets individual corporate needs.

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