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EPiServer 5 is now ready

info@jboye.dk(Janus Boye) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:11:00 -0400

After a long series of delays, Swedish Web CMS vendor EPiServer finally released version 5.0 of EPiServer CMS last week. A major reason for the delay is that EPiServer raised their ambitions during the process. Version 5 has massive changes for developers as it is based on .NET 3. There's also a complete new workflow based on the new Windows Workflow Foundation. Interestingly the release comes only shortly after the founder sold a majority of the company, and new owners came in with a new CEO. Despite the curious timing, according to EPiServer a few new customers are already live with EPiServer 5. With the major changes make sure you get competent resources on your project, ideally somebody who's already worked with Version 5.

EPiServer founder sells out to investors with global ambitions

info@jboye.dk(Janus Boye) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:34:00 -0400

New owners and a new CEO. Such was the major announcement earlier this week from Swedish CMS vendor EPiServer. European venture capitalists bought out the founder and existing CEO, Mikael Runhem, who will continue as CTO and minority shareholder. According to Runhem, "it is now time for the company to realise its international ambitions."

For a vendor that hired its first employee outside Sweden only last year (in Denmark), this sounds like major changes ahead. To be fair, EPiServer already had more or less dedicated partners throughout Scandinavia, and a few outside the Nordics, but building an international organization is a complex undertaking. On the Scandinavian market its major competitors remain Dynamicweb (formerly Synkron) and Sitecore, while Stockholm-based Polopoly has been fading a bit. Of these Sitecore presently boasts the widest international footprint by far. EPiServer has build a reputation as a financially stable company, and has invested comparatively heavily in engineering and product development. Hard to be sure at this early date, but I suspect this will change under VC control. We'll continue to watch them closely.

CMS vendor Synkron is bought by local competitor

info@jboye.dk(Janus Boye) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:01:00 -0400

In news from the Nordic market, Danish CMS vendor Dynamicweb has bought all shares of local competitor Synkron. Except for a press release in Danish, few details are out on the sale. It seems like Synkron CEO will lead the new organization and both brands and product lines will be kept. While Dynamicweb has focused on simple scenarios, Synkron has tried to tackle the more complex ones and has worked to line up resellers across Europe. The press release talks about the beginning of market consolidation, something that vendors and press alike has predicted for years and we have still not seen. The joint company will have about 80 employees and less than $9 million revenue, still comparatively smaller than regional competitor EPiServer. Integrating local fierce competitors and still maintaining multiple brands and product lines is an ambitious project. Local buyers may want to evaluate their options carefully until more details are available. Microsoft's new edition of SharePoint was perhaps looming in the background of this deal, but buyers should remain patient and not rush to Redmond on the strength of one merger...

CMS Watch releases CMS Report, V9

tbyrne@cmswatch.com(Tony Byrne) — Thu, 2 Feb 2006 02:13:00 -0500

I'm thrilled to announce Version 9 of The CMS Report, just out today. It includes substantial product updates, based mostly on interviews with technology buyers like you. In this version, we also put more time into analyzing the vendors themselves, and broke out a new set of comparative criteria we're calling "Vendor Intangibles," to include things like services, support, user groups, product stability, and related topics that you tell us have become increasingly important in your selection decisions. (For open source tools, replace "vendors" above with "projects".) Newly added to the product list is the European offering EPiServer. We also added a new section on DM-WCM integration. As always, you can read a free sample before buying.

Content and technology standards in New Zealand

tbyrne@cmswatch.com(Tony Byrne) — Fri, 9 Dec 2005 12:27:00 -0500

The New Zealand national government has embarked on developing a "national content strategy" (via Hilary Marsh). That's ambitious, inasmuch as most other countries are still struggling with metadata standards. Perhaps predictably, the NZ national e-government team has released and encouraged the use of a standard CMS -- in this case, a version of Plone that has been modified to accommodate some kiwi-specific accessibility standards. Similar product-standardization efforts in other countries have not fared particularly well, mostly because the use-cases across multiple government entities diverge more than enough to nix the broad applicability of any single tool. And indeed in New Zealand, the main e-gov site itself has a particularly "Plonish" feel to it, though that works fine for a portal containing mostly links. Plone might not work well for other scenarios. As CMS Report readers know, it is not ideal for those cases where content pre-generation are required. To be fair, the kiwis seem only to be promoting their version of Plone, not mandating its use (e.g. their official digital strategy site runs on a Swedish commercial CMS, EPiServer). This strikes me as a good balance: start with content standards, then look at tool standards.

Swedish EPiServer joins Google partner program

info@jboye.dk(Janus Boye) — Thu, 8 Dec 2005 16:34:00 -0500

In a brief press release Swedish CMS vendor ElektroPost today announced that they have signed a partnership agreement with search giant Google. Under the agreement Elektropost will integrate their flagship Web CMS, "EPiServer" with the Google Search Appliance to "provide the same level of search as google.com on their own Web sites." This early partnership likely presages more to come between Google and other CMS vendors. Google does a fine job of searching websites (but searching enterprise content is a different story -- consult The Enterprise Search Report for details), and hungry CMS vendors will want to try to hitch a ride on Google's star. Google should be happy to get more traction on in Scandinavia, home turf of enterprise search competitor FAST.