The Web Content Management product that IBM acquired when they bought Aptrix back in July 2003 has had somewhat of a chequered history…
Originally it was a Domino-based product, then was converted to run on WebSphere and J2EE as well (to fit within the Workplace portfolio), then the Domino version was dropped.
It has been called:
Lotus Workplace Web Content Management (2003)
IBM Workplace Web Content Management 2.5, Standard Edition (2005)
IBM Lotus Web Content Management (2008 and 2010)
It’s been bundled with Portal (in WebSphere Portal Express), included in Accelerators and shipped standalone, considered a major part of the IBM/Lotus portfolio (thinking back to Lotusphere 2007) on occasion, and hardly mentioned at other times…
The fact is that WCM is a good product. It is robust and flexible, works great for very large sites and supports an almost infinite number of publishing workflows. Sure, it isn’t as easy to use and manage as something like Drupal or WordPress, but you do gain a huge amount of power for that complexity.
Why do I mention this now? As of yesterday, WCM gains a new name once again:
IBM Web Content Manager 7.0
I stand by my view that WCM is a good product that is not well known, often misunderstood and occasionally unfairly maligned.
If IBM could just get the naming consistent and focus on marketing it as a solution, then it would do well. Sound familiar?
