Reality Checklist for CMS Vendors
CMS Vendor Meme
This page has been compiled by Thomas Witt, Director Product and Business Development and is relating to the CMS Vendor Meme and is currently floating around the net on blogs and twitter. The questions are taken from Kas Thomas’ “We get it”-Checklist.
Here we go, there are our answers for Infopark CMS Fiona:
1. Our software comes with an installer program.
Yes, of course. The install is done in a few minutes. Infopark CMS Fiona is also available as a on-premise-hosted box, which does not require any installation at all.
2. Installing or uninstalling our software does not require a reboot of your machine.
No, of course not. Neither on Windows nor on Linux a reboot of the machine is required after installing the software - it just runs under its own user account.
3. You can choose your locale and language at install time, and never have to see English again after that.
Yes, mostly. The user has to decide which language he wants to use. There is a general preference. On some low level interfaces, the administrator may see english text.
4. Eval versions of the latest edition(s) of our software are always available for download from the company website.
Yes, the latest versions of all our software products are always available online in our customer portal for downloading - but only for customers. Trial licenses are provided upon request.
5. Our WCM software comes with a fully templated “sample web site” and sample workflows, which work out-of-the-box.
Yes, Infopark CMS Fiona comes with a demonstration site called “Playland”. This content even comes in two flavours, one for offline publishing and the other one for dynamic site generation with features like comments, blogs, ratings, registration, etc.
The sample site can be used as a basis for building your own site.
6. We ship a tutorial.
Yes, we do. Our Knowledge Base features a e-learning section with tutorials for editors and layouters, and we’re also offering several screencasts.
7. You can raise a support issue via a button, link, or menu command in our administrative interface.
Sort-of. Our support staff can be contacted via Skype and E-Mail. A support issue can also be raised through our customer portal web site including online status tracking. A direct button or menu item isn’t implemented in the standard product, because you’d need to re-login on our customer portal. That’s something we have on our roadmap.
8. All help files and documentation for the product are laid down as part of the install.
Yes, of course. Also we’re offering a feature-rich online help in our customer portal, which can also be commented live for suggestions, tips and ideas by our customers. Our documentation staff is following the comments and improving the help based upon these ideas.
9. We run our entire company website using the latest version of our own WCM products.
Yes, of course. We’re running our whole web infrastructure based on our products (Infopark CMS Fiona 6.7, Infopark Rails Connector, Infopark Online Marketing Cockpit).
10. Our salespeople understand how our products work.
Yes, they do. Everyone had even installed the software on their laptops by himself. They can explain business details as well as (up to a certain level) technical details. They have a good understanding of a typical infrastructure and can give first advices and directions when talking to a potential customer. And of course they receive regular trainings and updates.
11. Our software does what we say it does.
Yes, of course. We even assure this in our general terms and conditions (AGBs in Germany), based on our documentation: WWDIWYG (What we document is what you get). :-)
12. We don’t charge extra for our SDK.
Yes, certainly not - no extra fees are charged for any SDK. All APIs are open, documented and can be used by every customer.
13. Our licensing model is simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand.
Let’s say, sort-of. The basic model, basing on CPUs and concurrent user is not too complicated, but I wouldn’t call it a no-brainer.
14. We have one price sheet for all customers.
Yes, of course.
15. Our top executives are on Skype, Twitter, or some similar channel, and: Feel free to contact them directly at any time.
Yes, we are. Everyone of us (and nearly all employees) has a Skype account. I am on twitter (http://twitter.com/twittbln) as well as our CEO of Sales and Marketing Bernd Volcker (http://twitter.com/berndvolcker). Several employees from the R&D department do twitter as well. Lots of employees do have facebook and XING accounts as well.
In addition to that you can reach me via the usual channels:
- http://www.xing.com/profile/Thomas_Witt20
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswitt
- http://www.slideshare.net/twittbln
And of course have our general twitter feed, which you might want to follow as well:
Overall Score
Who’s next?
We are looking forward to hear from Imperia, FirstSpirit and Pironet.
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