All about content management systems
If you’re in need of comprehensive information about today’s content management systems, try these sources:
http://www.cmswatch.com/ (offering a report comparing nearly 30 systems, both open source and commercial enterprise systems)
http://www.opensourcecms.com/ (listing available systems)
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix (providing comparisons)
Enterprise systems currently in use include:
- Vignette - V7 Content Management
- Documentum (EMC) and Documentum Web Publisher
- IBM - Workplace WCM
- RedDot (Open Text) and RedDot CMS
- Interwoven - TeamSite
- Oracle - Stellent Web Content Management
July 31st, 2007 at 8:03 am
Actually, most of the information above is not useful to technical communicators. Instead, technical communicators require content management systems designed to manage and reassemble on demand individual components of content. These Content Component Management systems are being reviewed by Ann Rockley for CMS Watch and will be included in an upcoming report that also examines authoring tools. This content will be available at an as yet unannounced price.
Vendors that you may know that provide component content management systems include:
Astoria Software (Astroria On Demand)
DocZone.com
Vasont
XyEnterprise
and several others
The majority of “so-called” content management systems DO NOT adequately support the content needs of technical communicators.
Hope that helps.
Scott Abel
Executive Director
Content Management Professionals
July 31st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Scott’s comments are an important addition regarding content management to support technical documentation. Other technical communicators have other needs, and recently pointed out the sources mentioned in the post.
In STC we are finding MediaWiki to be very useful for technical documentation, as we are writing the Forum Help on the STC Wiki: http://stc-on.org/wiki/Forum_Help_Project
Ease of collaboration, editing, and distribution make the Wiki very attractive, and the version control capabilities are excellent.
Destry Wion has written about use of MediaWiki for “single sourcing”: http://stcforum.org/viewtopic.php?pid=3787#p3787
Hyperviews Online appreciates all its Contributors and the comments we receive too.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:46 am
There’s a good discussion of using wikis for end-user documentation here: http://www.keycontent.org//tiki-index.php?page=Wikis+and+Docs