Forrester Wave Q1 2017

Independent technology market research company Forrester Research has release its latest web content management analysis for Q1 2017.

Forrester assessed 15 WCMS vendors for its latest wave: Acquia, Adobe, Crownpeak, Episerver, e-Spirit, Hippo (now BloomReach), IBM, Jahia, Magnolia, Progress, Oracle, OpenText (TeamSite), OpenText (WEM), SDL and Sitecore.

e-Spirit – Contenders

e-Spirit’s FirstSpirit platform is an on-premise, licensed software solution with the ability to manage content independent of presentation.

Going forward e-Spirit will focus on a new CaaS offering, released in September 2016. The product will develop greater front-end diversity and modernise the framework support

SDL – Strong performers

SDL Web 8 has a modular, component-based architecture, content intelligence and the ability to run in the cloud and operate headless.

SDL’s core strength remains in global content, multi-site management and translation workflows. It has also focused on standardising and speeding up implementations with accelerators.

Looking ahead, SDL will be intertwining its language and knowledge management solutions into web. Ideally suited for large, global companies that need a WCMS to handle multi-site, multilingual requirements.

Sitecore – Strong performers

Sitecore’s testing, optimisation and customer data profiles remain a positive native capability. The recent launch of v8.2, which includes the Sitecore eXperience Accelerator and brings with it a component library and native Azure hooks, may improve its advantage against other best-of-breed solutions.

Going forward, Sitecore plans to renew marketing features previously embedded to better service enterprise needs. Sitecore’s 2017 commitment to PaaS will make it more attractive to buyers focused on faster time-to-value.

Hippo (Bloomreach) – Strong performers

Hippo has stormed into the Wave with impressive force, with Hippo DX’s API and cloud-first strategy highlighted as key benefits.

Currently best suited to midsize enterprise organisations looking for a modern web CMS to underpin their broader digital experience platform, the onDemand PaaS offering broadens digital architect appeal. In the future, BloomReach’s data and machine learning may shape a new course of development for the platform.

Adobe – Leaders

Adobe Experience Manager Sites remains top of the board. With digital asset management, analytics and targeting capabilities as default, AEM Sites can be supplemented with modular add-ons. Content reuse is enabled through algorithmic asset tagging and content analytics.

Strategically, Adobe is accelerating the creation and reuse of content by pushing toward micro-services and machine learning that will enable autocreation of assets and experiences.

What functionality does your team need?

Forrester has identified four key roles within enterprise organisations that have specific needs which inform the selection of a web content management system:

DEPT® – Global CMS Experts

DEPT® help global companies solve complex problems using digital technologies. We have a successful track record of delivering global content management solutions, having rolled-out hundreds of localised, multi-lingual websites across the world, often to tight deadlines.

We are the awarded SDL partner with ‘most implementations’, a Sitecore Gold parther and a global e-Spirit and Adobe partner.