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Why is TeamSite better than X

DavidMusser

My client needs to know why choose TeamSite vs the other CMS systems. Does anyone have a link to a review that does a feature comparison of TeamSite with any other CMS System. I'm looking for something thats easy to read... i.e. Checks and X's Smiley Happy

-D

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Adam Stoller

What you're asking for is really the wrong way to go about choosing a system.

The first thing you should do is figure out what you (your customer) needs and wants in a WCM system --- then you look at the various systems out there and see which ones provide the functionality that is needed; which of those also supply the functionality that is wanted [but not "needed"]; and then you do a comparison between the remaining systems to see what else you can use for deciding factors between the systems.

Hopefully you can get your list down to something like 2-or-3 systems (if you get it down to 1 - you're done) - and then you get those vendors to come on-site and present to you, demonstrate the product and provide you a fully-functional evaluation copy for you to use in-house to see whether or not you want to purchase it.

Otherwise you could probably look on various internet sites (e.g. www.interwoven.com) and find all sorts of wonderful marketing material which may or may not provide an accurate comparison between their products and someone elses.

TeamSite and the rest of the Interwoven product suite provides a lot of functionality at a certain cost.
There are other vendors out there who provide somewhat similar tools in one or all the various categories and varying different costs.
There are also a number of freeware and/or shareware products out there that are very low in cost but may not provide the kind of features and functions you're looking for.

If you don't know what you need - you have no basis for comparison and will be far too easily swayed by marketing fluff which usually tries to influence your "needs" in such a way that they can then turn around and say they provide for the needs you just got convinved were yours.

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

DavidMusser

The group I'm with has decided on TS based on the requirements. They have purchased TeamSite, and are in the middle of rolling it out. The requirements have not changed, but some new players are asking why not Zope or Reddot or Stellant or...

So besides me just saying because Interwoven TeamSite is the best Enterprise Content Management System that it is open and ... It would be nice to have a good checklist to say... Web Based - Check, Open Standards Based - Check, and so on... Where it would compare the products. The only review's I've found on the web are for 5.x. I don't see anything recent.

Had hoped someone may have a link somewhere :-)

-D

jed

CMS Watch (http://cmswatch.com/) is supposed to have an review of all the major players, but you have to buy their report. If you do end up getting their report, let me know how it is. Anyone else read it?

smenon

You can start by looking here

http://www.interwoven.com/products/content_management/key.html

Also on the internet site, navigate to the Products->Content Management->TeamSite page and you will find links that include white papers, key features and notes about independent analyst reviews that have ranked TeamSite as the best web content management product in the market.

--Sunil Menon
Product Manager
Interwoven, Inc.

Migrateduser

Since it's after the fact, you might want to speak with IW's marketing people. I'm sure they would be able to forward some biased -- er, "good" information to you!

Or, if you want to be more diligent, you could do some homework and review the documentation from whomever did the initial review and selected IW. There SHOULD be a wealth of documentation on it, too. When I did this 4 years ago for a company that calls themselves the #4 or #5 largest company in the world (not being direct with what company it is, but am giving a hint), I had to do massive documentation.

Hopefully one of these two directions will be of help.

Dave

Current Environment(s):
(1) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K3
(2) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K
(3) TS 6.1 SP2 on Win2K

Migrateduser

our company purchased TeamSite to "empower" business units to populate web content themselves...it has been met with frustration and disappointment so far due to form instability, difficulty of formatting text to meet our rigid style guide requirements, etc

hopefully the 6.x version will remedy some of these issues but im not holding my breath

its imporant to get the end users involved in the decision process imo to know what they are getting into

-------------------
World of Warcraft  Illidan/Horde

Migrateduser

Sorry to hear that, but to be 100% honest with you, I was reading your first line/paragraph thinking to myself, "Hmm, I wonder if this guy's using v6." As you indicated, you're not -- are you guys planning to upgrade at this point or are there no specific plans?

I really do appreciate what IW's done with v6.1, in particular. In previous versions, there were so many problems with stability, like you noted, and general lack of usability. While certainly not all of these problems have been solved (hey, how else would they make money on the upcoming v7??), the difference between 5.5.2 and 6.1 is night and day -- well, let's say late afternoon and mid-morning.

Dave

Current Environment(s):
(1) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K3
(2) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K
(3) TS 6.1 SP2 on Win2K

Evert

David,

i second ghotis statement here. about convincing people why IW is better than others however it depends on whom you're talking to. the toughest part of IW is it's lack of usability. having sold CMS for the past 3 years 'against' IW i know of plenty of arguments of why not taking IW. i', currently in the process of implementing a IW plattform for 800something sites. i got to admit, TS got some major withdraws especially for the end user, but also for my IT team.
those are:
user management under unix (the gorup limitation is a real pain)
security (my paranoia club rips me appart every time i mention TS)
Usability: in the age of WYSIWYG the TS interface is a pain
Versioning: you can only version what is in your edition.

however nothing we can solve, because TS is open. it supports both Java and Perl and there is little you cannot do with those two. consider TS a solid CMS framework, that might at first looks weaker than an Outof theBox solution, howver if you spend enough time and build add-ons to it (we had quotient build a complete WYSIWYG editor for, which rocks and once stable will skyrocked our user acceptance) you can get a very good, very maintainable solution.

for your argument against stellent, zope and others, don't go for it. state the following if you must:
TS is a solid prooven solution , and sis recognized with bigger company and analysts, such as IBM, gartner and all others
TS knowhow is available world wide (even though getting an american to understand why you must use pure UTF8 can be a process)
and last but not least The grass on the other side of the fence is always greener Smiley Happy

i know plenty of people, even within my team that have worked with stellent, zope, typo3, percussion etc. each of them has plenty of horror stories to tell about those products.

hth

Evert

Evert Smit
Business Project Manager
Credit Suisse Group

smenon

Evert..

I'd like to address the four items you list as issues with TeamSite

1. user management under unix (the gorup limitation is a real pain)

Have you looked at TeamSite 6.5? We have addressed this with the ability to create and manage non-OS groups which will overcome the 16-group limitation on Unix.

2. security (my paranoia club rips me appart every time i mention TS)

I'd like to understand your concern in more detail. TeamSite is used in a lot of security conscious firms including financial instutions such as your company.

3. Usability: in the age of WYSIWYG the TS interface is a pain

TeamSite 6.x has a new UI that has won accolades for its usability (although I am sure there are a few on this board whowould like to debate that). If you are looking for WSYIWYG editing, please take a look at the new LiveSite product that ships as an additional module to TeamSite. LiveSite has some pretty exciting WSYIWYG capabilities. Please let me know if you would like to see a demo and I can arrange for one. I am sure that there is a devnet webcast somewhere on the horizon - allthough I am not sure of the exact date.

4. Versioning: you can only version what is in your edition.

I don't fully understand your statement. TeamSite allows for versioning of all assets individually. The versions do end-up in editions but you must look at editions as a way to version your entire web-site.

Please do not hesitate to contact me privately if you still have concerns or would like more clarifications.

thanks

--Sunil Menon
Product Manager
Interwoven, Inc.

Evert

Sunil,

thanks for your reply. here some answers

1: i am aware of 6.5 features. however i am running a 6.1 env adding up to 800 sites to it. we will eventually migrate to 6.5 if time permits. i can only work 24/7 and keep telling my family to be patient. however instead of trying to fight the symptoms, IW should invest some time into a true LDAP integration, allowing us to manage TS access right through our central LDAP system. Getting a user onto my productive system is a process of average 2 weeks per account here, because we MUST create a unix account.

2: security in allot of ways. the ability to run any Command line tool from within a template or workflow scares them so much, they actually want us to invest money to take it out. the fact that the webserver user must have so many right because it must have access to all branches and is a system account... lots of lots of bits and pieces they really don't like. but hey, that is their job. security and user comfort always stand in direct colission to eachother. IW however could implement system wide configurations allowing to narrow down the risk, turning features such as inline commands on and off, on a per branch level.

3: saw the live site beta while ago. it is really neat. just not for us. it would again take a tremendous amount of work to get it to where we want it to me. usability of 6.1. no offense, but to a simple business suer, a clerk or a secretary, the default UI is pure HORROR. they cannot abstract between form and output. the interface may be good for professinal publishers, to whom this is a fuly time job. to anyone else its nowhere near comfortable experience. people want wysiwyg. they want fool proof handling. it is a fight noboedy can win, really, because the requirements are so individual.

4: versioning. ok try this. create a new dcr. change it, change it again. now how do you get back to your original file. (note, we don't submit to staging on save. only finished work goes to staging for approval.) the problem is that there is no versioning inside a workarea. but of course I can be wrong Smiley Happy

Evert Smit
Business Project Manager
Credit Suisse Group

Ottawa_IWOV

I would be really interested in hearing about the custom WYSIWIG editor that Quotient build for your team.

Thanks,