RedDot CMS’ Future Is Bleak, Says Long-time Partner

At one point, the RedDot content management system (CMS) product must have had a pretty good sales team in the financial services vertical. I’ve worked for three companies that used RedDot and seen additional implementations since I’ve been consulting.

So naturally, my interest was piqued by an email I received last week offering a whitepaper: “Four Reasons To Migrate From RedDot CMS.” I found this especially curious since the whitepaper was authored by non-linear creations, a firm that I became tangentially acquainted with when they were on a job as a RedDot integrator!

According to the whitepaper’s introduction, “Over the last 18 months, we have witnessed numerous non-linear creations customers concerned about their RedDot CMS/OTWS [Open Text Web Solutions] investment, and we have been fielding many inquiries on the impact the organizational changes at Open Text has already had on delays in product development and releases…The future of RedDot CMS/OTWS is bleak.” (We’ve sent an email to Open Text asking for a response and will post here if we receive an answer.)

The whitepaper flashed me back to some difficult, frustrating days with RedDot. If you’re a RedDot user, you may know what I mean and the whitepaper is a must-read for you.

In fact, all CMS users and especially those evaluating products today might want to take a look at the whitepaper to read what this long-time CMS implementor describes as the state-of-the-art requirements for supporting “Web 2.0 needs” (e.g., wikis, blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook and RSS-aggregation services).

Be forewarned, though, that the whitepaper has a two-part message: “Why You Should Abandon Your RedDot CMS Now”…and “4 Reasons to Migrate to Sitecore” (another CMS). For the record, we know next to nothing about Sitecore other than a few demonstration videos we've watched on YouTube.

We do wonder what would prompt a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) company to take on a CMS migration today. non-linear says they have a tool that can accomplish a site replication and migration (to Sitecore) in hours. OK. Still, it’s an expense that requires planning and review, and all of it internally-facing work at a time when we see a need for marketers to be more and more external. How deep must be the RedDot pain? How ambitious the “Web 2.0” plans?

What are you up to with your CMS? Are you close to outgrowing it or booting it to the street, as the case may be? We invite your comments below.

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