I was recently turned to a post about the Magic Quadrant for CMS where Microsoft and SharePoint was nowhere to be seen. Emails were sent. Lync was flaring.
I often get the question how SharePoint compare to EPiServer (who has a strong hold of WCM in Sweden) but the focus is only on what EPiServer can do – not what SharePoint can do that WCM products can’t. The point is – you cannot compare Microsoft SharePoint as a platform with products such as EPiServer or SiteCore.
When looking at the Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals and Enterprise Content Management, Microsoft (and SharePoint) are in a clear leading position.
WCM versus ECM
There is a clear difference between WCM and ECM and the term “CMS” adds even further confusion.
By definition, web content management (WCM) is for controlling the content of a website through the use of specific management tools based on a core repository. This includes content creation functions, such as templating, workflow and change management, and content deployment functions that deliver prepackaged or on-demand content to Web servers.
ECM contains WCM and also document management, records management, image-processing, social content and workflow/business process management.
Much more than WCM
SharePoint 2010 is so much more than web content management. If you only need web content management, will never require ECM features and trust Gartner on this, go for SiteCore. But if you would require the possibilities to add business process management, DAM, e-forms, document composition, advanced search, information archiving and packaged application integration; then SharePoint is for you!
“…Microsoft SharePoint takes hold in an organization, users naturally begin exploring its suitability for a wider range of content management applications and its potential as a replacement for existing solutions. Essential considerations for this category include abilities to manage rich metadata, enable full life cycle control, allow easier migrations from other repositories, network drives or file servers, and to bring some analytic or business intelligence-like capability to unstructured data overall. Understanding how content relates to larger enterprise information management disciplines will also become critical.”
Source: Gartner
