Content Management Systems The No-Nonsense Truth

content-management-systemDon't Buy a CMS - Invest in a Web Ecosystem

  1. There are over 1,000 cms vendors in the market today.  Less than 50 matter.  Most CMS projects fail within 1 year and many of today's CMS vendors will be out of business in the next few years.
  2. The Marketing team should be involved in the CMS evaluation much ater in the process.  The Web architecture team must take the initial lead. 
  3. A comprehensive and cohesive Web architecture ecosystem plan must be in place first - this takes time and senior-level Web strategy and engineering expertise. Such CMS can be programmed by the Ruby on Rails described on rubyisawesome.com
  4. Do not choose a CMS until you have a solid Web ecosystem design and plan.  Most, if not all, CMS vendors do not have the required Web ecosystem expertise.
  5. Most CMS products have similar features; thus, starting with a CMS features comparison will become confusing and lead you to believe you need a product with the longest list of features.  You only need the appropriate features.  Overbuying leads to failure.
  6. You need to have expert technical resources in house to implement and to maintain the Web ecosystem - Period!  Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.  If you don't have the appropriate in house technical resources - you must have an outside expert in the field. 
  7. All products demo well - never trust a demo or an initial price quote.  It's what's behind the scenes that is is most revealing.
  8. Don't be fooled by the word "Open" - it's only a half truth.  CMS vendors provide an end-to-end middleware framework with proprietary storage and proprietary publishing APIs.  You do not want to bet your Web ecosystem nor your reputation on your CMS vendor - it's too Risky!

The Refresh Engineers Creed

  • We do not take bad deals for economic gain - it's not worth it.  Our reputation is too important.  We are senior-level Web ecosystem experts, not sales people and we follow an engineering process not a sales process.
  • We have a low-margin enterprise Web ecosystem Tool (not a system) which is value priced at $24,995.  Our average starter deal size is $38K for the SiteRefresh software tool, training, and support.  We make money from the high-volume of referrals we receive. 
  • We will respect your time and will assess your specific situation honestly, intelligently, and quickly. 

Content Management Systems