We've always played on the fact the we are vendor agnostic and independent from the WCM companies we partner with. Sometimes it's not an easy space to occupy with some vendors being less than comfortable with the arrangement due to numerous perceived 'conflicts of interest' - mostly brought about by their paranoia and blind faith in their 'best of breed' product.

For us, becoming agnostic simply made good sound commercial sense. Afterall, when we started trading almost three years ago we were a 100% Obtree C4 house and what with its end of life in sight (there, someone finally said what everyone knows!) if we hadn't adapted, our own end of life would be fast approaching too.

Now we're actively supporting clients with WCM solutions and developments in Immediacy, Sitecore, EpiServer, Pepperio as well as RedDot and good old soon to be departed (oops, said it again) Livelink WCMPS/Obtree C4. 

Simon has blogged many times about our WCM to WCM Migration offering, MIM:Switch. It's very exciting for us that the MIM:Switch toolset is now being used in anger for the first time at a major UK organisation to assist in their move away from Livelink WCMPS/Obtree C4. Which solution are they moving to? They/we don't know yet but that's not important... we're vendor agnostic! 

Apparently it is fashionable for commentators to make predictions for the next year. So I thought I might try and predict what is in store for Mimtech.

1. In January we have new staff joining us (not a prediction, I have already hired them) so I expect there to be more going on in the office and having to make tea less often
2. We have some training lined up in different WCM platforms for most of the techie guys so I predict a lot more geek speak and jargon being bandied around
3. We will launch a new offering in January but I won't spoil the surprise just yet, we will be getting a lot of attention and new and exciting business in the New Year
4. I will be more tired (my wife is having our second child next week)
5. Obtree users will start to consider their investment a bit more carefully
6. Mimtech will land our first big implementation in New Zealand early next year, this is already at a fairly advanced stage in the sales process
7. Lots of new processes, as we grow this is inevitable if a bit dull
8. Less chatter about Web 2.0 and more real value add development work being done in general
9. More community activity in the WCM space we operate in
10. Software as a service replacing Web  2.0 as the buzz phrase of the moment
11. Uses have more control over the presentation layer
    
12. Celtic and Rangers striking a deal to become one club - Glasgow United. Or maybe an end to world poverty and conflict. Or Microsoft bringing out some bug free software. Or Apple releasing a product that doesn't start with i. Obese being the new size zero. I appear to have run out of sensible ideas.
    

After 3 days of intensive training at the centrally and most salubriously located offices of Sitecore at London Bridge I am now a certified and advanced Sitecore developer.  No small feat I tell you, there was an exam and everything. 

So how does Sitecore size up against other major players in the same space? 

This is a powerful solution that presents an intuitive front end to the user via Sitecore desktop, a browser based emulator of the windows desktop environment that facilitates access to a host of great functionality based on user permissions. Here you’ll find the content editor, an authoring interface that is a joy to work with and allows content to be easily created through predefined templates. The media library allows easy management of all your digital assets. A powerful preview function allows the user to see how their content will look in context and a workflow designer enables the design and implementation of simple and / or complex workflows. 

This has everything that a great CMS should have coupled with an ease of use where it matters most, the authoring environment.

Under the hood it's all C# .NET, the industry standard platform. Great for application development.

All in all I was very impressed! This looks to be a feature rich, easy to use and stable looking solution.

I'm in the London offices of Sitecore for the next three day taking the SCD Level 1 (Site Construction) and SCD Level 2 (API) training courses.

Looking forward to getting my hands dirty!

I'll report back regarding what I find under the bonnet of Sitecore when I'm back up north at the weekend.