One of the most respected commintators on the WCM market space is Tony Byrne of CMS Watch. Today I read with interest a posting he made accusing WCM vendors of competing with their channel partners, read it  here. He particulary cites Sitecore and Ektron for this and both companies have responded (unsurprisingly) in their own defence. My experience of Sitecore is that they go to market via partners only (in the UK at least), we do not partner with Ektron at present so I can't comment on their strategy. Where other WCM vendors sell direct they are open about it. Why wouldn't they be? We are very open with them that we will tout their competitors software if we think it's a better fit for a client and we will certainly provide support and development services to any WCM platform if asked. I am an admirer of CMS Watch and of Tony but it's easy to take the 'moral high ground' unless you are trying to ensure the survival of your business and the jobs of those that work for you. So what if they are selling services? As Tony points out they are usually (and I am generalising about WCM vendors here) ill equiped to provide those services and often turn to partners in the back ground to deliver. We have been asked to provide such services by a number of WCM vendors over the years and are happy to do so. Doug and I had a meeting just last week with the UK head of a WCM vendor that has recently been proposing services and were assured by him that they only have 5 staff capable of delivering any such services and they are usually involved at a project management  (i.e. protecting the brand) level. Times are hard and no-one will turn away work at the moment.

I have always valued the truly independent analysis that CMS Watch provide but maybe they should sometimes give the guys busting a gut trying to grow the industry a bit of a break. Don't let them away with anything, just take their position into account.

Now, I'm off to try and sell our Livelink WCM migration software to anyone (including any WCM vendors) that give me the time of day. 

1. Existing users of Livelink WCM Presentation Server (Obtree) may be entitled to upgrade to RedDot for no additional licensing cost where a functional 'like-for-like' migration is required.

2. Mimtech have developed MIM:SWITCH, our migration toolset that can automate your content move to another solution by connecting directly into the repository via Obtree/Livelink’s API.

3. MIM:SWITCH has been endorsed by Open Text and is their migration solution of choice for users migrating to RedDot.

4. Mimtech is vendor agnostic and can supply web content management software from all the leading vendors including; EPiSERVER, Sitecore, Immediacy and RedDot.

5. Mimtech can supply web content management software on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) rental business model.

Call +44 (0)141 303 8239 to discuss your web content management and/or website environment support requirement and we'll give you two weeks FREE TRIAL* access worth £525 to our online support extranet.

* Conditions apply.

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.