In this section, we've evaluated a few content management products that you may find useful. To implement a complete content management solution, please contact us and we'll work on customizing a product that will suit your exact needs.

Review of Content Management Solution

• Easy Publish
  
• Ezpublish
  
• Web edition
  
• Managee
  
• siteworks
  
• emagic
  
  

All that you need to do with Easy publish is to install it on an Internet Server and add content to a web site. It doesn't require third party software and comes ready with databases and web servers. It can also be customized easily to work with existing databases and web servers too. It allows for any number of users and domains and can be used for the Intranet or the web. It comes with Search and News publishing features too. Interactive features like discussion support, calendar services and event schedulers are available as add-ons.

Easy publisher is based on the web application from Zope Corporation. The product can be downloaded from the website. The website offers more information on documentation, installation and support.

System requirements - Zope

Ez publish
This is a content management system based on a powerful open source framework and can be downloaded from the website mentioned above.

It can help create simple and personal websites to large enterprise web applications. It targets two groups of people - those who want to publish content on the web and web application developers who wish to create dynamic web applications.

It is easy to set up and the Open standards framework on which it is built is easy to integrate with. The most interesting feature is that it is a fully customizable and extendable content model. It is suitable for e-commerce portals, corporate web sites, knowledge management, intranets and extranets.

The content tree feature helps to structure information in categories. The template engine can modify the template to suit this content tree automatically. People can play different roles - for example, editors, administrators are allowed access to only those areas that they need to work on. An editor need not be involved in the presentation templates or the publishing dates of a particular content item.

The workflow module can be specified to run whenever an event occurs. This CMS also comes with an e-commerce functionality that allows for order management, shopping carts, content selling features and credit card integration interfaces. The advanced search engine can be easily integrated with the application. This product also allows for Multilanguage support (currency settings, date and time details and so on). The collaboration features allow a group of people who are assigned different tasks to work together in a seamless manner. It doesn't offer a WYSIWYG editor though.

• Workflows can be specified to run whenever an event happens
  
• Easy translation into other languages - Multilanguage support, (currency settings, date and time and so on)
  
• Cross platform: runs on Mac OS and Windows
  
• Advanced search engine integrated within the application
  
• E-commerce functionality - Product and order management, shopping carts, content selling features, credit card integration surface
  
• Collaboration features that allow a group of people who are assigned different tasks to work together in a seamless manner.

Other important features worth mentioning are - shop, user registration, banner management, poll, tracking, newsletter, calendar, address, forum, image catalogue, IM, quiz, site stats, task lists and so on. On the whole, it is an excellent product, but may be a little difficult to configure.

System Requirements: php, mysql, apache

Click here to read about a web publishing software EZ Publish

Webedition

They have a number of versions - a basic module for those without any HTML knowledge but wish to put up a static website and a higher version for medium-sized companies that desire to dynamically maintain their websites using multiple domains.

Some of the features are:

• Multiple language support
  
• Shopping bag
  
• User management module - Roles for the administrator and editor and restrict access to certain areas if necessary
  
• Scheduler that helps schedule events like publishing static and dynamically generated pages
  
• Newsletter module allows for easy creation and sending of newsletters
  Shop module
  
• Customer management module Workflow module - with messaging system

This is an extremely powerful product. The product will need more customization, but the HTML-like script (WE markup tags) makes it easier to customize and integrate.
System Requirements: mysql, php4, WE tags (their own markup language)

managee

This is a web-based content management system that allows for easy adding and managing of content. It is again template based and can be modified, customized and integrated through the use of built-in template editors.

Search friendly URLs in a content management system help search engines index the web pages. Search engines play an important role in popularizing web sites. But, database-driven pages (with ? and & in the url) cannot usually be indexed. This particular content management solution makes sure that this doesn't happen and Search engines are able to spider all the contents within the CMS.

Other noteworthy features are

• Search features
  
• Comprehensive browser based wysiwyg editor
  
• Easy to use
  
• Category management - multiple categories of information and content
  
• Newsletters and mailing lists
  
• Easy to integrate

System Requirements: php, mysql, apache

siteworks pro

Features:

• WYSIWYG editor
  
• Newsletter creation and mailing lists
  
• Add a news section
  
• Pre-designed templates that can be customized easily
  
• Access privileges to users

This product doesn't offer search engine-friendly urls and therefore may not help you if you are interested in making your website visible to search engines. It would be useful when implementing a content management solution in an intranet or extranet.

System Requirements: mysql, php, apache, IIS

emagic

They offer different solutions catering to different content management requirements. Upgrades between solutions are easily possible.

Common features among the entire range include

• WYSIWYG editor
  
• Multilingual content
  
• Distributed editing
  
• Advanced templates
  
• Coding templates
  
• Visitor statistics
  
• Multi-sourced content

There are many more content management solution products in the market and it's difficult to put down a review of them all here. These are some of the most popular products and fit a wide range of budgets and requirements. During the course of our study, we discovered that the products we would recommend are the following:

1. Web edition
2. Easy publisher
3. EZ publish

If what you've read matches with your requirements, please contact us and share your ideas. Or if you'd like to read more about our services and see if what we offer interests you, please click here.