Credit crunch 'good news' for content management buyers

Buyers should be able to negotiate with ECM suppliers on upfront licence fees

The current financial climate is likely to have a profound impact on the content management industry next year, prompting consolidation and placing buyers in a stronger position to negotiate deals, according to CMS Watch.

The analyst firm's predictions for the year ahead suggest that increasingly low valuations for some of the smaller web content management vendors could prompt many to sell or merge.

Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, also argued that buyers should be able to negotiate with enterprise content management (ECM) suppliers on upfront licence fees, although he warned that vendors are less likely to budge on consultancy and services fees.

There is also likely to be greater interest in open-source ECM products due to budgetary constraints in 2009, according to Byrne.

CMS Watch suggested that IT buyers should give a cautious welcome to the new version of Microsoft's SharePoint, which could arrive in beta by the end of the year.

"The reality is that many enterprises are still digesting SharePoint 2007, so there will be a lot of hesitation in the marketplace as they wait and see what is happening," said Byrne.

He added that Oracle could "feel the effects of under-investment in knowledge worker-facing products", and may be seen as something of a laggard in this area.

Meanwhile, web content management vendor Vignette released its own predictions for 2009, highlighting enterprise 2.0, solutions offered as a service and personalisation as key themes to watch out for next year.

Vignette also argued that social media and online video will become increasingly popular with customers as a way of engaging visitors and making the user experience more dynamic.