Power of Enterprise Open Source

By now you have seen how Enterprise Open Source describes the way we do business, so how is it being applied to our products, for example eZ Publish?

With eZ Publish being one of the leading Enterprise Content Management Systems, does this imply that it is only suited for the Global Fortune 500 companies? Furthermore, does that mean that eZ Publish is capable of doing everything that products of vendors like Vignette, OpenText, and Documentum can do? Does that make eZ Publish complex and heavy, not suited for simpler CMS solutions? Let me answer these questions now.

Software is More Than Code

First, by using the term Enterprise for eZ Publish, we use it both to describe the software, but also to describe how it is being delivered, reflecting our business model. We are a commercial company taking on full responsibility for the software and providing all the support and guarantees enterprise customers require and expect from an enterprise software vendor. To put it simple: a software product is more than the code, it is the whole package solving the needs of the customers.

Freedom and Flexibility

Secondly, the term Enterprise also tells something about software features and capabilities. Yes, I do admit that eZ Publish cannot directly be compared with the complete product offerings from some of the leading Enterprise Content Management vendors. The reason is: Enterprise Content Management includes a wide range of software. While eZ Publish is fully capable of challenging these systems in many fields (for example Web Content Management), it is not a full suite for complete Enterprise Content Management.

This positions eZ Publish rather towards the leading Enterprise Web Content Management Systems with strong capabilities when it comes to mainstream functionality, plus a flexible platform allowing others to deliver complementary features and solutions on top of it. The official eZ partners, the eZ community and the users themselves do a great job adding the remaining features, which they either sell or share with the community.

The Open Source eZ publish has overtaken many proprietary Enterprise Content Management Systems when it comes to general mainstream functionality.

Features for vertical markets are being added over time by eZ Systems, the eZ partner companies and the eZ community.

Open Source Ready for the Enterprise

So what is the main differentiation statement for eZ Publish then? Of course, we can discuss features and technologies and tell about

• the flexibility of the eZ publish framework allowing for highly customizable solutions via extensions
• possibilities of very simple content administration either through the admin interface, direct front end publishing or from MS Word and OpenOffice
• the flexible Content Engine allowing to define new content types at run-time
• the open standards for easy integration and cross-media publishing
• document and multi-media management capabilities

But the most important differentiation factor is what we call Enterprise Open Source: This gives both the users the freedom of choice and at the same time the backing of a responsible party providing a full set of guarantees and services.

This combination is what makes Open Source ready for enterprise users!

Enterprise Quality for Smaller Projects

If you want to use eZ Publish in small or medium size projects, you now probably think that it is oversized for your needs - but that is not true. Even though the main focus of eZ Publish is a higher market segment, it is of great use for lower segments.

Why? Let me use cars to explain it in a simple way: eZ systems does not manufacture a kind of Formula 1 car that only 20 people in the world can master. We rather produce a very good upper middle class car, like a BMW or Mercedes, that anybody can handle.

The good thing about our upper middle class car is that it is available as Open Source, making it accessible to a part of the market that normally cannot afford to drive such cars.