Tuesday 24 May 2011

Brand Awareness

If you've been in or around the CMS Market Space in the last 10 Years, there's a good chance you're aware of some of the leading players in that time. Brands such as Autonomy, EpiServer, Immediacy, MediaSurface, SiteCore and Vignette have all been leaders in the space for some time, and were well known by people in the know.

It's well understood that there are a number of Vendors out there that are now offering FREE Content Management Solutions e.g. DotNetNuke, Joomla and Umbraco to name but a few. Free CMS solutions are certainly here to stay, and it's made the Content Management world a very cut-throat Market. However, when brands such as Immediacy and MediaSurface's Morello fall off the face of the planet, you have to wonder why. The Immediacy and MediaSurface brands were successful, and brought relatively good recurring revenue into their respective businesses, so you have to wonder why someone took the decision to wipe them off the map, and replace them with a brand that nobody had even heard of in the space.

Alterian are constantly using current, up-to-date forms of Social Media to encourage businesses to think about Brand Awareness and Engage with their consumers, but with the acquisition of MediaSurface, and the subsequent death of their successful Immediacy and Morello brand names, it's difficult to believe what they preach in their various Social Media Channels.

Recently, Alterian have seen a cataclysmic down turn in Profits, and have blamed a weak recovery in the UK Economy and contract delay in the US, but the costly purchase of MediaSurface and subsequent Marketing decisions, have to have some part to play in their current situation.

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