The buzz is just getting louder, it was FatWire who introduced the acronym ‘WEM’ couple of years back and was then followed by other WCM vendors (Day, Sitecore and Vignette). Today Adobe also went crazy on its announcement of WEM framework (CQ5 suite) built on top of Day’s CQ CMS.
I am not against this WEM phenomenon, but I get irritated when I think about WEM’s contribution to the core WCM. The answer is – Nothing. I do not see any functionality add on any WCM from last 3-4 years. The core WCM remains the same, the product vendors are now concentrating more on how to nicely wrap their flop products by this WEM wrapper and fool the customers.
This is my take on WEM, I am sure most of the readers will not agree, especially the one who are heavily fascinated about WEM 
. So…let me try to answers some questions which come to my mind -
Q-1) What is WEM?
Answer: Web (Experience/Engagement) Management. A marketing term coined by WCM vendors to position themselves above pure WCM vendors. A term that is now helping them to sell more licenses (I heard that-I don’t know if that is true though). A Nice looking User Interface, a SSO software to back it up with integrations of the below software’s from the same vendor-
- Web Content Management
- Analytics
- Local/Social Collaboration/Community
- Targeting/Segmentation
- Mobile Delivery Platform
- Connectors for other WCM/ECM/DAM products
..and the list goes on.
Q-2) Is WEM a product, suite or a framework?
Answer: For product marketing & sales chaps it’s a ‘suite’, for a buyer it’s a ‘product’, for a technical developer it’s a ‘framework’, for a business user/content contributor it’s a User Interface with drag-drop of layouts & content and for a end user/content consumer it’s a ‘mess’.
Q-3) Do you need WEM or WCM?
Answer: You need a WCM for creation, modification, targeting, publishing, versioning and to manage the lifecycle of a content. You might need a Mobile delivery platform if you are targeting your content to a range of Mobile Platforms. If it’s just couple of handsets you don’t even need the Mobile Delivery platform (more on separate post). Analytics is a way to go if you want to know your online users, website visitors but it’s no point buying an analytics product from the WCM vendor. Separate specialized analytics software will give you more flexibility, control and higher degree of reuse. Revisit your business and technical requirements, talk technically to the product vendor to check “how” WEM can help you cater those requirements. So far, I have not seen anyone specifically writing requirements or budgeting for WEM.
However, if the WEM vendor is giving customer the flexibility to choose from a range of products (those part of WEM suite/framework) and charging only for the selected products than I think it’d be a good way to move forward.
Q-4) Is WEM a revolution, evolution or transformation?
Answer: It’s not a revolution, but yes, there is a significant change in the way consumers are using the web. Users do not want a one sided communication but also wants to contribute, provide feedback, personalize their content from across multiple channels not just ‘web’. WEM is an effort to provide a rich experience to both the content contributors as well as content consumers. Having said that, it does not mean WCM has evolved or transformed to WEM. The core WCM remains the same, and ironically, product vendors are not putting much effort to enhance the content management capabilities of WCM.
Final Thoughts:
Product vendors always look for some buzzwords to always be in the news, to market their product and to impress buyers. ‘God lies in the details’ – don’t get fascinated, involve your IT staff, let your technical team sit with vendor, let vendor explain you the basics and underlying components (REST, SSO, JSF, Taglibs , Delivery model, Web-services etc). Get a feedback from your technical team and see if similar can be achieved with your existing software infrastructure without much effort and cost. If you still want to use WEM, check with the vendor if you can choose and use your own apps on a’ la carte basis.
Filed under: Web Content Management, Market Share/Trends, Evaluation/Reviews, Web Experience Management Tagged: | Content delivery network, Framework, Gadgets, Collaboration, Mobility
Very nice post, Lokesh.
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