Matt Asay interviews Acquia's VP of Marketing Jeff Whatcott today on CNET's News Blog. Whatcott talks about Acquia's announcement at Drupalcon in Boston about the company's first product, a commercially-supported release of Drupal 6 called Carbon (similar to the Red Hat distributions of open source Linux), plus how Acquia got started and whether Drupal is a competitor for Microsoft's Sharepoint.

Building an enterprise Drupal, Acquia style

There's another killer on the loose. Who's the target this time? Sharepoint again? If the bullet misses the target, though, will open source CMS platforms get caught in the crossfire?

Since 2005, the following products have been described as a "Sharepoint killer:" Oracle Workspaces 10g, Groove (even after being obtained by Microsoft - apparently it was supposed to be an inside job), Alfresco, CPS Project, O3Spaces, Lotus Quickr, Google Apps Team Edition (just 19 days ago) and, today, Google Sites. Google Enterprise product management director Matthew Glotzbach fingered Google Sites as a "Sharepoint killer" today when it launched, according to Michael Arrington on TechCrunch.

I played with Google Sites for awhile this morning. It's not bad at all, though a bit buggy, as Dennis Howlett describes on ZDNet today. It looks like a slightly more sophisticated Google Page Creator. It doesn't suck, but as a killer, it's a little light on the firepower. Let's say it looks like Sharepoint can walk down dark alleys without any concern about an ambush. But does Google Sites have enough functionality to affect the market for open source CMS platforms?

CMS software alternatives come in three general flavors: traditional proprietary solutions (Microsoft Sharepoint and others), open source solutions (Joomla!, Drupal, Plone, etc.) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions (Google Sites, wetpaint, Ning and yesterday's newcomer BricaBox, among many others). Businesses looking to create or improve their online presence don't know or care about these distinctions. They want at least a simple website, maybe add some cool bells and whistles like they've seen on bigger sites - and they don't want to pay a lot of money for it.

Is something like Google Sites or BricaBox the answer for those users? Maybe. If the business isn't looking to spend much money on the site and they don't have the time to learn how to set up a hosted CMS site themselves, I'd even say probably. But many businesses will need a greater ability to customize and add features than Google Sites will be able to provide in the near future, and it's in that market that the open source CMS solutions, and the designers and developers who provide support for them, will continue to have the greatest potential.

If they were really looking to be a Sharepoint killer today, I'd say Google Sites came equipped for a gunfight with a jackknife. Not much of a killer - yet. If it continues to improve, Google Sites may eventually become a challenger to more complete CMS solutions, even Sharepoint. But for today: put down the knife, Google, and get back to work.

Part One - Overview and Advantages of Content Management Systems

1. CMS tools put you in charge, not your webmaster. You decide when to create new content or update or delete old information. Your site is current and accurate when you want it to be, not when the IT department gets around to it.
2. CMS tools allow you to create multiple users and permission levels, and then assign the updating of specific sections of the site to those users, who may have more direct knowledge of the subjects being covered.
3. CMS software includes many standard "modules" which automate the handling of common web site functions, including creating and editing content, publishing news feeds via RSS, and handling photographs and video content. Available add-on modules can expand your site in almost any way you can imagine, usually with just an hour or two of work, instead of requiring weeks of custom programming. If you've seen something done on a web site, a module is probably available to make it happen on yours.
4. CMS software generally doesn't require special software or new hardware to work. One of its biggest strengths is how easily it scales; since most CMS tools work in a standard web browser window, any number of users can edit and manage the site without needing dedicated web design software installed on every user's computer.
5. CMS doesn't have to be expensive. In fact, while there are excellent commercial CMS solutions (such as Microsoft's SharePoint and IBM's Websphere), the Open Source community has also developed strong, professional CMS software that costs little or nothing to download and implement. Installing and getting the software running properly, plus creating the templates for your own unique web site is still a necessary cost (unless you're familiar with servers, HTML and web style sheets in CSS), but generally small businesses and organizations can be up and running using CMS for a very managable up front cost. Depending on the complexity of your site, you could save hundreds or even thousands of dollars versus web development costs of just a few years ago, and get a more powerful site for the money.

Part Two - Popular CMS solutions