The report evaluated numerous Web Content Management (WCM) vendors based on a set of criteria that included customer experience, innovation, market understanding, marketing and sales strategies, product strategies and business models. Among the leading visionaries that Gartner anoints for the space in 2010 are Sitecore, Oracle, Autonomy, SDL and Open Text. Challengers and niche players include Microsoft, IBM, Alterian and Dynamicweb Software.
Gartner gave Sitecore particularly high praise in the business-to-business domain, citing the recent additions of Email Campaign Manager and Online Marketing Suite to the core platform of its flagship CMS product, which is based on .NET. The Gartner report called Sitecore an industry leader in WCM applications designed for the .NET environment, providing its customers with the scalability, performance, flexibility, and integration capabilities they need to manage multiple websites and seamlessly deliver compelling Web experiences.
The report stated that today's vendors are battling to differentiate themselves based on three sets of capabilities: usability, interoperability and consumability. It also projects a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent for the WCM market through 2014, based on the increasing emphasis on the online channel and improving visitors' experience. That's a positive outlook not only for the content management market but also for Web users everywhere.