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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    HCL Digital Experience

    Score9.9 out of 10
    N/AHCL Digital Experience is based on the former IBM Web Content Manager and IBM WebSphere Portal products, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018. The product allows the user to create, manage and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile, and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).N/A

    Ion Interactive

    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools.N/A
    Pricing
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Managed Services + SaaS
    Custom
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$5,500 per customer
    Additional Details—ion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    5.0
    5 Ratings
    47% below category average
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions5.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    4.1
    5 Ratings
    64% below category average
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    API4.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language4.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    2.9
    5 Ratings
    84% below category average
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG editor7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness3.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Admin section3.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page templates1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of website themes1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design4.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publishing workflow1.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Form generator3.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    1.9
    5 Ratings
    111% below category average
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Content taxonomy1.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO support2.15 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk management2.13 Ratings00 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions2.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management2.13 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Creation
    Comparison of Content Creation features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    -
    Ratings
    Ion Interactive
    7.5
    105 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Ideation00 Ratings10.099 Ratings
    Content collaboration00 Ratings5.094 Ratings
    Content Publishing
    Comparison of Content Publishing features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    -
    Ratings
    Ion Interactive
    8.7
    120 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Content hub00 Ratings10.0104 Ratings
    Forms / Gated content00 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
    Embedded CTAs00 Ratings10.0108 Ratings
    Content distribution00 Ratings8.093 Ratings
    Content promotion00 Ratings8.086 Ratings
    Content automation00 Ratings6.090 Ratings
    Content Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of HCL Digital Experience and Ion Interactive
    Feature
    HCL Digital Experience
    -
    Ratings
    Ion Interactive
    8.5
    118 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Audience profiling and targeting00 Ratings6.091 Ratings
    Closed-loop tracking and reporting00 Ratings8.095 Ratings
    Content performance analytics00 Ratings10.0116 Ratings
    Campaign optimization dashboard00 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Small Businesses
    Yext
    Score6.8 out of 10
    Contently
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Sitecore Digital Experience Platform
    Score8.9 out of 10
    CoSchedule Marketing Suite
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Progress Sitefinity
    Score7.9 out of 10
    PathFactory
    Score8.3 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (135 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    5.7
    (6 ratings)
    7.0
    (22 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.4
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (18 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HCL Digital ExperienceIon Interactive
    Likelihood to Recommend
    HCLSoftware
    HCL DX does really well at managing and maintaining the site. It allows the business to basically maintain the site while IT spent time developing new and enhanced functions. The main issue I currently have with HCL DX is not directly with the product but it does play a role. It is difficult finding skilled resources to support HCL DX in my experience.
    Incentivized
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    Ion Interactive LLC
    If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    HCLSoftware
    • With Version 8.5, IBM Web Content Manager introduced in place editing capabilities which allow authors to make content edits on sections of the page instead of going to the content itself. This feature allows authors to make changes in context of the page and preview changes within the actual look and feel of a live page.
    • Projects provide a collaborative atmosphere for the author community so that authors can interact and work as a team to manage inter-dependent content changes under one project and publish all changes at once, instead of working separately on individual content changes. This brings awareness across authors in an organization and easy knowledge share.
    • IBM Digital Data Connector is a cool feature that allows [users] to integrate external content sources onto the portal using IBM Web Content Manager presentation components. This allows UI/UX designers to present integrated external data in any manner they want, manage UI changes with an underlying approval process and leverage syndication to push changes live immediately.
    • IBM Web Content Manager offers a targeted content feature that allows business users to deliver personalized content to customers based on customer demographic information, browsing history and other transaction related information. Any rules created follow the publishing process thereby making it just a configurable item resulting in less turn around to turn on the feature on a website.
    • IBM Web Content Manager offers 'multi lingual solution' out of the box which allows content creation for almost all popular languages.
    • Syndication feature has improved a lot and it now provides a detailed views comprising of 'failed items', 'items that have syndicated successfully, 'items in queue'. Failed items view provides detailed and clear cut information of what resulted in failure helping IT to troubleshoot problems easily.
    Incentivized
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    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
    • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
    • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
    • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
    • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    HCLSoftware
    • IBM Web Content Manager should provide some easily usable connectors through a GUI to connect to bring content from custom data sources including connecting to Salesforce and custom databases.
    • Should further optimize and enhance creation of rich and responsive content driven UIs on various digital channels.
    • Should further optimize and enhance content personalization features.
    Incentivized
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    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
    • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
    • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    HCLSoftware
    IBM products always moves forward to adapt to new requirements and technologies. I have used versions 6, 6.1, 7 and 8 of IBM WCM, and I know IBM is ready to revamp the tool based on emerging needs, and still provide the capabilities to migrate your old system to the newer versions.
    Read full review
    Ion Interactive LLC
    We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    HCLSoftware
    New versions has increased user experience facilitating usability.
    Read full review
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    HCLSoftware
    We had some issues related with performing and the support was suitable and sucessful.
    Read full review
    Ion Interactive LLC
    The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Ion Interactive LLC
    They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    HCLSoftware
    Implementation was successful due to Websphere application server used.
    Read full review
    Ion Interactive LLC
    There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    HCLSoftware
    Magento and Prestashop are E-commerce CMS platforms. They are used in a different scale of application than WCM.
    Concerning Joomla, it's a useful CMS forsmaller website. Once again this is an other scale of application than WCM Liveray can compete WCM 7 concerning the : ¤ specific development ¤ security ¤ responsive
    Read full review
    Ion Interactive LLC
    I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    HCLSoftware
    • Negative: Very complex architecture for on-premise deployments (too many servers to installed)
    • Positive: Easy customization
    • Negative: Architecture limited to cloud solutions
    • WCM is an old product and needs an update
    • Blog, and community are not integrated in Digital Manager for discussion
    • Templates are not available to integrate basic services (FileNet, more complex BPM , e-commerce)
    Incentivized
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    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
    • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
    • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Ion Interactive Screenshots

    Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.