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Ektron - Creating value with integration and implementation
March 04, 2014

Ektron - Creating value with integration and implementation

Patrick Poer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller

Software Version

Ektron Web CMS

Modules Used

  • Commerce
  • Community
  • eSync

Overall Satisfaction with Ektron Web Content Management System (Discontinued)

In most cases, our clients' marketing or communications department "owns" the CMS. In some circumstances, content authoring is distributed across the organization, but most of the time it stays within that business unit.

Typically, Ektron is brought in to:
1. Improve Content Authoring Capabilities
2. Increase flexibility for creating and maintaining a website
3. Integrate more powerful marketing and communications tools and capabilities and put more in the hands of the content authors without requiring IT or developer time
4. Improve change control and release management
5. Provide a Single Source for commerce, community and content and other web-facing functionality
  • Content authoring is a strength of the CMS. The interface is relatively simple to understand and utilize and most users feel comfortable finding, editing and publishing content with just a short introduction or training session.
  • The integrated community, marketing and commerce tools simplify the administration of more complex websites and provide a single place and unified methodology for managing all web-facing content and capabilities.
  • Page Builder, as a platform, really provides a lot of flexibility for content authors to create the exact experience users want while not requiring developers to create new templates or layouts to support their initiatives. Embracing the Page Builder / Widget architecture yields considerable flexibility for content authors.
  • The developer APIs have gone through various iterations over the years and we find we have to utilize both old and new methods to achieve the desired functionality. Ektron needs to complete the new Framework API's and make them usable for all use cases.
  • The system requires considerable support to maintain and upgrade and developers and administrators need to plan updates and upgrades carefully.
  • Smart Forms (xml-structured content) need to be modernized and more strategically integrated into the content authoring experience and more robust support through the APIs.
  • The community tools need to be overhauled and updated to keep pace with the current market's requirements and capabilities.
  • Improved content authoring and increased ability to distribute content authoring within the organization
  • Faster time to market with mobile capabilities
  • Consolidated content, community and commerce functions
  • Simplified staff training and on-boarding
Ektron is part of our stable of products and depending on the organization we are serving could be recommended. The price point is higher and so tends towards the enterprise in terms of purchasers. Additionally, it fits better in less IT heavy environments than Sitecore. It's more robust than Sitefinity or Umbraco, but Sitefinity has an edge with pricing. EpiServer is a strong contender to Ektron with compelling features and authoring experience and more competitive pricing.
As with all of the CMS' we support, Ektron can be a great fit for the right organization. There are many circumstances where it works well, but primarily:

1. Organizations with a marketing and content oriented set of requirements
2. Organizations with limited IT infrastructure and internal support capabilities
3. Organizations that need to integrate multiple web-facing components into a single managed solution
4. Organizations wanting to quickly embrace mobile

There are other additional factors that influence it's fit within an organization, but it's a capable tool with some appealing features, but as with all CMS' needs to be properly tailored and implemented to match the clients needs.

Using Ektron Web Content Management System (Discontinued)

We will continue to service the product and our clients that have Ektron for the foreseeable. Ektron has established a firm place in the market and can drive tremendous value over the long term when it's properly fit and implemented into an organization. Ektron is investing in it's API and user interface and integration capabilities and we believe it will continue to be competitive as the market grows and matures.