Content Management Systems
What is a Content Management System? A Content Management System manages the process by which content is created, stored, retrieved, and prepared for distribution. Typical reasons for deploying a CMS include: to streamline or automate an existing process, to promote the reuse and repurposing of content, and to control the distribution of content.
Why is CMS so Confusing? The concept of a Content Management System may seem simple, but understanding the CMS market can be hard. The underlying problem is that both the range of problems that can be addressed by a CMS and the range of content that can be managed by a CMS are quite large. Consequently, there is often disagreement whether an product is a CMS and there is often disagreement about what content is.
What's the Deal with XML for Content Management? It seems that XML is in the process of taking over the technology world and content management is no different. While most everyone else is interested in the exchange of data via XML, CM is focused on the separation of content from presentation and access to content structure.
What's the Relationship between a Portal and a CMS? A portal aggregates information from multiple sources. It is meant to alleviate information overload by providing a common interface to interact with those sources. A content management system (CMS) is simply a potential information source. The two are often confused because most portal software includes some CMS capability and most CMS software includes some portal capability.