Without question, as a system grows in complexity costs rise exponentially. It's reasonable to budget at least $1.5 million for a one-year development effort and $1 million yearly for maintenance of dynamic corporate sites.

CMS vendors and solutions
On the commercial front, Ekton's the value leader with CMS400.NET, currently at Version 7.5. The system offers a plethora of easily implemented and used features, including social networking, document management, enhanced search, integration with portals plus other content delivery options, and many ways to control content (such as built-in form tools).

RedDot offers several WCM products. RedDot CMS has an intuitive interface, so public-facing or intranets can be maintained by nontechnical users. The software is very good at handing localized content, has a workflow, and includes a digital asset manager. Stepping up, RedDot's Enterprise Content Management adds document and business process management functions. Finally, LiveServer dynamically assembles content from multiple sources and presents a custom view to registered users. Additionally, LiveServer can deliver these mashups to Web sites or portals, such as SAP, IBM, or Microsoft SharePoint.

SilkRoad's Eprise Enterprise is a mature product containing many solid features. Business users easily add content with an in-context editor while templates control consistent site design and branding. Importantly, you target information based on user preferences, roles, and business rules. For large organizations, multi-tenancy lets you host many sites from one Eprise instance. Additional modules include document management, digital image management, internationalization, and search. What's more, the standard configuration is very search engine-friendly.

Other mainstream CMSes to consider: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 WCM, PaperThin CommonSpot 5.0, Serena's Collage Enterprise, and Sitecore CMS.

SDL's Tridion, now at Version 5.3, won't have you yearning for more. Implementing all its features puts it in the upper-tier price range, but you get everything you pay for: .Net-based template creation plus Unix and Java server platform support for content delivery; audience targeting and personalization; multichannel delivery, including print and outbound e-mail; WebForms for online service and related applications; and simple content sharing to quickly build global sites, including those requiring double-byte languages.

Also in the upper tier for your consideration, Day Software Communiqué, FatWire Content Server 7, Mediasurface's flagship Morello ,and Immediacy (for startup projects), and Percussion Software's Rhythmyx WCM solution.

Although this guide doesn't formally cover ECM platforms, there are components of these systems that large organizations may want to evaluate to satisfy Web publishing needs. EMC Documentum Web Content Management, IBM Workplace WCM, Interwoven's Web Content Management package (Teamsite, LiveSite, MediaBin), Oracle Web Content Management, and Vignette Content Management are all viable candidates.

Of the hosted services, CrownPeak CMS tops our list. That said, Clickability cmPublish is running the online side of some top-market newspapers and other media outlets – proving it has the usability and scalability that large enterprise also demand. And Omniture Publish (part of the Visual Sciences purchase), gives you the advantage of melding publishing and Web analytics.

InfoWorld recently discussed open source CMSes at length, with Alfresco WCM scoring highest because of its usability and extensibility; for enterprises wanting support, Alfresco also proved very strong. Magnolia is another option, with both enterprise and community (free) editions. Other notable open source CMS projects include Drupal, Joomla, OpenCms, Plone CMS, and TYPO3.

Choosing an appropriate content management system certainly requires a thorough analysis of your organization's needs, then matching them to a product's features – while respecting your budget and resource constraints. If you didn't initially, also think about how the CMS can go beyond content publishing. Efficient customer service, new revenue opportunities, and better ways to communicate with clients are all real possibilities without breaking the bank.