Product Review;
Autonomy Interwoven Web Content
Manager
Product Description;
The
Autonomy Corporation is a global leader in infrastructure
software and is recognised as having the largest market share
in the worldwide search and discovery market. Included in
their range of products and services is a web Content Management
system
(WCS) called The Autonomy Interwoven Web
Content Manager. It is promoted by the
company as a system that ‘automates the entire process of
managing content across websites, portals, intranets, and
extranets, including authoring, site design, application
deployment, content targeting, site analytics, and
multivariable testing’ (Autonomy Interwoven Website, 2011). It
claims to be set apart from other companies offering WCM
solutions in that it is a product that ‘understands the
meaning of human friendly information’. Current users of
Autonomy WCM, include a growing list of large high profile
companies with significant needs for managing and marketing
information.
Product Features;
·
Powers
corporate and ecommerce sites, employee intranets, support
portals, marketing microsites, and extranets for dealers,
agents, and partners, as well as email, wireless, and
print.
·
Multivariable
testing to determine the most effective web design and
layout
·
Directed
navigation to more effectively guide users to
content
·
Optimised
landing page to support marketers to create and launch optimal
landing location
·
Targeting
to deliver relevant content, advertisements and
promotions
·
Recommendation
Engine for organising personalised content and product
recommendations
·
Automatic
Metatagging to reduce manual labour and improve search
results
·
Archiving
to comply with regulatory compliance and risk
management.
·
Integrated
rich media management to deliver visually compelling web
experiences.
·
Supports
delivery to a range of displays including portals.
(Autonomy Interwoven Website, 2011).
Product Evaluation;
The Autonomy
WCM is a product has been impressively designed and promoted
as a leading solution for its target audience - the marketing
and IT sectors. The company has successfully identified its
primary target group and created a product to suit their
identified needs with its fundamental claim being to streamline the process of
creating and managing content in a cost-effective manner
across the online environment.
Autonomy WCM has the potential to benefit a range of users but
would be primarily suited to large companies/organisations
with complex information needs and strategic marketing
requirements. This software has the ability to improve the
organisation of content within a site through automated
categorisation, tagging and optimisation of content for search
engines. It optimises a sites ability to reach its intended
audience by targeting content and navigation to key customer
segments across a range of platforms including landing pages,
sites and portals. As already mentioned, Autonomy WCM takes
pride in the development of intuitive, unified interfaces that
not only deliver targeted information for the sites owners but
provide engaging experiences for the user. If this claim is
realised, the software has the potential to maximise the
usability of the site as well as the findability of
information.
Autonomy WCM’s client list
includes many high profile companies needing to strategically
market their products and gather valuable user
information. Product features such as the design, labelling and organisationsystems are
potentially bias towards a strategic marketing model and would not
be appropriate for use in many sites. Similarly, many of the
features of Autonomy WCM seem designed to channel users
to content, pre-empt their search queries and deliver
targeted information resulting in reduced searchability. This may suit
the needs the website owners but has the potential to have a
negative impact on the user experience by
constraining efforts to independently navigate and seek information.
Overall this software lays claim to an extensive list of
features which if delivered, could benefit the needs of
large companies with complex information requirements. For
the purposes of smaller organisations with
simple information requirements, this software would potentially be too
complex.
References;
Autonomy Web Content Management Solution Brief.
(2010). Retrieved 25.5.11 from; http://promote.autonomy.com/components/pagenext.jsp?topic=SOLUTION::WEB_CONTENT
Autonomy Interwoven Website (2011). Retrieved
25.5.11 from: http://promote.autonomy.com/components/pagenext.jsp?topic=SOLUTION::WEB_CONTENT |