Content Management

Content Management Systems

A Content Management System is a database able to store files together with their metadata.

There are various specialized types of CMS, like the following:

• Web CMS, specialized on managing HTML content and media files and deliver the data to a browser as a web site.
• Document Management Systems (DMS), also a specialized category of CMS, focused on managing binary data of all types and often providing rich interfaces to other systems (ERP) and process automation functionality.
• Component CMS (CCMS), specialized on managing structured content in formats like DITA for technical documentation or similar purposes, and providing versioning, review, lifecycles, translation management and single-source publishing.

Open Source Solutions

Across the various CMS types, there are many commercial solutions on the market. There are roughly 30 CCMS with significant presence, an even larger number of DMS and many solutions for specialized purposes. However, there are also many Open Source solutions. Using an Open Source platform does not necessarily mean that the software is free of charge, because there might be specialized, commercial components or plugins with proprietary licenses. Also, consulting, implementation and training fees apply as in projects based on commercial software. Often, though, Open Source solutions are cheaper than commercial solutions without being less powerful.

Apart from the cost, another important advantage of Open Source software is the public availability of the source code, allowing companies using the software to implement customizations, for example to establish interfaces to other software, and in case the original service provider vanishes from the market, the customer can choose another service partner and continue on the open code base available to everyone.

While there are many open Web CMS available, in the CCMS market, there are only few open solutions. One of them, ​Cinnamon, is a hybrid CMS with full CCMS and DMS functionality under an Open Source license. We have initiated the project and are the main contributor.

What we can do for you

We conceive and build professional, custom-tailored solutions on the ​Cinnamon platform.

Key advantages of ​Cinnamon are its flexibility and its powerful programming interfaces. This lets us implement solutions resembling individual software with respect to the accurracy they match your requirements, but at the same time use the complete, reliable ​Cinnamon infrastructure. Therefore, we can achieve very good software quality and density with minimal effort. The open source platform together with a license model of the commercial components without user licenses allows your application to easily scale up without the need of constantly buying user licenses.

​Cinnamon provides functionality like the following:

• Versioning with branching support
• Powerful lifecycle and permission system
• Workflow engine
• Translation management
• Publication framework
• Index-based search

​Cinnamon use cases include the following:

• Document Management
• Component CMS applications, like technical documentation
• Plant and project documentation
• Integration platform
• Publication and content distribution
• Content planning
• … and much more

Please contact us. We will demonstrate ​Cinnamon and show you how we can solve your requirements on the platform.