A Look at the Ambitious Future of Ektron Web CMS

Ektron has been enjoying the 2010s so far, as the past few years have been kind to this software company from Nashua, New Hampshire.

Founded in 1998, they got their start a browser-based HTML editor (eWebEditPro), but a few years later abandoned this format for the Microsoft .NET platform. This suited them better and they stayed with it up to today, which is fortunate because in the last few years they began to get some serious recognition.

In 2011, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant listed Ektron and its Web CMS as one of the WCM industry leaders, competing head-to-head with the likes of Adobe, Oracle, HP, and SDL. That same year they landed on EContent Magazine’s Top 100 Companies that Matter Most (no ranks, just a list).

The next year they were again listed as an industry leader by Gartner’s Magic Quadrant – not as a newcomer this time, but as a returning champion. Today, they proudly boast being the platform of choice for more than 3,800 companies worldwide.

Ektron Web CMS Features & Future

At the front of the charge is the Ektron Web CMS, which released Version 9.0 last year. Ektron targets the enterprise-level heavily – almost exclusively – which leads to complaints that they are neglecting their mid-sized customer base.

The system also features a distinct multilingual functionality and site wireframes to retain global brand consistency, key traits for their strategy of expanding and sustaining dominance in the global market. Consider these two together, and you see that Ektron has no shortage of ambition.

The Ektron Web CMS includes what they call alternately “the world’s best” and “the world’s easiest-to-use” content editor. Their editor gives users the option of authoring in WYSIWYG environment and allows them to use Ektron Smart Forms for content creation.

In this visually-focused editor, website creators and editors can drag and drop images straight into content, compose pages more easily with a convenient interface, and easily manage lists, content, forms, and multimedia. This browser-based editor also updates directly on your site, reducing the time-to-web, and integrates third-party widgets (Twitter, Salesforce, etc.), which reduces time in general.

For mobile capabilities, its Responsive Web Design gives users’ sites an adaptive quality that lets them consolidate content across all their channels, namely smartphones and tablets. The media manager utilizes a built-in WURFL Device Description Repository that detects the device, screen size, and capacity before automatically adapting, resizing, and/or swapping images.

Extras include improved SEO, geolocation targeting, and optimum performance for videos using the Brightcove Video Cloud. It seems this CMS does well in preventing clunky, awkward, and flat-out broken mobile versions.

And then there are the enterprise-specific features, the ones that made the company a success. For starters, the multilingual services are top-notch, offering consistent translations, XLIFF support, and language solutions from partners such as Lionbridge and Globalization Partners Limited. With Ektron Search, site visitors find what they need more effectively (regardless of site size) using faceted searches and metadata-driven navigation.

The Bottom Line

Specialized for enterprise and international sites, Ektron Web CMS is not for every company, but like a tailored suit, if it happens to fit you, there’s nothing better.

Try the demo to see how Ektron Web CMS fits you.