e-Spirit joins Celebrity CMS Deathmatch

We read about the Celebrity CMS Deathmatch on Jons website and really liked the idea to compare our CMS FirstSpirit with other solutions out there. So we decided to join the challenge, answer those 15 questions and let the discussions begin...

1. Our software comes with an installer program

Yes, it does!

FirstSpirit comes with install packages for all major server operating systems: Solaris (Sparc and x86), GNU/Linux, Windows Server, AIX. As a Java based server application, after installation FirstSpirit runs in identical configurations on those operating systems.

For the installation on Windows FirstSpirit comes with a step by step installer that installs the software and allows you e.g. to download Java or use an existing installation and other things you would expect.

For installation on SUN Solaris we support the Solaris Package Manager (pkgadd, pkgrm) and Solaris Management Facility for process control.

For installation on Linux we support .deb packages for Debian and .rpm for Red Hat and SUSE as well.

For those who want to have complete control of what is going on we deliver a tar archive with a complete step by step installation description in the manual.

All installations on Unix systems are made for easy installation from a text console either as root or from a normal user account. No X11 display is needed. On Windows the installer system is a graphical interface as shown in the screen shots.

An Upgrade of FirstSpirit is as simple as the installation: You can either use the install package to upgrade or replace the Java-Archive file (JAR) on the FirstSpirit Server.

All clients are automatically upgraded afterwards by Java Webstart on the next user login.

2. Installing or uninstalling our software does not require a reboot of your machine.

No it doesn't!

Neither installing nor uninstalling requires a reboot on any of the above.

3. You can choose your locale and language at install time, and never have to see English again after

Correct!

See screen shot.

4. Eval versions of the latest edition(s) of our software are always available for download

Sort of...

... because usually we would like to know something about the motivation if somebody wants to evaluate our software. Obviously we don´t provide eval licenses of our software to competitors.

During evaluation one gets full helpdesk access. In addition the complete set of the latest versions of all major and minor release branches including all release notes and full documentation are available for download.

[Update] We took the initiative and asked Kas Thomas about his opinion regarding our self assessment. He stated that "providing access (to all) is worth the top score, but providing access to "most people" is worth one point less". As we had several requests from competitors for an eval license of our software which we will deny, we decided to adjust our scoring from "Yes" to "Sort of" here. By doing so we are going down from 45 to 44 points.

5. Our software comes with a fully templated "sample web site" and workflows, working out-of-the box

Yes to that

Below you can see screenshots of our demo project which is a state of the art website of a virtual solar technology provider. The site contains a product database, different media in the media asset management, templates and workflows.

• On the right you can see the homepage of the demo project.
• Below you see a list of products generated out of a product database.
• Below right you can see a product detail page.

6. We ship a tutorial

Yes!

The tutorial is part of the online documentation for FirstSpirit (see below). It is part of any installation. On the right you can see the start page and content.

7. You can raise a support issue via a button, link, or menu command in our administrative interface

Yes!

And when you issue your request the following information is added automatically:

Company: (your company here)

Version: 4.1.33

license.USER: (your company here)

license.EXPDATE: Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 CEST 2009

ServerRootPath: /home/fs41/firstspirit4

java.home: /opt/java64/jdk1.6.0_11/jre

java.version: 1.6.0_11

ServerPort: 4102

SocketPort: 4101

Additionally you can add one or more log files through the interface and send them to us so we have additional details to help you.

8. All help files and documentation for the product are laid down as part of the install

Yes they are!

We deliver several documents in .pdf format like “Manual for Editors”, “Manual for Administrators” and such. Additionally we have ODFS (Online Documentation for FirstSpirit). This is an API and template language description including a reference and examples for copy and paste. ODFS itself is completely generated by FirstSpirit. All API changes are always accurate, because the API description is generated by the build process of the software. ODFS as well is part of the installation.

9. We run our entire company website using the latest version of our own WCM products

Of course!

We are currently running on Version 4. The new and redesigned website (we plan a relaunch for June 2009) will run on the then current beta of our next release.

10. Our sales people understand how our products work

They do!

By salespeople we understand sales and presales. Although our sales guys have good knowledge of the product, detailed technical questions are usually answered by the presales consultants. In pitch situations the sales person is always accompanied by presales so that we can answer all questions on the spot.

11. Our software does what we say it does

Yes

A big “YES” here because we never promise functions we can’t deliver.

We saw that Kas Thomas commented here about this question: “Amazingly, a major cause of customer dissatisfaction is, that software doesn’t do what that the customer thought it would do!”

That is our experience as well but it's not necessarily about the product. CM-Systems need to get implemented and if it comes to dissatisfaction very often it is about the specific implementation of the project and not the product. After the users worked some time with the project optimizations based on experience can be implemented by using standard functionality of the product which change the user experience considerably. Not saying CMS vendors can’t improve here.

12. We don't charge extra for our SDK

No...

One can use our sdk to expand the java client (even on the fly with scripts), develop new FirstSpirit modules via the FirstSpirit component model and develop new input components.

13. Our licensing model is simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand

Yes!

How do we know? We have an advantage here over probably all other CMS vendors in the world. Our headquarter is located right next to a kindergarten, so we have access to a large target group for continuous field testing. On the picture you see our HQ in the back and the kindergarten in the front (though some might argue it is just the other way around).

14. We have one price sheet for all customers

Correct!

We have one price sheet, only different currencies.

15. Our top executives are on Skype, Twitter, or some similar channel: Feel free to contact them

Yes! Directly and at any time!

Our customers can contact us directly at any time. We don’t support Skype for security reasons. Several executives are available on Twitter but only since a week or two so we don’t count that here. But they are available on Xing and LinkedIn for quite some time now. We have a forum on Xing which was independently formed and one on LinkedIn. All executives follow the discussions and comment on issues and answer questions. Our customers have the email addresses of all of them. But most importantly the majority of our customers have the mobile phone numbers of the executives and they can contact them directly at any time.

[Update] Here Jon Marks mentioned that we didn't link references for question #15. So we updated it. Thanks for the hint!

CEO: Jörn Bodemann XING LinkedIn Twitter

CFO: Christoph Junge XING

Partner Management: Markus Hirsch XING

Professional Services: Knuth Waltenberg XING LinkedIn

Sales International: Robert Bredlau XING LinkedIn Twitter

Marketing & Communications: Oliver Jäger XING LinkedIn Twitter

That's 44 out of 45 points.