Umbraco, an open source CMS based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET, has announced the availability of Umbraco 4.1RC. The Umbraco Core Team of developers calls this version of their CMS as “the biggest update to Umbraco” ever. This release candidate for Umbraco 4.1 is packed with a laundry list of improvements in performance and stability as well as some new features.

New and improved features:

• Enhanced preview. Browse your entire site as it looks in the future, including out-of-the-box support for all XSLT and NodeFactory based macros
• SpellChecker. With support for more than ten languages out of the box!
• LINQ 2 Umbraco. More a .NET Developer than an XSLT guru? You can access data via the all brand new .NET LINQ API
• Examine. Ultra performant and stable index-based search engine. With a fluent API that developers will love
• New XML Schema. Not only more performant, but makes it easier to understand your data and adds future support for Intellisense in Visual Studio!
• Improved DLR support. Faster than ever and with support for Ruby too!
• New Datatypes: Image Cropper for editor friendly image manipulation and Macro Container for easily handling of feature areas. (Needs to be manually created in the data type section in the RC)
• Improved Mediapicker: Preview and advanced dialog with upload is now a part of the default MediaPicker (needs to be activated on the datatype in the RC)

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Umbraco Blog: “A new update of Umbraco 4 is out – v4.0.4.1 – fixing 13 issues based on feedback from 4.0.3 users. Full download and upgrade instructions on Codeplex. We expect 4.0.4.1 to be available from the Microsoft Web Platform Installer within a week.

Most importantly is a fix to a serious date bug where day and month could be flipped when using non English cultures. Also fixes to issues mostly related to high performance websites have been included. Lastly, using Members via /base is now back to full support. All the details is in the release notes pdf under “Other Available Downloads”.”

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After a recent briefing with a Danish system integrator, I started speculating on whether Umbraco CMS might be on track to steal market share from Sitecore in the marketplace for .NET-based content management systems. Others have mentioned the possible trend to me in the past, but is it really happening?

Comparing open source Umbraco and proprietary Sitecore has been the norm for a couple of years in Denmark, the home market for both vendors, but we are increasingly seeing the two vendors on the same shortlists far beyond Denmark.

The question is, whether the “friendly CMS” really will be able to win business from Sitecore?

Here’s why Umbraco will beat Sitecore in the long run:

• Open source: This evergreen mega-trend is a big plus for Umbraco in terms of attracting developers, press and customers.
• Partners: Umbraco is very popular with system integrators. Nearly 60 people signed up for the LBi-hosted Umbraco 2009 UK Meetup in London. Since then we’ve heard of several consultancies that used to be faithful to Sitecore, but are now winning their bids with Umbraco. Without license costs there is more budget left for the partners.
• Price: You can download Umbraco and get started free of charge. You can buy a year of support starting at €3k. To compare, the cheapest Sitecore license starts around €10k and quickly goes up from there (and then you still need to buy support).
• Community: Umbraco has a strong, happy, positive, enthusiastic and growing community of developers.
• Simplicity: Many customers don’t require online marketing, all the different interfaces and bells-and-whistles offered by Sitecore. Several partners claim that Umbraco is simpler and hence also easier and cheaper to implement.

Here are a few good reasons why Sitecore will continue to do well, even though Umbraco might continue to gain in popularity:

• Analysts: Umbraco is not covered by any traditional industry analysts, including CMS Watch. Sitecore is covered by all the main players and Gartner even crowned them as “very innovative” in most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for WCM (Aug 2009).
• Partners: Building a network of experienced integrators is not easy and Sitecore has been at it for many years. With well-developed skills and a traditional kick-back the partners have good reason to stay with Sitecore.
• References: In both North America and Europe, you can easily find an existing Sitecore customer. This is very helpful to further increase adoption as it means that new customers have some experience they can tap into. In addition, Sitecore has many government references where Umbraco has almost none.
• Finance: A quick look at the recent Sitecore annual reports shows they are doing extremely well. Sitecore has demonstrated that they are capable of earning money in a competitive market and posted record-numbers again back in December 2009.
• Global footprint: Sitecore is an established global player; much more so than Umbraco. Sitecore is in particular strong in the important and highly competitive US and UK markets.
• Complexity: Many customers have started to realize that they do indeed have complex requirements. Sitecore has targeted the higher end of the market for quite a few years now, which has made the product more complex and capable towards the demanding, global enterprises.

My take: If you do a proper CMS vendor evaluation, you will probably find that the license cost is only a fraction of the overall project costs. Your criteria should really be to look at which system will meet your requirements most efficiently.

This week we added three Web applications to our CMS Focus top 30 list.  The CMSs and ECMs listed in CMS Focus are not necessarily the most popular in content management and are not meant to meet everyone’s requirements for a CMS. Instead the content management systems that make up this top 30 are what I consider content management “game changers” or “attention getters”. New to CMS Focus are the following CMS/ECM: EPiServer, Umbraco, and an unknown CMS called Omeka.

My thanks to all those that made their suggestions to me via Twitter. Besides the three CMS that made the top 30 list, we had enough tweets to call our attention to Enano, Coremedia, Alterian, OpenCMS, SDL Tridion, Jahia, and Nuxeo. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these additional CMSs making their way onto CMS Focus in the near future.

In order to make room the new entries, we dropped three Web applications out of CMS Focus and into our “Hall of Fame”. These applications were Gallery (2006-2010), Frog CMS (2009-2010), and SMF (2006 – 2009). All three applications are fine pieces of softweare for what they are designed to do and are still be worth a look. However, our focus continues to shift to more complete information systems and retirement to the hall of fame were long overdue for these applications.

Despite much hype we did not see a breakthrough for open source CMS last year. When I launched the discussion last year, we  received some great comments, e.g. on intellectual property and warranty, suggesting that in some cases open source is not the right decision.

In the past decade, several governments have issued statements with strong support for open source, e.g. UK government backs open source and Denmark’s endorsement of Plone. Often these statements were driven by an underlying desire to save money and drum up competition for Microsoft and the de-facto Windows & Office monopoly.

Our usual advice is not to start by deciding on open source or not. However, in our community of practice, many technology selection projects often start with a debate around whether open source is good or bad. Many members report that they have experienced quite expensive open source projects, indicating that open source is not always cheaper.

The open source debate is often based around emotions, eg. the very strong urge to avoid Microsoft. Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod

A significant factor in terms of value is the cost and quality of the implementation. If you’ve selected an open source system, say Drupal, WordPress or Umbraco, for your new website, but cannot find any experienced implementation partner, then you may be forced to take a step back and rethink your selection process. You might have enough resources to do the implementation yourself, but I don’t recommend doing it without proper training and expert assistance. Most open source projects have really weak documentation.

Also, if you don’t have any resources to engage in a vibrant open source community, you are missing out on one of the big advantages of open source. Except for the really big vendors, e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, which have decent communities for developers, most commercial vendors don’t have communities where you can meet other practitioners and share experiences.

If you are concerned about risk, it is worth noting that some relatively well-known open source projects, e.g. Mambo got in trouble back in 2005 when most of the developers associated with it decided to start Joomla. HyperContent, another open source CMS, was announced dead in 2008. Commercial systems don’t live forever either, but typically you can continue to buy support from the vendor.

Your requirements may deflate the value of open source. Those with strong requirements for Microsoft Office integration, e.g. seamless Word integration, might struggle to find an open source solution that support the requirement, while many commercial alternatives have offered this for 5+ years.

The past decade saw the rise of the so-called “commercial open source vendors”, e.g. Alfresco, eZ or Jahia. These vendors have open source solutions, but earn their money on selling enterprise licenses, training, and support agreements. Some even do consulting. In their own words, they provide the best of both worlds, although I’m yet to see any of these firms develop a serious community.

In your view, when does open source software not represent the best value?

I am presenting on Thursday 7th January in London at a free event run by BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT on Public Funds in the UK: Open Source for Document and Content Management. Whether you can make it to London or not, I invite you to participate in the discussion by posting a comment below.

I have only now started paying attention to the Umbraco CMS. While they may call Umbraco the “friendly CMS“, I’m not sure I’m aware of a single CMS that doesn’t self-describe itself as the CMS to use. This is why I enjoy blog posts from actual users new to a CMS describing what they have learned about the software. In learning Umbraco, I’m glad I came across Lee Messenger’s “A Complete Newbie’s Guide To Umbraco CMS“.

This post really is a beginners guide to Umbraco, I decided to put it together because when I first started messing around with Umbraco I had more than a few issues trying to get it installed due to not being able to find the right answers about a year or so ago (Or was it I was just being impatient) – And I’ll hold  my hands up, I threw my toys out the pram and just gave up… Now I REALLY kick myself and WISH I had carried on.

There has also been some great movements in pushing Umbraco to the next level and making it easier than ever to use. Now I’m no professional or avid blogger, so don’t expect miracles… this is sort of a guide/my own learning journey over the past 4 months all thrown together in one post.  My only aim for this post is to try and give anyone looking to get into Umbraco and real life example and reference from someone doing the same thing.

Now I gotta friend who spends his life
Stabbing my picture with a bowie-knife
- I SHALL BE FREE NO. 10

Last week, LBi hosted the Umbraco 2009 UK meetup. This was mainly due to the enthuasism of the organiser, Darren Ferguson, and the power of Twitter. Our involvement started after I saw this:

How To Get A Free Venue

Darren and I hooked up, and the rest is history. So Twitter can get you free stuff too. The 20 people was a bit conservative – turned out that nearly 60 people signed up. Even CMSWire covered the event which makes it famous. According to Darren, the biggest cock-up of the event was the live coding demo which, true to form, failed spectacularly. I never trust a live coding demo which works properly so maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.

Waiting near the barista before the start

For me the highlight was a chat with Niels Hartvig (@umbraco), Umbraco founder and guru. We talked mainly about XSLT which, I think, he likes. W00t! Turns out that he’s presenting later in the year at the Best Conference in the World. Yours truly is speaking there too. Come along – you know you want to. He flew over from Norway to be at the Umbraco Day, which kept all the groupies very happy.

Niels reveals the bonus features in the upcoming Umbraco version

I also really enjoyed chatting to Gregory Roekens (@roekens), CTO of Wunderman. It’s great to have a couple of beers with someone that works for another big agency and has to deal with the same kind of issues that I do. Hoping we’ll be able to do it again soon and, in his words, become good frenemies.

Thanks to Darren for organising, Marcus for doing all the logistics at LBi and Percipient Studios for taking a whole load of cool photos that I’ve stolen. You can also read more about the day on the LBiQ blog by @bijeshtank and @mobragauk. If anyone else knows of any other blogs or photos, please add links in the comments.