Adobe’s CMS “CQ5” is growing in popularity among larger corporations because of Adobe’s extremely effective acquisition, bundling, and marketing strategy around the product. The definition of CMS has grown more complex and comprehensive because of CQ5.
CQ5 has options such as integrated digital-asset management, Adobe Search & Promote (replaces Google Search Appliance), cloud management, responsive design, social media/collaboration, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Test&Target (optimization tool for ads and messaging) , personalized shopping, “Live Copy” for global reuse of content, and easy integration with translation plugin Clay Tablet (I recently used this one).
CMS has grown more comprehensive because content management includes everything from design to video ads and messaging to social media to search result customization, as well as good old editorial and marketing copy. CMS has grown more complex because of the technical challenges around globalization/multilingual, reuse of sites and content without redundancy, responsive design for many device types, post-ajax interface, crowdsourcing mechanisms, personalized shopping experience, and the latest in test & target messaging in real time.
The amazing thing to me is that CQ5 handles all the above. You can see how far Adobe has gone to dominate the CMS market, acquiring add-on companies and attaching those apps into every imaginable CMS bundling option. The acquisition strategy alone is a fascinating study in product development. CQ5 itself was an acquisition from Day Software.
Most will never scratch the surface of what CQ5 can do. Seasoned content managers will need a week or so of training to get started. For what it does, however, the ease of use is above average.
I’m also finding a lot of fascinating conversation around CQ5 in the Adobe forums and product-specific LinkedIn groups. The system is still relatively new so in terms of jobs (users, programmers, etc.), there’s more demand than supply. It’s a good time to get trained in CQ5. Also note the product is being rebranded as Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). Not sure if that will catch on or if they’ll have to rebrand again with the next release.