Clickability shows how not to write a white paper

White papers are not something we typically critique or comment on, butClickability‘s new white paper,billed on their website as “WhatVignette is Not Telling You,” does, in fact, require special comment.

The paper’s stated goal “is to provide strategic data and insights that will help in your decision-making process regarding Web Content Management.”But the four-page phillipic quickly reveals itself as little more than an arrogant, shrill, and sometimes factually incorrect attack on Vignette and its new parent company,Open Text.

Many of the criticisms made in the white paper (involving upgrade pain, migration pain, slow product innovation, high licensing costs) will be familiar to any student of Vignette-bashing. There’s truth in some of the claims, certainly, but it’s a dated kind of truth, applying mostly to the Vignette of 2002 or 2004.

The truth is that Vignette has made a good-faith effort, over the past two years, to address many of the well-known criticisms about its products. Along the way, they’ve managed to produce a significant number ofnew products and rolled out non-trivial updates to existing ones. They’ve also become more competitive on pricing, and have clearly gotten the message on upgrade pain. So to drag out the standard laundry list of complaints about the Vignette of Olde and paint the company (yet again)as an innovation-averse, customer-ignoring purveyor of overpriced, outmoded goods is like beating a horse that died two years ago.

Continues @ http://www.cmswatch.com

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