If you’ve spent any time researching content management systems lately, you’re aware that the market is absolutely full of competing products. It seems like a new CMS product is announced somewhere on the Web just about every week.

I think one of the main reasons for this flood of new products is that the barrier to entry is so low. To create a CMS, one only needs to create a way for a user to enter some information via a web form, save that information somewhere, and then display it as the content of a web page. Developers, in fact, will often create such a tool for their own use and then decide later to sell that tool to clients.

Additionally, the continual stream of new CMS products is driven by the fact that almost all websites are more easily managed via a CMS. Developers understand the benefits and the clients are starting to see the benefits so developers keep creating more systems.

So what’s the result, then, of having a marketplace filled with so many content management systems?

1. More choices for customers

A marketplace flush with products provides customers with a wide variety of choices. Content management systems exist for every platform and programming language, at every price point from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and with about every set of features a customer could desire.

CMS vendors also have to work harder to differentiate themselves from the competition and that drives them to specialize their products to meet specialized customer demands.

2. Prices are being driven down

As CMS vendors are forced to compete in a more cutthroat marketplace many vendors will seek a competitive edge by lowering prices. A lower-priced offering is often the only way to compete with a superior product and as a result, the bottom end of the market tends to saturate quickly with low-cost systems which makes content management more available to the masses.

3. Customers are more aware of the benefits of content management

All CMS vendors benefit from the increase in competition because every vendor who is marketing a product is helping to educate the market as a whole.

My company has been selling its CMS for about five years now. Five years ago it was far more difficult to sell a CMS to a customer than it is today. Customers weren’t sure they needed a CMS and weren’t always convinced of the ROI. Today most customers demand a CMS and view the cost as a necessary part of owning a website, much like buying the domain name and paying the hosting fees.

CMS vendors as a group are largely responsible for this shift in customer perceptions. The vibrant competition in the market helps further define the market and educate customers about the benefits of using a CMS.

Summary

As competition continues to increase in the CMS market, I believe vendors will increasingly need to improve the experience of using their products. This is the next step for the content management industry as most content management systems are unbelievably difficult for the average person to use.

What do you think? Is it good to have so many competing products? Are there other effects on the market? Post a comment and let me know!

For more information visit these links:

10 Reasons Every Website Needs a CMS

CMS Matrix Product Listing