November 22, 2018
It is difficult to sell products without high-quality, comprehensive and up-to-date product information. This is self-evident in B2C web stores, but the same requirements apply to B2B sales channels as well. The difference with B2B channels is that providing high-quality, comprehensive and up-to-date product information is much more complicated than in consumer business.
Continue reading “Survey results: Product information is the foundation of B2B sales channels”
Forrester is one of the most well-known analyst companies that publishes ranking reports for content management systems (Gartner being the other one). The most recent Forrester Wave report about web content management systems (Q1/2017) was published at the beginning of this year, and there were some surprises, to say the least. I will review the report in this article and offer some background for how Forrester’s report should be interpreted. Continue reading “Forget the latest Forrester report about WCM systems”
Dec 2, 2015
Amongst Finnish online shops, only one in five has planned a strategy for international markets, and less than half feel they have the resources needed for developing e-commerce in general. These are some of the discouraging results of a survey, which was conducted by North Patrol and eCommerce Finland. On the brighter side, the survey shows that it is possible to run profitable e-commerce even without significant investments. Continue reading “State of Finnish e-commerce: local, under-resourced and tech-driven”
Oct 6, 2015
Sitecore and EPiServer are two of the major players in the CMS market. Especially those customers that prefer Microsoft technologies tend to evaluate both of these platforms. Sitecore has already proven itself as a very global player, while EPiServer is catching up especially after acquiring Ektron this year. Continue reading “Philosophical differences: Sitecore vs. EPiServer”
Sep 29, 2015
The e-commerce systems used in Finland can be divided into three categories: 1) the systems employed by small e-stores; 2) content management systems with built-in e-commerce features; and 3) the systems used in large, highly integrated e-stores. Continue reading “E-Commerce systems in Finland 2015”
Jun 2, 2015
A client wanted me to evaluate Weebly, a self-service website builder. She planned on using Weebly for a separate branch of their organization.
I confess, I was very skeptical. After all, this was a big company that usually spends hundreds of thousands of euros on their web renewal projects.
Continue reading “Low-cost website builders have become surprisingly good”
Oct 15, 2014
Liferay is slowly becoming more popular in Finland at the moment. Public administration in particular is attracted to this Java portal with a long history. There is even an attempt to make Liferay a widely used common web content management system for governmental organizations. Ministries, in particular, clearly consider Liferay the default CMS choice for new online services at present. The Lutheran church, for example, also has selected Liferay as the common web content management system for its parishes.
In addition to public administration, businesses in the finance industry are using Liferay in Finland to replace their costly Oracle and IBM portals. Continue reading “Peculiarity of Finland: Liferay a popular web content management system”
Jun 3, 2014
The web design blog Vierityspalkki surveyed the WordPress experts in Finland last winter. The project collected information on the agencies, their services, competencies, specializations, and the significance of WordPress to business on the whole. This information was compiled to help clients more easily find their most suitable partner for their WordPress projects. The survey was financed by North Patrol.
Continue reading “Strongest WordPress agencies in Finland 2014”
May 20, 2014
Drupal and EPiServer seem to be the most common adversaries in Finland right now when it comes to big website projects. Therefore we decided to publish some comparison slides that help to figure out the main differences between these systems. Continue reading “CMS battle: Drupal vs. EPiServer”
Mar 3, 2014
This time, North Patrol interviews Vesa Palmu, a web professional since many years. We will first glance at the history of the CMS market and how the rise of Drupal coincides with it. Vesa also casts a look at the biggest changes on the CMS market in the last few years and analyzes, for example, the rise of frameworks. Continue reading “Interview with Drupal insider Vesa Palmu”
Aug 22, 2013
The popularity of WordPress has been consistently on the rise all over the world. But in Finland, its popularity has grown so fast in such a short time that you could say there is a “WordPress Boom” going on in Finland.
One factor driving this boom are advertising agencies who are quite openly championing the use of WordPress as their default web content management system (CMS). Also this “boom” has given birth to numerous WordPress specialist companies based in Finland.
Especially for article-driven websites, WordPress has become the default choice – even for bigger brands. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the product development of WordPress. WordPress has focused almost exclusively on the development of features related to article publishing. Continue reading “WordPress setting the minimum standard for web content management systems”
Jun 3, 2013
This article summarizes a few trends that have been fairly strong in Finland during the last two years or so. Somewhat similar trends can also be seen happening elsewhere in Scandinavia, but this article focuses specifically on Finland.
Strongest trends are the steady the rise of WordPress and Drupal. Bigger players like Microsoft, Oracle and Sitecore still have trouble in getting traction on the market in Finland. Even frameworks like Django seem to be challenging the traditional players when it comes to choosing technology to power world-class web presences. Especially the growth of mobile is driving big web renewals, but the Web CMS products don’t seem to have much to offer when it comes to building these highly responsive websites.
Continue reading “Web CMS market trends in Finland 2013”
Jun 3, 2013
The question of the current status of the evolving role of Web CMS was the key takeaway from my recent conference trip to Philadelphia. This article summarizes my presentation that touched the topic from one angle. Also in the end of the article I will summarize the discussions around the matter during the conference. Continue reading “Is the role of the Web CMS getting smaller?”
Oct 4, 2012
This article lists the most significant domestic content management systems in Finland in 2012. The list contains CMS systems which compete primarily for web projects in Finland in the 10,000-50,000 euro range. The order of the systems listed is based on an estimate of how commonly they are used as platforms for medium-sized projects.
Continue reading “The 2012 CMS Market in Finland: Domestic products”
Oct 3, 2012
This article lists the most significant international content management systems in Finland. The list includes systems which are suitable for both large-scale websites and intranets. Other international products are also used in Finland, but this list includes only those with several integrators or very significant implementations. Continue reading “The 2012 CMS Market in Finland: International Products”
Buyer's Guide to Web Projects 