If You Have a Choice, Run from RedDot CMS & LiveServer

If You Have a Choice, Run from RedDot CMS

I’ve been a software developer/integrator for more than 20 years. I’ve worked in California, Canada, and Europe. And I’ve worked with everything from Cobalt programming to ERP deployments.

Never have I worked with software or a software company as deeply disappointing – as fundamentally broken - as RedDot Content Management (purchased by Hummingbird, purchased by OpenText and now called OpenText Web Solutions).

I’ve watched the company plummet from the developer of a respectable, if overly-complicated web content management solution in 2000 to the debacle of today. Bad management, worse development and an underlying disdain for clients = the sound of a toilet flushing.

8 Reasons You Should Run Away from RedDot Content Management (CMS)

1. RedDot Lies. Their “.Net Release?” Their ain’t no .Net in it.
   
   
2. RedDot workflow doesn’t work. Or only works if your site happens to be structured according to your org chart, rather than user needs
   
   
3. RedDot pushes LiveServer as a search engine. LiveServer! It doesn’t even do its real job (personalization) well.
   
   
4. They hate their partners. Which means that there’s no one to support the poor customers that buy the software. You’re on your own. And you’re screwed.
   
   
5. Upgrades from Hell. Congrats, our new release wrecks your three years of development.
   
   
6. The rats are fleeing. One sign a company is going into free fall – their best people run away.
   
   
7. Who is in charge anyway? Four acquisitions in 4 years means the answer is no one.
   
   
8. If you must buy RedDot, buy in Europe. They charge Europeans ¼ of what they charge us

RedDot Upgrades from Hell

Upgrades from Hell. Congrats, the new RedDot release wrecks your three years of development.

I’m getting depressed just writing this. You never know what kind of hell the latest upgrade from RedDot is going to plunge you into.

A couple of examples. This is from a Gilbane analyst (who is too polite to mention RedDot – but I’m not).

"For a vendor to deliver a solid CMS product with a buggy search interface to toggle between keyword and metadata search is one thing. My client spent months getting it to work so that users could seek by keyword or on explicit metadata fields. They rolled it out and it was “OK,” if not great. But after much discussion with the vendor about the bugs, my client was pressured into adopting an upgrade to “solve the problem.” Unfortunately, the upgrade was an experience from hell, but worse was the fact that the old search controls no longer worked and there was no way to search metadata any longer. Having predicated the procurement on being able to search metadata… well, you get the picture."

View his complete commentary here.


Here’s an example from a user group:

We recently upgraded to 7.5.1.31 currently running on 2003 SP 2 and
Sql 2005 sp1 (on a separate box) since the upgrade to 7.5 the
performance has died. RedDot runs really fast and then suddenly
freezes for all users. View it here

What this Means

This is the usual scenario. You have a really important web site. And, the RedDot server throws an annoying but not deadly bug. Something like “when I delete a page, RedDot sometimes deletes it and sometimes doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, it ends up in Google and my boss gets angry.”

So you call RedDot support and they say – oh, we can solve that. Just upgrade to the latest version. Which you dutifully do. Then all hells breaks loose:

• Your painstakingly developed, tested and refined publication packages stop publishing
  
  
• The wysiwig editor used by Macintosh users suddenly stops
  
  
• The page naming script you wrote is ignored and RedDot just publishes everything as page numbers
  
  
• Etc.

In my experience, any new release is as likely to introduce bugs as fix bugs. If you’re thinking about buying RedDot, ask your rep how many installations are still running RedDot CMS version 4 or 5. You’ll be amazed how many people refuse to upgrade or have gotten rid of the system entirely and replace it with something more reliable.

4 Years + 4 Acquisition = RedDot in Chaos

Who is in charge of RedDot anyway? Four acquisitions in 4 years means that answer is no one

2004: RedDot – a private, German-owned web content management company

2005: Hummingbird, a publicly traded Canadian company purchases RedDot

May 2006: Hummingbird is purchased by Symphony Technology Group and goes private

Aug. 2006: OpenText purchases Hummingbird and adds RedDot to its portfolio of 3(!) existing web content management systems

You got all that? Able to keep track of the players? No? Neither is anyone inside RedDot.

You have to feel sorry for the employees. Who the hell is in charge anyway? Is it any wonder that RedDot’s best and brightest have fled to the competition?

Why This RedDot Acquisition Madness Matters

Customer Confusion
OpenText’s reputation for clearly communicating with customers in legendary. NOT!. As CMS Watch says “the level of clarity in the communications from Open Text about the future of what had been its main WCM products leaves a great deal to be desired.”

So unsurprisingly, RedDot clients have been given little information at all about what the acquisition means. Unless you count this miracle of obfuscation released shortly after the announcement.

Caring About $$ More Than Customer Success
OpenText is a public company with an obsession for hitting revenue numbers. Which is fine. But this crazy focus on meeting quota means sales guys will do anything to make their number, including selling LiveServer as a Search Engine and shooting partners who won’t give their clients bad advice to help RedDot make quota.

Loss of Product Vision - Blindness to Customer Needs
With product managers jumping ship, there’s been no vision for the future of RedDot (or any of the other web content management solutions owned by OpenText.) The product is old and rapidly getting older.

As CMS Watch points out: “products change over time -- or rather don't always change with the times. So it is with RedDot CMS, whose European customers tell us that its localization capabilities are aging, and its globalization facilities surprisingly underdeveloped”

You can see this lack of vision shining through with the recent “Web 2.0” release of RedDot. In September 2007, RedDot finally woke up to this whole “social web thing” and announced:

“RedDot now makes the integration of interactive applications and Web 2.0 functions possible in all Web-enabled media with new modules for Web 2.0.”

Absolute genius – if this was 2005.

And RedDot still can’t provide – out of the box – the more important CMS microapplications of calendars and end-user form creation that even junior products like Ektron have offered since 2004.

Why Have All RedDot's Best Employees Fled?

The Star Employees are Running from RedDot - Maybe This is a Hint

I’m old. Remember when Bo and Luke Duke left the Dukes of Hazard? No? How about when Suzanne Sommers stopped being the third in Threes Company? Not that one either, eh? How about Richie Cunnigham leaving Happy Days? Oh, come on – that show was on for a million years.

Guess I should have kept watching TV after my kids were born.

Well, take my word for it. One way to know that a show has jumped the shark is when the best/highest paid/most talented/largest breasted actors flee.

And in that vein, it is worth noting two defections from RedDot:

• Darren Guarnaccia, RedDot Vice President of Marketing and former RedDot Director of Technology jumped to competing vendor SiteCore in June 2007. The press release notes “Darren was instrumental in leading the growth of RedDot from a small start up to a global Web Content Management System (CMS) company.” He “contributed significantly to the product strategy and vision at RedDot.” Hmm. Strange that, with that pedigree, he’d flee. Or maybe he knows something we don’t.

• Guy Schneider, former RedDot Director of Sales for the West, left for direct competitor Tridion (before the SDL acquisition.) As I hear it, he left because he wasn’t willing to live with the “positioning” – you and I would call it lying – that RedDot was pursuing.

So when is the last time you watched Dukes of Hazzard, Three’s Company or Happy Days? Never? Funny – that the same time you should consider purchasing RedDot.

Don't Buy RedDot - But if you must Buy RedDot, buy in Europe

European Pricing is 1/4 of North American Pricing.

Thinking about buying RedDot? Then I have three pieces of advice:

• Don’t. Have you learned nothing from this blog?
  
  
• For the love of god, don’t. Seriously. Do you think I wrote this stuff for the pleasure of it?
  
  
• Ok. Fine. If you must buy it, buy it in Europe.

About two years ago, I asked RedDot for a quote for a customer who had seen their demos and drank their cool aid. The Southern US RedDot rep came back to me with a figure of $62,000 for the modules they wanted.

The company is a multinational. They called their German branch (who also used the product). They asked how much they paid for the same modules:

$12,000 Euros.

Now I know our dollar has fallen, but it sure as hell has not fallen that much. And I’m no math whiz, but it seems to me that RedDot is charging its European customers 75% less than they’re soaking their US customers for.

Bottomline
Don’t buy RedDot. If you must buy RedDot (say someone has pictures of you in a compromising position – or pictures of your boss in a compromising position), buy it in Europe.

You’ve got two options here:

1. If you have European operations, buy it through them.
   
   
2. If you don’t, then contact a European RedDot integrators. They’ll be happy to help you out. There is no reason why you can’t set up RedDot CMS in Europe and have it publish to a North American based web server. This is the internet after all.

I don’t think it’s worth paying anything for RedDot when you’ve got less expensive, more mature systems like Tridion, Sitecore and Hot Banana.

But if you insist on tossing money into a hole and burying it, toss in as little in as possible. Buy in Europe.

RedDot /OpenText Hates Partners

RedDot Hates Partners

Some software companies love partners. Think Microsoft. Or Sitecore, for that matter. RedDot ain’t like that.

RedDot claims their professional services don’t compete with partners. What they mean is “Our professional services team hangs onto the technically simple, high value, high profit customers and doesn’t compete when a project looks like a train wreck, or the client has spent all of their budget on our software and has nothing left for implementation services.”

Partner of the Year one Year – Non-existent the Next

One way you can tell that a company really doesn’t like partners. Turn over. Partners win “partner of the year” one year. And they’re gone the next. Look at RedDot:

• Telus Mobility wins the 2005 “partner of the year.” By 2007, they’re not even a Premium Partner anymore.

I heard from a client that RedDot shot one of their very best partners because they dared to recommend a client spend $2000 on Google Mini as a search engine rather than $50,000 for LiveServer. It seems that partners that care about the success of their clients, rather than lining RedDot pockets, have very short lifespans.

Why Should Buyers Care?

Because it means there’s no one to call when things go sideways. Your stuck with RedDot pro services at $2200 per day. When they’re available. And when they return your phone call.

The only useful “best practices” documentation that’s available was written in 2004 by a company that isn’t even a RedDot partner anymore.

If can find a company that claims to be qualified in RedDot, they can charge a fortune because there’s no competition. And they can run away from failures and move on to the next project.

Bottomline – you better be prepared for your IT team to become a fulltime, in-house RedDot consulting group. Because you won’t find one outside of your walls.

RedDot LiveServer: Expensive, Broken, Pointless

What is RedDot LiveServer (other than a way for RedDot sales guys to pad their sales and make their commissions?). RedDot calls it:

• a personalization engine
• an integration interface
• a portal
• a search engine

I call it a java-based monstrosity. But that’s just me. In my experience, it isn’t any of the above (although it can be made to do a little bit of lightweight personalization.)

What really kills me tho is that RedDot is selling LiveServer as a search engine. “Mr. prospect, we’re very happy you like RedDot CMS but you should know you need to buy LiveServer if you’re going to search your site.”

ANNNGGGTT! Wrong answer. Ever hear of the Google Mini?

Problems with LiveServer as Search Engine:

• It’s crazy expensive. RedDot will ask for $50k+ for LiveServer. Google Mini costs you $2k. And, unlike LiveServer, it works.
  
  
• It is really just a crippled version of Verity. The licence only lets you index content managed by the RedDot system. So that fileshare of documents you want to make available. Sorry – out of luck. Want to let your employees search your personnel directory (the most used thing on an intranet?). Nope. Not managed by RedDot.
  
  
• No reporting. Want to know what your customers are looking for on your site so you can serve them better? The sort of report that every search engine in the world ships with? Uhm. No, that’s not part of the package.
  
  
• You can’t “tune” it. Disappointed by the way LiveServer ranks results (and trust me, you will be)? Want to override it so that popular searches return the best result? You’re out of luck. Go directly to jail – do not pass Go.
  
  
• Even CMS Watch knows it’s bad. The analysts at CMS Watch are explaining how little information RedDot/Opentext is sharing about product road map and support. They say
  
  search for "Obtree", you get nine documents all with 1% relevance. If you search for "Gauss", you find that the first ten results all have a 98% relevance but refer (as do a great many more) to the acquisition. (It is of note that Open Text does not actually indicate the number of results from a search, which is very poor practice. All you can do is click to the next ten. What impression does that give prospective customers?) http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1041-Obtree-obscured
  

I can answer that last question – an accurate impression. RedDot LiveServer isn’t a search engine. It’s a money grab targeted at naïve buyers.

RedDot workflow doesn’t work

What is the point of workflow? To make sure the right people approve content before the public sees it, right? So why doesn’t RedDot workflow let you do this?

An example: Your “About Us” section of your website might include press releases, your annual report, management team bios, and a map to your location, like this:



You want the right people to approve each type of content before it goes live:

• Maybe marketing approves press releases
• Your lawyers and accountants approve the annual report
• Your exec’s sign off on their bios
• IT approves the map, ‘cause it’s just a link to maps.google.com

Oh magical RedDot with your pretty graphical workflow designer, construct these workflows. What? I can’t? Why? I can only apply one workflow for each shared template? Like this, you mean?



But who do I make the approver? Marketing? Accounting? But the accountants don’t care about press releases. And I don’t want marketing to approve our financials. Oh, RedDot support, isn’t there a workaround? There is? Great. What? Just build a different template for each? But then I lose the ability to enforce common content or leverage reuse? And that’s why I bought the product?

Anyways, you get the idea. If you’re thinking about RedDot, make sure they show you how they handle this scenario. And make sure they show you the jungle of templates you need to create and maintain to make it work. Just for fun, ask them if you can have different people approve different elements on the page (say marketing for images, legal for the footer and marketing for text). Always good to watch sales engineers’ heads explode.

Or you can just commit to building a site like this:



Your visitors will love it.

RedDot Lies. Their .NET Release? There ain't no .NET in it.

Explain to me how RedDot’s release of version 7 is a “.Net release”?

1. Only a tiny fraction of RedDot CMS code uses the .Net framework – way less than the 25% that CMS Watch grumbles about.
2. RedDot LiveServer is still a java application.

.net developers can’t work with the RedDot “.net release.” Rather, they have to learn the mysterious, under documented RedDot Query Language.

In contrast, a company like SiteCore provides a complete .net compliant product. Even Ektron – with a price point less than 5% of RedDot CMS can honestly point to the .net code in its .net release. RedDot seems unable to point to anything with honesty.

When RedDot says “The new version of RedDot CMS was developed on the .NET framework” what they mean is “We jammed in a tiny bit of .net code so that our sales people could pretend that we’re not an aging, over-the-hill chunk of software.”

What this RedDot Lie Means

This big lie by RedDot/OpenText has three implications:

1. You can’t find developers to help you with your deployment. Rather than tossing a rock out the window, hitting a .net developer and dragging them back to your office to implement, you need to find one of the almost non-existent service firms trained in the arcane art of RedDot. They charge crazy $$$$ (and why wouldn’t they? – they’ve had to survive the chaos of RedDot and find a way to deliver for their customers)
   
   
2. You can’t extend or integrate RedDot with your existing application. At least, not unless you’re ready to fork out for custom development in RedDot’s proprietary language. Which may or may not change with the next release.
   
   
3. You can’t trust the RedDot/Hummingbird/OpenText corporation. These folks might sleep at night by pretending their lies are just “marketing spin.” But if you buy their product based on this spin, than believe me, you’ll be calling them liars.

I’m not the only one that feels this way. See this from CMSWatch:

"With the 2006 much-ballyhooed Version 7 release, about 25 percent of the back end was migrated to .NET…. Some RedDot partners have been disappointed by the paucity of .NET support, as it makes it harder to insert or reuse other .NET components, and in general, working within older Microsoft technologies is not exactly a career enhancer..."

Bonus Lie

“RedDot works with either SQL or Oracle.” Oracle. Right. Maybe theoretically, with enough time, energy and money. But it’d be cheaper to develop your own CMS from scratch. Check out these comments in RedDot user groups if you think I’m just whining:

I work on a site that uses CMS with an Oracle back end. We have had no end of troubles and many seem to be related to the fact that we don't use SQL server. I was wondering whether there were any other sites out there that are using Oracle and Reddot CMS (http://www.reddotlounge.com/viewtopic.php?t=2)

Oracle is definately more complex I suppose it just annoys me that although the product is supposed to be compatible with Oracle there's almost no one able to support it either due to licencing issues or lack of training. (http://www.reddotlounge.com/viewtopic.php?t=2)