Who chooses your next CMS? Your facility manager or your dog?

Episode 1

We participated in a pitch last year for relaunching the portal of an educational institution. They were already using Plone but wanted a new fresh look & feel. We lost the pitch at the end and the contract went to a Typo 3 company and the relaunch was implemented with Typo 3. After looking at the site we came the conclusion that it could have been done in a similar way with Plone. In fact we presented a bunch Web-2.0-ish stuff they were obviously interested in. Asking back about the decision to choose Typo 3 over Plone give some pretty nice insights in decision making processes. Typo 3 was chosen because the their presentation was nice and fresh. Technology did not matter. Aspects like security did not matter. Users and editors using the system all day long did not matter. Public relations decided - Amen.

Episode 2

Once again an educational institution using Plone for internal and external portals successfully for years (especially because of FacultyStaffDirectory and CMFBibliographyAT) are now considering to move to Typo 3. One of main arguments for Typo 3 can obviously from the system adminstration: Typo 3 would be easier to update. This is perhaps ready  (and necessary when you know about the security records of PHP and PHP apps). But wait...anybody asking the users for their opinion about a new CMS? Anybody ever asked them about their idea and the functionality they need. No. So system administrator are obviously more important when choosing a CMS than the user - Amen.

...no idea how to reasonably end this blog entry - I am just out of ideas how to deal with such customers :->