Is Adobe AEM a valid Content Services Platform?

Adobe AEM is the perfect platform to create and manage a personalized user experience in a web site or web application. Is Aem a valid content service platform as well? Gartner defines content services platforms (CSPs) as "the foundational component in an organization for the management and use of content. CSPs provide a way for employees to retrieve and work with content in a modern, seamless way across devices and organizational boundaries. As such, they are a core component of any organization’s digital workplace strategy". The keywords in this definition are "Organization" and "Employees": CSPs are generally used for internal enterprise applications used by employees. CSPs is the land of Opentext Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, Alfresco and Box, among others. Adobe AEM is not considered a CSP. This is weird because AEM is one of the leaders in the Technical Documentation management (have you have heard about Adobe Experience Manager Guides?).

A valid definition of Adobe AEM is "Component Content Management System" (CCMS), as it manages content as individual components like text, images, instead of entire pages or Html documents. A Html code sent to a browser by Adobe AEM Sites, for example, does not actually exist in the repository but it is created on the fly, merging the Html code generated to render all the components inside an Adobe AEM page. 

The primary difference between a typical CSP and a CCMS is the level of content management. A typical CSP manages content at a document level while a CCMS manages content at a component level, something more complex. A CSP gives some control over entire documents (PDF files, a PowerPoint presentation for example) but it is not granular enough to provide control because content is not created in the form of components.

This is not an article that describes how better Adobe AEM is compared to Opentext Documentum: there are projects where Apache Sling and Adobe AEM provide better results in terms of TCO, ease of implementation or performance. There are projects where Documentum excels in terms of scalability, robustness, or support of distributed architectures. As always, there is no one-size-fits-all technology for all seasons!

The article is divided into two parts and was published on the official Adobe Experience League Blog site: as one of the Adobe AEM Champions I have the privilege of publishing my articles directly on this website. The first part of the article

1. Is Adobe AEM a valid Content Services Platform? [Part one]
2. Is Adobe AEM a valid Content Services Platform? [Part two]

The article generated interest and was the most read in the past two months. What do you think about this argument?

#adobeexperiencemanager #aem #apachesling #apachejackrabbit.

David Nuescheler Adobe Gartner Forrester WebSight CMS #documentum #opentext