I really do think working with Digital Creations really could be the best of both worlds. Before further explanation, some disclosure: DC rents space in a building our company owns, so perhaps some of this is neighborly good feeling. But I'm also a journalist--jaded, distrustful of everyone and ill-spirited--and our newspaper Web site has had experience with more bad vendors and "partners" than I can shake a stick at. That being said, our company has worked with DC on and off over the years, and I don't think anyone in the building has ever had unkind words to say about the level of service and support they've received. My own very limited direct experience with the guys from DC is that they're professional, knowledgeable and willing to "think around a problem" to find its cause and fix it. I also think they might be well-suited for work in a university environment. Someone from DC might speak to this better, but I know they've had extensive experience with newspapers, which tend to be less e-commerce oriented and much more content management-oriented. So you'd get top-level support, plus the support of an great open-source community that has certainly saved my rear several times in the past few months. -Chris -- Chris Muldrow, editor, fredericksburg.com

From: addyd@unk.edu Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:48:06 -0500 To: <zope@zope.org> Subject: [Zope] FW: a Question about quality of Digicool support

Hi All, I subscribe to a University & College Webmasters List. I mentioned Zope in response to a question today which seemed to elicit the following message. I post it here, because I feel that he will find more people who can speak to the quality of Digicool support (including Digicool personel themselves).

I have to admit that I have not yet taken the Zope plunge myself, but have been following its maturation process for over a year. I am philosophically behind Open Source in general and Python/Zope in particular. I think that the attitude displayed in this letter is the sort of thing that Zope/Digicool will have to know how to answer/overcome in order to achieve widespread success. I feel that universities are a great place for Zope to focus their efforts as it is from there that students (and staff) move out into the "real world". Encouraging Zope adoption and implimentation THERE could be one of the wisest places in which to invest support (and prove to be a great test bed for Zope development).

Here is the message. I leave it to you to decide whether it would be best to Cc this list with your replies to him. I (personally) would like to see the responses too. (CMS refers to "Content Management Systems"): :::::::::::::::::::::::::::

After evaluating several CMS products, we started getting really excited about Zope (we actually started recreating the site in Zope just to prove how easy it is). So far so good, but now that more of the college is hearing about our work, we're being asked to take a look at commercial CMS products as well.

There's a faction on campus that feels that "you get what you pay for" and the open source nature of Zope makes those folks nervous. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time identifying commercial CMS products that aren't marketed as "e-business platforms". Has anyone had any experience with a company that makes a CMS product and also understands the university environment? I would be thrilled if I could find a sales rep that is willing to hold our hand and take their time with us, and can be patient with the less technical folks on our staff.

Basically my feeling is that the only thing that could make me want to use something other than Zope is 1) Excellent customer service, 2) A company that really understands the university environment and can make our non-technical staff see the benefit of their product, 3) A company that can make the "you get what you pay for" faction happy by presenting itself as being in it for the long haul.

Does anyone have any experience with Digicool's commercial Zope support? This may actually represent the best of both worlds.

Also, if any of you are actually using a CMS now (commercial or open source), please let us know as it will help us guide our decision making.

Thanks, Jason Wehmhoener Web Coordinator De Anza College http://www.deanza.fhda.edu ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Darren Addy Web Specialist Information Technology Services University of Nebraska at Kearney addyd@unk.edu

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