Types of CMS

A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish various kinds of digital media and electronic text

CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures.

There are three main categories of CMS, with their respective domain of use:

1. Enterprise CMS

Enterprise content management (ECM) is the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an

Organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.

2 Web CMS

A web content management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.

Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.

Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Content is frequently, but not universally, stored as XML, to facilitate reuse and enable flexible presentation options.

A presentation layer displays the content to regular Web-site visitors based on a set of templates. The templates are sometimes XSL files.

Administration is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a fat client.

Unlike Web-site builders like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver, a WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators.

2. Component CMS

Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) manage content at a granular level (component) rather than at the document level. Each component represents a single topic, concept or asset (e.g., image, table, product description). Components are assembled into multiple content assemblies (content types) and can be viewed as components or as traditional documents. Each component has its own lifecycle (owner, version, approval, use) and can be tracked individually or as part of an assembly. CCM is typically used for multi-channel customer-facing content (marketing, usage, learning, support). CCM can be a separate system or be a functionality of another content management system type (e.g., ECM or Web Content Management).

Benefits of managing contents at components level:

1. Greater consistency and accuracy.

2. Reduced maintenance costs.

3. Reduced delivery costs.

4. Reduced translation costs.

http://www.osait.com