How'd this get started?: Daniel Guermeur: "While I was IT manager for a $4B product line in Schlumberger I was
frustrated that the web-based solutions we rolled out was too often 'a
little off' and users where not really happy with what we gave them.
Changing web-site structure and content and functionality was not
efficient using the requiremets-specs-development methodology that IT
people uses: it was too costly and slow to deploy. What we really
needed is to give the power to the end users to 'edit' the site
themselves without having to know anything technicalities and very fast
rollout time. So I wrote the first version of Metadot where not only
the content can be changed but also the components (e.g. calendars,
files sharing, polls, discussions). Metadot allows anyone to edit and
maintain a portal just with the clicks of a mouse. I release v1 in 2000
on Sourceforge and we became a very popular download within 30 days."
What do you consider its most impressive features?
"It is the ease of use and all-in-one collaboration and content
management features. Every other software will say 'I am easy to use'
but there is nothing like it today this is why MIT, Nasa, US Navy,
Schlumberger, Intellicad, Guaranty Trust Bank and so many others choose
Metadot over the other one."
What you consider its commercial equivalent or counterpart?
"Sharepoint is the equivalent. Interestingly we do not compete with
enterprise portals but we complement them. For example, US Navy uses
Plumtree and iPlanet but complements these big installs with lots of
little Metadots and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (80,000 members)
uses Vignette and complements their installation with Metadot. So we do
not compete with the enterprise portal but rather complement them."
What differentiates Metadot from other CMS/Portal type applications?
"Metadot is designed to build dynamic websites that need content
management and collaboration features tightly integrated into a
very-easy-to-use interface while having security and scalability in
mind.
Metadot is ready to go out of the box, no development of complex set up
to do. Other open source systems are either to limited in flexibility
(e.g phpNuke) or not ready to go out of the box (requires too much
programing/setup).
We have group based permissions at a very granular level and it
supports load balancing (we did the Barcelona 2003 World Swimming
Championship portal!)."
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