The following question was posed by a industry publication. My response follows.

What do you see as the most significant emerging issues within CMS’s over the next 12 months?

At the Design and Build seminar in April I mention that the ‘open v closed source’ question is being hotly debated again with a growing awareness amongst non technical clients of the existence of something called ‘open source’.

What is apparent from discussions I have is that there is a misunderstanding about what the term really means and the risks and implications it has for businesses that use it.

With an increasing desire for businesses to own IP, heighten security and fully understand costs, and open source rarely able to deliver all of these requirements, my prediction is that over the next 12 months the atmosphere towards it is likely to radically alter.

Businesses are likely to instead spend more time selecting the web platform / CMS proposition for their business looking at broader set of criteria such as usability, functionality, flexibility, speed, complexity, ownership, extensibility, portability, and future support and development costs.