Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR), a leading provider of research and analysis on the Internet and emerging technologies, announced today that Open Market’s Content Server 3.1 is the current leader in Forrester’s Content Management eBusiness TechRankings. Among the 12 participating vendors, Documentum holds second place, followed by BroadVision and Vignette, which are tied for third.

“To steer clear of content chaos, companies need to bring order, flexibility and control to growing Web sites,” said Nicholas Wilkoff, associate analyst and principal researcher for this TechRankings category. “This means firms need to choose a content management product that excels both at repository and user management. We found that Open Market, Documentum, BroadVision, and Vignette currently offer the best combination of these features. These products make users immediately productive and exercise the right level of content quality.”

Open Market’s Content Server 3.1 (acquired from FutureTense in October 1999) nabs first place with a score of 3.0 out of 5.0 by combining solid content management features with a topnotch runtime. This product runs on two industry-leading J2EE application servers, iPlanet Application Server and BEA’s WebLogic Application Server. Open Market shines in key areas like content creation, library services, personalization, and delivery. Users’ risk of adopting a platform that is in transition to a new owner is mitigated by the use of underlying third-party app servers.

Second-place Documentum’s 4i 4.2 surprised Forrester by emerging strongly from its document management roots. Documentum’s experience helps it earn the highest marks in content management capabilities like repository management and workflow. Its partnerships with third-party app servers and Web tools allows it to excel in personalization and content creation as well. Documentum’s overall score of 2.9 makes 4i a sound investment for large-scale content management.

BroadVision is tied for third place with a score of 2.8. Its recent acquisition of Interleaf’s BladeRunner technology gives it solid XML storage and authoring, though this functionality is not fully integrated. The result is effective workflow and repository management for XML content but inconsistent and disconnected user administration and workflow interfaces. However, Forrester believes that BroadVision’s resources and market momentum will lead it to improve the integration over time.

Vignette’s V/5 Suite 5.5 is also tied for third with a score of 2.8. This product offers a rich set of content management APIs to help firms build customized content management solutions. But all of this customization means the product is missing features that other vendors provide out of the box. However, Vignette provides market-leading publishing and delivery capabilities and offers the professional services resources and partnerships large firms need.

“Web content veterans are in for some tough competition, especially from document management vendors and commerce crossovers,” said David Truog, research director at Forrester. “This market is just warming up, and our research shows that the winners will be products that are easy-to-use and offer both strong workflow and version control.”

Forrester assesses each content management product’s features and capabilities and each vendor’s strategy and market support. Forrester works with its partner, Doculabs (www.doculabs.com), to conduct laboratory-based product testing and assessment for each vendor on more than 100 attributes, then presents the analysis via an interactive research database. TechRankings’ research methodology combines rigorous laboratory-based product testing results and market analysis with vendor and user interviews. Forrester continuously updates its research and re-evaluates products to help firms understand rapidly changing technology markets, accelerate and improve product selection, and effectively gauge implementation costs and effort.

In the coming weeks, Forrester will announce results in additional TechRankings categories including Application Servers and Customer Service Applications.

Forrester’s eBusiness TechRankings methodology is open, rigorous, and unbiased. TechRankings combines the results of hands-on lab tests, strategic market analysis, and in-depth research into the needs of technology users. Forrester does not charge vendors in any way to participate in TechRankings, and it tests and analyzes all products with Doculabs in a given category using identical, publicly available criteria. Forrester extensively checks and verifies results and updates the research and rankings monthly. Any vendor wishing to be ranked may apply by contacting Forrester’s TechRankings research team at techrankings@forrester.com.