CMS

Solution Exchange – Open Text RedDot CMS is back with a social community exchange platform

The Solution Exchange Platform (beta)
Not perfect – but you can help and make it better!

Open Text introduces a new community platform called “Solution Exchange”

Over the last few months I was part of a not so secret mission. I have been in regular contact over the last 10 months with Danny Baggs who up until recently worked as a Solutions Architect for Open Text and has close ties with the core team located in Oldenburg, Germany. We talked about plugins, the innovation within the community, and how users could participate and share their ideas with each other better. Over the course of these discussions, the “Solution Exchange” project was born! Initially named “SolutionsExchange”, the platform’s primary purpose was to be an extension repository come app store, providing a single point for those in the community to find out about the different plugins and solutions that exist across the web today.
At some point we had to remove the “s” in the middle of the project name due to x-rated obvious, subtle, ..well double meaning reasons..
Starting as a base for plugins and extensions to the just CMS it was soon clear that this platform could provide a whole lot more than an extension repository.

The Solution Exchange launched into an early beta in March 2010 and was on horribly slow temporary hardware. It has since been moved to Open Text’s dedicated and managed data center in Waterloo, Canada, which not only shows the support that Open Text are giving this platform but also provides a stable foundation from which the platform can evolve.

Beta and the mix of RedDot & Vignette

The site is still currently in beta, which makes perfect sense whilst it gains momentum and issues are worked through. I also now know that Open Text has re-structured its business somewhat recently with Danny moving into a dedicated Community Manager role for the platform. This is again great news and shows Open Text’s intentions to help support us, the community, better. The site itself is made up of the core Web Site Management products (the RedDot Management and Delivery Server) but is also complimented with technology made available through Open Text’s acquisition of Vignette. The product to be called “Open Text Social Communities” fits well in this setup and provides those handy little tagging, rating, commenting features as well as full blown social applications like the classic blogs, forums, and wikis. The point here being, that these once competing technologies are working collaboratively in this environment instead of continuing to compete under the Open Text umbrella.
And why, yes! I know I sound like Mr. RedDot Marketing Masterchef myself, but it actually looks like not only has Open Text has decided to eat it’s own dog food, no no no, they also seem to have reasoned and actually listened to their customer base.
The RedDot CMS is alive and gaining traction again!

So it’s beta? But what does it do at the moment?
Read more »

Related posts:

1. OpenText WSM 11 – Is the “Swan” release going to fly?
2. OpenText Content World 2011 – Have you registered yet?
3. RedDot CMS API – or – RQL in a nutshell – Part 2
4. RQL in a nutshell
5. RedDot & 301 Redirects: How to manage 301’s within your RedDot CMS projects

About the author:

Markus Giesen is a Solutions Architect and RedDot CMS Consultant, formerly based in Germany. Travelling around the world to find and offer solutions for a better world (in a very web based meaning). He just found a way to do this as part of a Melbourne based online consultant house. On this blog Markus shares his personal (not his employers) thoughts and opinions on CMS and web development. In his spare time you will find him reading, snowboarding or travelling. Also, you should follow him on Twitter!

Tags: Buyout fatigue, CMS, Community, Delivery Server, Open Text, Open Text CMS, plugins, Solution Exchange