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Will Ezell

Checklist for Vendors

Our software comes with an installer program.
Arrrg. No, not yet, though we have our update process automatically upgrading the db and system. Our db schema and starter site are loaded on startup automatically. And we support 4 databases out of the box.
Installing or uninstalling our software does not require a reboot of your machine.
Yes. Or no. Whatever - we do not require a reboot.
You can choose your locale and language at install time, and never have to see English again after that.
No, not yet. Long answer, for the administrative interface, we have to plead guilty to narrow-minded americanisim. so not yet. Short answer, summer of this year it will be configurable- see: http://jira.dotmarketing.net/browse/DOTCMS-2269. This brings to mind another "do you we get it?" category- is your bug/defect/release tracking system available to the public?. Ours = Yes. In terms of serving content, dotCMS can manage sites in 30+ languages without difficulty, eg. http://www.aquent.com.
Eval versions of the latest edition(s)of our software are always available for download from the company website.
Yes. And better yet, you can download the entire system, not just an "eval" or "personal" version. dotCMS Open Source can be clustered, hooked to ldap, and is not crippled in any way. No need to "contact us" or register to get started.
Our WCM software comes with a fully template "sample web site" and sample workflows, which work out-of-the-box.
Yes. Plus the sample site is feature rich - Yahoo Grids CSS driven, ajax calendaring, blogs, tags, newsroom, shopping cart.
We ship a tutorial.
Yes. We have 25+ tutorials on our web site (http://www.dotcms.org/community/screencasts.dot) plus monthly webinars.
You can raise a support issue via a button, link, or menu command in our administrative interface.
No, but this is not a difficult thing to rectify.
All help files and documentation for the product are laid down as part of the install.
Sort of. Our documentation is on a wiki on our website, where it can grow.
We run our entire company website using the latest version of our own WCM products.
Yes. The entire websites run on the latest version dotCMS, from ecommerce to blogs to registration to a wiki.

Take this blog for example. As of 5:00 pm today, 3/17/2009, we did not have a blog on the dotCMS website.
Our salespeople understand how our products work.
Yes. Well, our "sales" people are our engineers and program managers. So, I would say so.
Our software does what we say it does.
Yes.
We don't charge extra for our SDK.
Yes we don't. Well, eclipse is free, http://www.eclipse.org/ . See also, "Setting up an eclipse development environment in dotCMS".
Our licensing model is simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand.
Yes. There are two options: free or $4750/physical cpu for a warranty and service level agreements.
We have one price sheet for all customers.
Yes. Not only that, pricing is publically available on the web without a time wasting "contact us for pricing" inquiry.
Our top executives are on Skype, Twitter, or some similar channel, and: Feel free to contact them directly at any time.
Yeap. Skype: wezell1, twitter: wezell, IRC: freenode, #dotcms
Will Ezell
Chief Technology Officer
March 16, 2009

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