Would developing in different CMS systems be beneficial?

Question

At this point we are developing Sitecore websites and we are gaining experience every day. This means that we know how to adjust our approach to different types of customers and that we are able to build our applications quicker every project we do. Of course Sitecore is not the only W-CMS around and we have looked into other W-CMS's. What are the pro's and the con's for a company to offer solutions in different types of CMS's and what would this mean for the programmers that are working with this CMS? Would a choice to offer solutions in more CMS's automatically mean that the global experience per CMS will shrink relative? Hope there are some people around with experience in multiple big W-CMS's (Sitecore, KEntico, EPIServer, etc.. etc..).

Answer 1

Are you prepared to keep your programmers skills on top of each of the different CMS solutions you'd offer? That can be a high cost if you offer a number of different solutions based on different platforms,e.g. if you have programmers that have to know C#, Java and PHP because in this is what the various CMS support development be done. Thus, you may want to stick to .Net CMS rather than go venturing too far into a different stack as that can carry the challenge of maintaining skills.

Answer 2

If you truly enjoy working with Sitecore than maybe consider Umbraco. Umbraco is very similar to Sitecore and cheaper (I believe former Sitecore employees may even work there). It might be nice to offer a high-priced CMS (SC) and a less expensive alternative also built on .NET (Umbraco). I would say don't try to support tons of CMS's since there are so many. Keep a focus on a select few. Maybe consider selecting others based on the market for them and how their partner programs work (i.e. like Sitecore will recommend you as a solution partner and help you with sales).