Geoffrey Pereira, Head of Editorial Systems at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), will explain why the group has chosen ATEX Hermes and IBM's Nica platform to be its content management system at the upcoming World Editors Forum, to be held in Gothenburg, June 1-4.

SPH began its long process of adopting a CMS in 2002-2003. After a year of evaluation, SPH chose ATEX, which was implemented in the last newspaper last October. (Note that some of these delays weren't related to SPH or the CMS, but to external factors such as the general elections in Singapore or changes in IBM's system).

The choice of Hermes and Nica over competitors was motivated by several factors including:

- The main reason was that these firms could provide on-site help throughout the entire process, and customize the CMS as it was being developed. For almost two years, ATEX provided a project manager and two staffers to work hand-in-hand with SPH, up to the roll-out. "What I don't want is to specify a product and when it comes back, if I have made a mistake, to hear 'sorry, no change requests," said Pereira. "When you ask for a big system like this, you don't (initially) know what you want in very fine detail."
This contrasted with other firms that built the CMS on their own site, then returned it after completion - with little possibility for the customer to modify initial requirements.

- Flexibility: thanks to Hermes, any changes in font for example can be easily implemented. Its ouput, in XML and PDF, also gives the possibility to easily create e-editions.

- Compatibility with Adobe.

- The training period for staffers was shorter than for other CMS: one week. In fact, a group of five people from SPH were trained by IBM's staff during three long months. This paid off. When this core group of "super-users" - not technical people, two subeditors and three reporters - returned they were able to train another ten people. This group trained all other 500 staffers in-house in a year, ending last October. By the end of the process, it only took two days to teach reporters, and four days for designers, how to use the CMS.

Pereira will discuss these issues at the upcoming World Editors Forum, during the session on content management systems.

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(Disclaimer: ATEX is a strategic business partner in the World Association of Newspapers' Shaping the Future of Newspapers project.)

Source: Geoffrey Pereira, Head of Editorial Systems, Singapore Press Holdings