Crownpeak Technology Launches Content Management ASP

CrownPeak Technology launches content management ASP, delivering enterprise-level solutions to mid-size businesses with rapid deployment, new price point. Workforce Magazine is First to Embrace Advantage CMS™ Technology; Content Management Pioneers to Guide Aggressive Startup

Marina Del Rey, CA (June 6, 2001) — 

Reuniting a team of pioneers in online content and asset management systems, CrownPeak Technology launches today in a bid to bring enterprise-level content management solutions to mid-size businesses rapidly and affordably.

With headquarters in Los Angeles, CrownPeak Technology was formed by a top executive and technical team from the professional services sector and is headed by former marchFIRST executive Jim Howard. The company will leverage its more than five years of frontline experience building and integrating content management systems (CMS) for Global 3000 companies.

The company's core offering, Advantage CMS™, is among the first CMS built expressly on the application service provider (ASP) model, addressing the market demand for rapid deployment and low total cost of ownership, and eliminating the need for clients to install, integrate, and maintain a CMS on their own servers. Aimed at middle market companies, CrownPeak's Advantage CMS™ technology combines the benefits of the ASP model -- low cost, ease of setup, no internally managed infrastructure -- with the advantages of enterprise-class packaged CMS software, including an advanced feature-set, comprehensive technical support, and ongoing feature development.

At the same time, the company announced its first showcase customer, Workforce.com, the online property of Workforce Magazine, an award-winning human resources specialty title based in Costa Mesa, Calif. With more than six years of accumulated content, Workforce turned to CrownPeak for a world-class, scalable CMS, with emphasis on workflow, asset management, system audit and backup features. By separating the CMS from Workforce's live site, CrownPeak's ASP model increases the system's fault tolerance and overall performance.

"We chose CrownPeak Technology and its Advantage CMS solution because we know the people behind it and their track record of both innovation and success in this space," said Margaret Magnus, president and publisher, Workforce. "CrownPeak provides literally all of the features we need today, along with other capabilities we will grow to need, at a much lower cost than anything else we've seen in the marketplace."

Workforce.com also provides several interactive features to its users: polls, surveys, self-assessments, and a Community Center with topic and expert hosted forums. In addition, Workforce.com sends a weekly email newsletter to its members as another way of driving return traffic to the site.

A CMS Breed Apart
CrownPeak's Advantage CMS™ delivers all of the features of a world-class content management system: source control, versioning, spell checking, link checking, comprehensive workflow, security monitoring features, multilingual interfaces, database management, and wireless compatibility, in a 100 percent browser-based interface. The company's core technology is based on VBScript, ASP, JScript, Dasp, and JAVA COM objects, hosted in a highly redundant environment. Advantage CMS is compatible with standard asp authoring applications such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver, and is fully XML/XSL compatible.

"This is Porsche performance on a Kia budget, delivered as a service," said Howard. "We've brought together pioneers in the CMS business, developing a top-tier, risk-free technology with no-effort deployment and economical pricing for high-speed ROI. For the first time, mid-size businesses can deploy an enterprise class CMS, and do so without breaking the bank. We can set up thousand-page Web sites in just a few days -- sites anyone can administer, which the established players like InterWoven and Vignette simply can't do. We're placing the emphasis on extremely rapid integration -- powerful tools and a high level of customization -- and we do all the work."

CrownPeak prepares all of the templates and interfaces for clients as part of the initial software set-up fee. The client then pays monthly to "lease" the software. Costs for set-up and annual lease are a fraction of the cost of established "best-of-breed" packaged systems, ranging from half to one-tenth the cost. Advantage CMS is typically implemented in one to three weeks -- four to ten times faster than typical packaged solution deployment.

Advantage CMS is designed for the non-technical "subject matter expert", thereby giving the business user greater access and control over the Web presence. In an era of tight budgets, CrownPeak enables marketing and communications professionals to control costs and lighten the IT burden that often accompanies traditional, excessively complex content management systems. CrownPeak is an ASP with a customer-centric twist - the client continues to own and host the site, thereby ensuring maximum control and cost-effectiveness.

With CrownPeak, total cost of ownership also means taking advantage of the opportunity cost through enhanced, more efficient workflow. End-users and IT departments alike are spared the hidden costs of labor-intensive site updates and approvals, asp coding, and so on. Because clients continue to own their own servers and website, no changes to existing hardware, software, or network environments are required. Additionally, CrownPeak keeps source code in escrow, ensuring continuity of access to Web services in the event of a business failure.

Present at the Creation
CrownPeak represents the professional services model come full circle - a new business spun out of a company that was dependent on a far more labor-intensive and costly model. Advantage CMS™ was expressly developed as a content management and publishing tool with integrated asset management -- based on years of experience with custom application development and integration of virtually every major CMS on the market.

CrownPeak's staff includes pioneers in content and asset management who have worked together continuously since 1996 - at W3-design, USWeb/CKS and marchFIRST -- to consistently innovate in this space, for clients like The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox, Amgen, NBC.com and The Academy Awards®. "CrownPeak is prepared to compete head-to-head and feature-for-feature with packaged application providers, and to fully leverage its total cost of ownership advantage," said Nick Rothenberg, founding board member, CrownPeak Technology.

About CrownPeak

CrownPeak, the market leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Web Content Management and Optimization solutions, offers online marketers the easiest way to manage, target, publish, and analyze web content on their web sites, micro-sites, mobile media, or landing pages. CrownPeak's enterprise-grade SaaS operates on any web server or platform, and seamlessly integrates with other ECM systems.

Hundreds of organizations, such as Skype, Nissan, Alico, Defenders of Wildlife, EMI Music and the State of Virginia, have realized the value in CrownPeak's renowned ease-of-use, its 24x7 customer support, and guaranteed response times. CrownPeak has been named to EContent’s 100 most influential companies list, has won eWeek’s prestigious Analysts Choice Award and InfoWorld’s Product of the Year Award, and has been named a finalist for Best Customer Service from the American Business "Stevie" Awards for the last three years.

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