Key benefits of Ektron Azure Edition:

• Marketing agility – Empower marketing teams to deploy new Ektron sites and marketing campaigns on-the-fly without IT involvement.
• Hybrid deployment – Customers can mix and match Windows Azure instances with traditional on-premise Ektron instances, ensuring sensitive content remains local while still benefitting from Windows Azure cloud delivery.
• Dynamic elasticity – Scale on-the-fly based on usage patterns. Usage of Windows Azure instances can be scheduled, ensuring your Ektron site is ready to scale when it most needs to.
• High availability – Windows Azure provides a highly available platform for large organizations, ensuring maximum uptime for your Ektron site.

“In the competitive landscape of website development, speed matters,” said Nicole Denil, Director Americas ISV, Windows Azure Incubation at Microsoft. “Microsoft is excited to see Ektron build on the Windows Azure cloud. The global scalability and reliability of Windows Azure can give Ektron customers great benefit.”

During the third quarter, Ektron announced the release of Ektron 8.5, a major upgrade to the company’s flagship web content management platform.  Ektron 8.5 empowers a new level of developer productivity and enterprise scalability, wrapped in a new, sleek user interface.

Key features of Ektron 8.5 include:

• A redesigned Workarea providing a modern, intuitive user experience.
• An expanded developer API improving developer productivity through a highly consistent and discoverable set of functions and methods.
• A three-tier architecture offering unmatched scalability and availability for enterprise WCM deployments.
• .NET 4.0 support
• Enhanced search, based on the Microsoft Search Server, offering new features including faceted navigation, dynamic search relevancy tuning, federated search and automated query suggestions.
• eSync enhancements, including a diagnostic utility to generate a real-time map of an eSync network.
• Growth in Strategic Alliances and Partnerships

Ektron established and grew strategic alliances with both digital agencies and technology partners during the third quarter, including PR Newswire, the global leader of innovative marketing and communications solutions; Australia-based Boomworks, specialists in online strategy, design and development; Engage Group, the United Kingdom’s leading engagement specialist; Wunderman, delivering digital, data and creative solutions in over 60 countries; and Razorfish, creating engaging experiences in the digital world.

Ektron’s strategic partnership with PR Newswire integrates press release publishing and social media monitoring into the Ektron platform. PR Newswire Sync, an add-on app to the Ektron solution, allows communications professionals to simultaneously publish their PR Newswire-distributed press releases on their Ektron-powered website. The PR Newswire Listening Dashboard, a social media monitoring application, integrates seamlessly with the Ektron platform and enables users to monitor conversations about their brand or company on online and social channels.

“Our partnership with Ektron will help PR Newswire become a more strategic player in the workflow and content management spaces,” said Karen Meyer, VP of global strategic channels at PR Newswire. “With content at the core of customer engagement, we want our technology to help customers engage with content and monitor and analyze it effectively.”

To help customers, partners and developers share web innovation, success stories and best practices, Ektron announced its Global Community Practice (GCP) in September 2011. Led by social community veteran Erick Mott, Ektron’s community focus will help Ektron reach, engage and empower web content management and digital marketing practitioners. More information on the GCP can be found at http://www.ektron.com/erickmottblog/

“We’ve taken extensive feedback from our customers and partners and have delivered a release that radically transforms the developer experience with Ektron,” said Bill Rogers, Ektron CEO and founder. “Ektron is privileged to service some of the largest companies in the world, and 8.5 sets the standard for enterprise scalability with key new components including a 3-tier architecture and new search platform.”

“As a long standing Ektron partner, n-tara is pleased with Ektron’s developer focus with the release of Ektron 8.5,” said Jeff Morris, co-founder and CTO of n-tara interactive. “The development team at n-tara is excited about using the new developer-oriented features in 8.5, including the new Framework API and .NET 4.0 support.  Ektron 8.5 is a transformative release for Ektron and we can’t wait to start deploying it for our clients. ”

“Anyone who is developing web content really needs to look into Ektron 8.5,” said Clinton Porter, Commercial Director, Nvisage, one of the leading Ektron developer partners in Europe. “The new Microsoft Search service really puts Ektron into a whole new realm for developers to craft tools such as ‘find as you type’ search.  Altogether, 8.5 is a major advancement for Ektron developers and their clients.”

Jonathan Tonberg, Chief Technology Officer at Ektron Elite partner, Realise Digital, noted, “The new, 3-tier architecture in Ektron 8.5 really helps Ektron fit into our clients’ infrastructure and corporate strategies.”

In addition to the developer-focused features, Ektron 8.5 includes a new user interface, designed to provide Ektron users with a modern, intuitive and fun user experience.

“One of the challenges Valassis consumer brands such as RedPlum™ face is how to engage on-line consumers with entertaining content such as our SweetFinds™ Deal of the Day,” said Brian Costello, General Manager and Vice President for Digital Strategy and The RedPlum Network for Valassis.  “The new, intuitive interface in Ektron 8.5 helps our editors focus their creative energies on content creation.”

Highlights of Ektron 8.5 include:

• New Workarea: A redesign of the Workarea interface for a modern, intuitive user experience.
• Expanded developer API:  The Ektron Framework API radically improves developer productivity through a highly consistent and discoverable set of functions and methods.  When combined with new support for Microsoft LINQ, developers can now design websites with a fraction of the code it took to accomplish the same work in the past.
•  3-tier architecture: Ektron is the first enterprise .NET web content management vendor to deliver a 3-tier architecture.  In a 3-tier configuration, no Ektron software exists in the web tier, meaning CIOs and IT architects looking for maximum scalability, reliability, and security can now deploy Ektron in a manner consistent with enterprise software deployments.
• .NET 4.0 support:  8.5 supports .NET 4.0, including support for Microsoft® Visual Studio® Web Application projects.
• Enhanced search capabilities:  Now based on the Microsoft Search Server, Ektron Site Search  brings new features including faceted navigation, dynamic search relevancy tuning, federated search, automated query suggestions, search analytics reports, and more. Ektron Site Search  offers massive scalability, scaling to tens of millions of items and beyond, including all types of web content, Microsoft Office documents and rich media content.
• eSync enhancements:  Ektron’s unique synchronization technology now includes a diagnostic utility to generate a real-time map of an eSync network, providing real time visibility into a server topology.

The feature-complete Release Candidate build of 8.5 is available for download now at ektron.com, with final release targeted for September 2011.

About Ektron

Ektron’s web content management (WCM) platform simplifies the creation, management and delivery of multi-channel customer experiences for global organizations that are looking to engage with customers online.  Ektron speeds time-to-web, drives business outcomes, and builds customer loyalty through software that powers corporate websites, intranet portals, and social communities.  Ektron goes beyond traditional WCM, putting the power of the entire customer lifecycle, from acquisition through conversion and retention, into the hands of your marketing and web teams so that customers continuously receive relevant, fresh content. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including: The Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ and National Health Services UK. For more information, please visit www.ektron.com.

“Status updates, microblogs, and activity streams have become the de facto standard for sharing information quickly. Today’s intranets must keep pace with the digital world and become a mashup of internal and external content and applications that employees easily can manage and adopt. The combination of Ektron’s social business and collaboration application, eIntranet, with Seesmic underscores the business-critical need for forward-looking enterprise strategies that manage everything influencing both external and internal Web use,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “Ektron will continue to align with innovative companies like Seesmic to provide comprehensive, integrated solutions that protect and measurably enhance customers’ enterprise technology investments.”

Research shows that 36% of a company’s overall performance is driven by its ability to collaborate (Source: Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance by Frost & Sullivan). The combination of Ektron’s eIntranet with SD2 is intended to break down the silos between departments and geographic locations and promote more effective knowledge sharing and collaboration in the enterprise. Instead of having to search for information, the information finds users via real-time, filterable activity stream of information.

“We’re extremely excited about the Ektron integration into Seesmic Desktop 2. We’ve been hard at work bridging the gap between business and social, within all of our applications,” said Loic LeMeur, CEO of Seesmic. “The Ektron integration is another big step toward reaching that goal.”

eIntranet is built on both social and .NET best practices and scales to the size and needs of every company. It is easy to deploy, use and extend – on premise, hosted or in the cloud.

Click here for more information and a link to the new Ektron eIntranet SD2 plug-in and here for a YouTube demo.

About Seesmic
Seesmic is a social management application that offers high-quality, easy-to-use tools for building your brand online. Founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco, our mission is to help people manage their online life, no matter what platform they’re on at any moment. We offer an array of products to help achieve this goal, including Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Web and Desktop applications. Over 5 million people all over the world have downloaded our various applications to date. To try Seesmic for yourself, visit seesmic.com.

About Ektron
Ektron Inc. has innovated web technology since 1998. By integrating web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron’s software and solutions improve operational efficiency, drive revenue growth and build customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron’s extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Diageo, Home Depot, International Chamber of Commerce, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, National Health Services UK, Saint-Gobain, The Law Society, and the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please visit www.ektron.com, www.ektron.co.uk or www.ektron.com.au.

“CIOs and CMOs have made significant investments in technologies like analytics, customer relationship management, eCommerce, globalization, marketing automation, search, social networks and video. Companies are not looking to replace these existing investments; instead, they want to derive more value from them,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “The fact that Ektron is not focused on hyped point solutions, but true technical integrations that extend the value of our technology with the market-leading technologies of our partners is a key differentiator for us.”

Among Ektron’s new Technology Partners are:

• Brightcove, a cloud-based online video platform, is used by media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide to publish and distribute video on the Web. “Media publishers today are surrounded by an increasingly fragmented landscape of devices and destinations, which present both new opportunities and challenges,” said Jeff Whatcott, senior vice president of marketing at Brightcove. “Partnering with organizations like Ektron enables our mutual customers to better navigate this new landscape and enhance their site experiences while also increasing customer engagement and adoption.”
• Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIOX) is a provider of translation, development and testing solutions. Global organizations rely on Lionbridge to increase international market share, speed adoption of global products and content, and enhance their return on enterprise IT investments. “The Connector that we have built with Ektron ensures that Lionbridge clients have seamless global content functionality through Freeway, our client facing-portal,” said Henri Broekmate, SVP of Worldwide Operations, Lionbridge. “This integration is another part of our strategy to offer technology-led solutions that accelerate time to market and increase our clients’ global competitive advantage.”
• Webtrends is the global leader in mobile and social analytics. Webtrends enables digital marketers to create measure, and improve their efforts across digital channels to maximize return on digital investments. Webtrends products and services are trusted by thousands of leading brands and global organizations, including Microsoft, Toyota, Visa, Barclays and The New York Times. “Ektron recognizes the significant value in analytics solutions and the power of integrated analytics options,” said James McDermott, vice president of business development at Webtrends. “Deep integration like Ektron’s ensure that our mutual clients maximize their marketing investments and build strategic customer experiences.”

Other notable Ektron integration solutions include Facebook, Microsoft Search Server, SharePoint and Salesforce.com.

“Developing meaningful technology partnerships is an area of importance for Ektron because we honor the existing relationships and investments that enterprise customers already have,” added Rogers. “We are aligning with the best and the brightest technology leaders to ensure ‘whole enterprise’ success for our customers and partners alike.”

More info: http://www.ektron.com

“Choosing qualified Partners to deploy effective web strategies that ensure our customers’ brands are promoted in a protected, positive and integrated way is a core Ektron value.  The new portal gives our Partners direct access to the information, tools, methodologies and technologies to help customers achieve business-critical success with Ektron,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron.  “We are dedicated to our Partners and have built an infrastructure to ensure that every deployment is a success.  We aim to increase our global account references a minimum of 20 percent by the end of 2010.”

With solutions for a wide range of industries including healthcare, media and entertainment, financial services, manufacturing and non-profits, the portal will:

• Leverage the Ektron Marketing Optimization and Social Software suites to facilitate Partner Forums and analyze Partner priorities for continued program improvement.
• Enable Accredited Partners to access the latest solutions data sheets, collateral, and whitepapers for effective and efficient customer response.
• Give access to the most current social tools and technology features within the Ektron platform.
• Provide a path for new global consultants and Partners to support client projects in conjunction with the Ektron team.
• Make available monthly Partner webinar series on the first Thursday of every month at 11 am Eastern to accommodate EMEA regions.  Webinars will be recorded and posted on the portal for ongoing global access.

“Partner feedback has played a significant role in the revamp of the Ektron Partner portal,” said Savas Gunduz, Managing Partner, Solsbury Partner Group.  “Ektron is listening and re-aligning with Partners to create an infrastructure that makes it easier to team with Ektron on customer engagements.  The redesign of the site itself is based on continual Partner feedback that Ektron has acquired via the use of its own social technology to create bi-directional communication streams.  Making it easier for Partners to work with Ektron ultimately will lead to tighter communication and collaboration in front of our mutual customers — a better experience  for and ultimately higher referenceability from the customer.”

More information about the Ektron Partner Program may be found at http://www.ektron.com/partners/.

“We believe that context is king when it comes to personalizing web experiences – our new software brings social targeting to everyone,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron.  “We are simplifying the way companies and brands work with Facebook to connect personalized brand experiences on websites to site visitors using their Facebook profile and social graph.”

Companies like Amazon recently have integrated with Facebook in a similar way.  Ektron is bringing Amazon-like personalization to everyone.  Ektron’s software allows marketers to match social behavior in the social graph to relevant experiences on a corporate website, in a few mouse clicks so they can personalize product recommendations, offers, promotions, and other types of content to site visitors.

“Our clients always are asking for new ideas to personalize the online experience.  Ektron’s Social Targeting Software give us an extremely promising way to target content on consumer websites based on their Facebook profile and social graph,” said Jeff Geheb, Partner and Managing Director of Technology at VML.  “The concept of aggregating a user’s likes and dislikes to drive personalization was born with Facebook Connect, but Ektron’s Facebook Social Targeting Software makes it a two-way street where businesses now can directly match their relevant content to specific interested users in a powerful and easy way. This idea combines the best concepts of content management, social networking, and targeted content delivery.”

How Ektron’s Social Targeting Software Works:

• Ektron provides native support for the latest release of the Facebook Platform, so companies and brands can quickly connect their websites to Facebook.
• Facebook “Likes” allow users to express their affinity for limitless combinations of companies, brands, products, etc. Ektron social targeting matches Facebook content such as “Likes” to a personalized web experience designed by a company or brand.
• Marketers can configure personalized experiences with drag-and-drop capabilities similar to building a playlist in iTunes that connect Facebook users’ data and/or the social graph of their Facebook Friends to business rules that the marketer defines.

Recent related webinars may be found at http://www.ektron.com/news/webinars/.

About Ektron

Ektron Inc. has innovated web technology since 1998. By integrating web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron’s software and solutions improve operational efficiency, drive revenue growth and build customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron’s extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please visit www.ektron.com.

“Demand for Ektron’s latest solutions, from new and existing customers, combined with our ability to deliver upon mission-critical business initiatives continues to drive a healthy gross margin,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “With competitive technical analysis and boardroom influence favoring Ektron in customers’ due diligence, our momentum and accelerated growth is expected to continue.”

Recent Customer Acquisition and Product Update
June 2010 marked the launch of eIntranet 2.0, a ‘total solution’ for intranets that integrates elements of Ektron’s core technology and gives businesses a powerful and trusted intranet solution. Fortune 500 companies and top-name brands including Brookstone, Realogy and Time Warner Cable are turning to eIntranet to raise the daily value of their intranets. eIntranet combines social software and web content management in one enterprise application. Activity streams, a gallery of widgets, mobile engagement and in-context analytic tools ensure that eIntranet is easy to deploy, use and extend – on-premise, hosted or in the cloud.

July 2010 global customer acquisition highlights and further investments by Ektron’s installed base include Teradyne, The United Nations and Valassis. Additionally, the national governing body of golf, The United States Golf Association (USGA), is extending the use of Ektron across their entire enterprise.

“The USGA is expanding our business processes rapidly on the web. We are doing so with the further investment and enhancement of the Ektron solution,” stated Alex Withers, Managing Director of Digital Media at The United States Golf Association. “Ektron’s ability to meet our demands and provide us with state-of-the-art enterprise technology, both publicly and internally, allows us more quickly and efficiently to achieve our business goals.”

The USGA uses Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite to stay on top of the ever-changing digital trends. By leveraging analytics and site visitor activity-specific data, The USGA is able to drive conversions and increase brand loyalty.

Key features and functionality of Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite include:

• In-context analytics – Pre-built integration with Google Analytics, Ominiture SiteCatalyst and WebTrends.
• Content targeting – Allows marketers to personalize content by matching site visitor attributes to content. Ektron supports targeting using attributes such as demographic, day-part, behavioral, location/GeoIP, traffic source and Facebook Connect.
• Multivariate testing – Uncovers the best combination of content, layout and messaging to convert website visitors.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Optimizes content for organic search.
• PageBuilder – Technical and non-technical teams are able to build out entire pages on the templates created by developers, dragging and dropping Widgets into the drop zones to create the visitor experience on the web page while maintaining the look and feel.
• eCommerce – Streamlines campaigns, coupons and price adjustments in virtually every currency.
• Heat maps – Show how much of the web page is being seen and where visitors are abandoning the site.

About Ektron
Ektron Inc. has innovated web technology since 1998. By integrating web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron’s software and solutions improve operational efficiency, drive revenue growth and build customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron’s extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please visit www.ektron.com.

CC: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, could you give us a bit of an outline as to your history with Ektron and your background?

BR: Ektron was founded in 1998 in the basement of my house in Hollis,NH. In the late nineties it was becoming apparent to me that the Web was going to impact dramatically how everyone did business. With that realization in mind, I started Ektron with the idea of eventually building an operating system for the Web, to empower business people to be able to effectively manage their Web presence.

As part of the initial effort we created a WYSIWYG editor, eWebEditPro which was OEMed by several of the leading players in the CMS space. Through eWebEditpro’s success and the selling of our own CMS offering we gained additional exposure to the world of content management and we have consistently applied the knowledge we gained throughout these experiences to our efforts which culminated in the release of Ektron CMS400.NET.

Now, a decade later, Ektron has grown to over 200 people with office locations across the globe and more than 7,500 CMS customers.

CC: Having recently been identified in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for 2009 in the Visionary’s quadrant is quite the compliment. Why do you think they chose that section?

BR: This placement reflects the fact that Gartner sees an alignment between Ektron’s technology, our product roadmap and where Gartner’s clients are going to be looking to take their Web sites both in the near-term and over the long haul.

In the near future we believe that Web sites will transform into mash-ups that pull data and functionality from other Web sites into one location where clients can access and interact with that content and functionality as well as add their own content and functionality.

We have been building the technology to power this new type of Web site for several years. For instance, our social media platform allows developers to build mash-ups using widgets that pull information from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube or business applications like SalesForce or TestTrackPro. These widgets can then be deployed by business users using our PageBuilder functionality on-the-fly.

CC: What do you say to their comments that Ektron “…may be perceived as only marginally better than SharePoint?”

BR: That perception compared to the reality of the problems we solve is different. If you are talking about document and group collaboration, SharePoint and Ektron are both strong products. If you are talking about building a branded Web site that’s public facing you have to take into consideration dealing with things like site deployments and the management of user generated content (synchronization), localization and the ability for marketers and business users to easily manage their organization’s online marketing and branding efforts. Ektron provides the technology to fully develop and manage a company’s online presence whether it is an intranet, extranet or public-facing Web site.

CC: To what do you attribute Ektron’s success in the market?

BR: The number one thing that Ektron is focused on is the success of the Web project as opposed to just a software sale. We  understand that a Web project is about solving a critical business issue and we work closely with both our end clients and our Partners to ensure the project is successful and the end goals are met.

In addition to being committed to the success of their Web projects Ektron always asks our customers the question, “What do you want your Web site to do?” and we take action on the answers. Our ability to quickly bring to market the type of digital marketing functionality that our customers ask for combined with our own experience and understanding of where the Web is taking today’s businesses is another key factor in our success.

CC: Do you have any plans to widen your reach and branch into other market segments? If so, which and why?

BR: As I mentioned, we have had success at Ektron because we constantly ask our customers the question “What do you want your Web site to do?” and we take action on the answers. Because we continue to ask this question we continue to develop new tools and applications that our customers need to take their Web strategies to the next level.

For Ektron, it’s about more than just content management, it’s about listening to our customers’ and Partners’ needs and building the tools they need to align their Web sites with their business goals and their vision. Beginning with version 8.0, you are going to see Ektron continue to move into areas like social networking, online marketing and business intelligence.

CC: What have been your biggest successes for 2009 to date?

BR: When others have said to cut back we have significantly pushed forward with growth and it is paying off. We released game-changing technologies like PageBuilder and eSync. We have also added key personnel and built out our services organization to support the type of enterprise deals we are consistently winning. This commitment to developing our technology and growing our company has led to growth in revenue of 35 percent so far this year and I expect this growth to continue as we come to the end of 2009.

CC: What separates Ektron from its competitors?

BR: The most important thing to Ektron is customer satisfaction and therefore we differentiate ourselves by focusing on more than building great out-of-the-box functionality on a scalable Web development platform that allows for customization. We have built a complete services infrastructure to ensure the success of our customers. No other vendor can deliver the type of Web project support Ektron does to both our end clients and Partners.

We are also committed to innovation around what customers need to deliver engaging user experiences rather than strictly Web content management functionality. This innovation has led to the development of some truly differentiating technologies like our bi-directional synchronization engine and PageBuilder functionality.

CC: Do you have plans to expand into any other geographical locations?

BR: We recently relocated our Australian office to Sydney and opened an office in Singapore. We are always keeping our eye on other geographical locations as we continue to expand. In addition to physical office locations we have a large partner program and distribution channel that is also growing.

CC: What do you think is the biggest misconception about content management systems?

BR: People say the word CMS and the definition that they will receive from each of the vendors is completely different. We more broadly define the term than any other vendor in the marketplace. We believe that anything that interacts with your Web site should be able to be managed through your CMS.

CC: How do you personally define a CMS?

BR: A CMS is no longer about just managing a piece of content on your Web site. A CMS should be able to allow a non-technical user to manage any asset on a Web site that they wish to interact with, whether that is a piece of content, a picture, a video or information that is pulled from other sources. The CMS should allow marketing teams to launch online campaigns and manage rich internet applications. As I say, in the future Web sites will be mash-ups of information and functionality pulled from multiple locations. A scalable Web CMS solution should be able to display and manage that information regardless of where it is coming from.

CC: What situations do you feel best suit the use of Ektron over other CMS platforms?

BR: There are many different situations where a client would look to implement Ektron CMS400.NET. Some of the big game changers for Ektron that truly differentiate our solution from others include our PageBuilder and eSync technology. When organizations have the need to not only allow non-technical employees to be able to manage the content and assets on their Web site but also build new Web pages and add functionality on the fly, they look to Ektron. Similarly, if an organization is looking for a scalable platform with geo-synchronization capabilities they look to Ektron.

In other instances, organizations look to Ektron for social software and community expertise on both collaborative intranets and public-facing online communities. We also offer more out-of-the-box functionality than other vendors but still allow our clients the ability to easily customize the solution to fit their needs.

CC: Do you have any insight you can provide as to what can be expected from the next release?

BR: In the next release you will see a lot of new Social features, completely rebuilt calendaring and event management functionality, PageBuilder enhancements, eCommerce engine improvements, analytics and multivariate testing and a new user interface. In addition, we will also be including more tools on which marketers can build their online Web strategies.

CC: Thank you for your time, Bill.

To learn more about Ektron, visit their website at http://www.ektron.com

Ektron

Ektron’s All-Star Awards seek to identify the most innovative and effective use of Ektron’s Web content management (WCM) platform, Ektron CMS400.NET by both customers and partners when building their Web sites. Nominees were judged on the development and design of their site, their ability to use CMS400.NET functionally to solve critical business issues and the tangible results that they have achieved from their implementation.

“The Ektron All Stars are a great representation of all the different types of Web sites that can be built using Ektron’s Web content management platform,” stated Bill Rogers, chief executive officer at Ektron. “Each of the 2009 winners has created a Web site that delivers exceptional business value to their target audiences, whether that is their customer base, their employees or members of their external communities.”

Jon Kee, director of sales and marketing at Ektron ELITE partner, WebSolutions Technology, Inc, commented, “Ektron All Star Awards represent the best of the CMS400.NET community and it’s an honor to be selected. As an ELITE Ektron partner, this award is further validation that we are among the best at implementing and hosting CMS400.NET Web sites.”

Award recipients will also be recognized at Synergy, Ektron’s worldwide customer conference held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida in November. All 16 recipients will be in contention to win Ektron’s 2009 Site of the Year Award which will be revealed and featured at Synergy. The recipient of the Site of the Year Award will receive an unlimited Ektron user license for their corporate intranet.

The winners of the 2009 Ektron All Star Awards in the 16 categories are:

Best Asia-Pacific Site: Gateway Credit Union, http://www.gatewaycu.com.au/

Best Association Site: Association of Zoos and Aquariums, http://www.aza.org/
Site by: The Berndt Group

Best Canadian Site: United Way of Canada – Centraide Canada (UWC-CC), http://www.unitedway.ca/
Site by: Industrial Media

Best Consumer Site: IGA, http://www.iga.com/
Site by: WebSolutions Technology, Inc.

Best Education Site: Johnson and Wales, http://www.jwu.edu/

Best EMEA Site: Boots, http://www.us.boots.com/

Best Extranet Site: John Hancock Long Term Care, http://www.jhltc.com

Best Financial Services site: Jackson Hewitt Tax Services, https://www.jacksonhewitt.com

Best Government Site: City of Columbus, OH, http://www.ci.columbus.oh.us/
Site by: COMSYS

Best Healthcare Site: University Health Systems of East Carolina, http://www.uhseast.com/

Best Intranet Site: Sephora
Site by: Citrus Studios

Best Manufacturing Site: Dolby Laboratories, http://dolby.com

Best Non-Profit Site: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, http://komen.org
Site by: BGT Partners

Best Other At-Large Site: NYC & Company, http://www.nycgo.com/

Best Publishing Site: Abrams Books, http://www.abramsbooks.com/
Site by: Interactive Media Associates

Best Social Media Site: EAA OSHKOSH 365, http://www.oshkosh365.org/
Site by: The C2 Group

Ektron

Nonprofit organizations have a unique set of needs when it comes to their online strategies. They have to take into consideration more than adding and managing content on their site. Requirements often include social computing tools to build membership communities, online donation platforms and easy integration with third party applications.

“Nonprofits are continuing to rethink their online strategies and the tools they need to execute and achieve their goals,” stated David Maffei, director of sales at Ektron. “We are seeing more and more organizations turning to Ektron because they require a solution that can offer the tools that they need out-of-the-box but also have the flexibility to integrate with their existing third party systems that are core to their business.”

Maffei pointed to the United Service Organization (USO) and C-SPAN as nonprofits which recently selected Ektron CMS400.NET to build their new sites for the reason noted above. Maffei continued, “The USO and C-SPAN are both examples of nonprofits looking for a single solution to build and manage their Web strategies.”

The USO provides morale, welfare and recreation-type services to service members and their families and wanted to incorporate social networking and Web content management as well as an online donation platform without having to implement multiple applications. C-SPAN needed the ability to immediately change content on their site as news stories break and ensure that separation is maintained between content being updated and the Web site’s style and display.

In addition to providing the tools nonprofits need to build their online strategies, Ektron has also considered the importance for nonprofits to be able to integrate with the existing systems they may already have in place. For Ektron customer, The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), it was critical that they could seamlessly integrate with TMA Resources’ Personify, their existing AMS (Association Management Software) package with their content management application. JDRF selected CMS400.NET-based on its open API that allowed them to easily access
& integrate with Personify.

“Ektron has witnessed a growing trend in the number of requests by nonprofit organizations for CMS400.NET,” said Maffei. “Not only do we expect this trend to continue but we also expect to see a rise in requests for Ektron’s Best Practices Services and Professional Services as nonprofit’s Web presence becomes more important to their success.”

Other nonprofit organizations and associations that have built their online strategies using Ektron CMS400.NET include: Special Olympics , The United Way of Canada – Centraide Canada (UWC-CC) and Art’s Every Day which was recently honored with a Webby Award by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences .