Approach
You can purchase content management software from a software vendor and install it on your own hardware, or on hardware that you rent.
 
Tools or services used in this approach:
Microsoft Content Management Server, Documentum, Vignette


Costs

Programmers to install and maintain the software (estimated at $75,000 per year per person per year) Web server hardware or a service provider to host your site and the content management system (estimated at $400 - $12,000 per year, depending on what features you need and whether you will have a third party host your web site or you will purchase your own hardware) Programming tools (samples from the Microsoft web site: Content Management Server $42,999 plus Windows 2000 Server at $1,1999 plus SQL Server 2000 at $4,999). Plus backup hardware or services, firewall hardware or services, etc. Training on how to use the content management tools (estimated at $3,000 per person per year)

 Advantages

The content management software helps you make sure the information on your site is presented in a consistent and professional way. You can allow many people to post data to your web site, although they may still need training since purchased content management software can be difficult to use for the novice computer user. You can develop workflow that allows people in your organization to review or approve changes based on the rules you define.

 Disadvantages

Very high up front costs to purchase expensive software, and to purchase or rent expensive and high powered hardware. Content management software tends to be flexible but complicated, so some of the people who you want to post data to your site might not have the skills they need to do so. It can take a long time to purchase, install, configure, and stabilize purchased software You are dependent on technical people to maintain the content management software and apply upgrades and fixes.

 View a list of the different approaches you can take to building and managing your web site.

 Summary table of all four approaches to building and managing your web site