marqui content management software: a first look (sponsored post)

I've spent a little time today watching the Marqui animated demo today, so that I could write a belated first February post where I addressed the actual operation of the product. In general, I hate animated demos, and this wasn't really an exception. I resent a company demanding my undivided attention for a fixed period of time, and I hate it even more when there's no way for me to pause or rewind if I'm interrupted or distracted while watching it.

That aside, the basic ideas that the Marqui demo gets across are solid--the focus is on the fact that people in a workflow process (PR, legal, company management, etc) each have a role in creating, editing, and approving content. Marqui is designed to facilitate that process, allowing writers to produce content, editors to modify it, and publishers to approve final release of content. What makes Marqui interesting to me is that it does more than simply publish content to a web sit when its done. It handles a variety of content distribution approaches, including sending properly-formatted XML files to news publishers, sending email announcements, and publishing content in different locations (an internet site, an intranet site, even a CEO's blog).

From the brief glimpse of interface that the demo showed, it looks pretty well-designed for non-technical users. I'm hoping to get a chance to play with it hands-on this week so that I can do a better job of evaluating it. In the meantime, it does seem well worth a look for companies that have a variety of distribution formats and a moderately complex or distributed workflow pattern.