Earlier this month I was in New York for the eZ Innovation Board meeting. It was basically a sneak peek into the eZ Publish future with a bird's eye view. Or something like an 86th floor Empire State Building view. You have a great view and see far in the distance, but you can also look straight down, which is not very pleasant :)
Being stated that the 5.4 version will be the last hybrid version, next 6 months are vital for eZ Systems to prepare the new stack only version. We got to see a glimpse of how this will look and how much progress has been made. Focus is clear: make the content management experience way better than it is now. It's a good path and now it "just" needs to be executed.
To repeat once more: the new version will not be called eZ Publish anymore. It will consist of two parts, not two versions like so far:
- eZ Platform with content repository, API and basic content management with Platform UI (under GPL)
- eZ Studio with interface for business-oriented users like content marketers etc. (under business user licence)
Interfaces for the both parts are being built now, with the Platform UI a bit ahead as it's also the base for eZ Studio. There will not be enterprise nor community editions. There will be a separation between developer and customer oriented products, but in a different way. Future will tell if this is a better way.
The day before the innovation board eZ organised the first re:VISION event oriented on the non-technical sides of content, like content marketing and content strategy. Besides the great use cases from Ovum and Comscore, it was a great pleasure to listen to Karen McGrane's talk on how clients still tend to neglect content in their digital strategy. I could write a separate blog post just on the information she presented in 25 minutes, but let's say that, in a nutshell, brands need to become publishers and focus on their core value, which is content. Otherwise, they will end up having shiny objects (beautiful web pages) empty of value like beautiful Christmas gift boxes with no presents inside :)
This event is just the first in the series where the intent is to introduce the eZ brand to the US market.
Putting aside the business part of the trip, I had the opportunity to experience once more how multicultural and multivariate New York is as a city. The differences are sometimes shocking: in just a few meters you can get both really healthy and a really unhealthy meal. People of totally different lifestyles and wealth classes can live in the same building. Next to a church you see a skyscraper with 70 floors. Many people speak English worse than I do. The mix of the cultures is probably the biggest in the world, maybe only London could be compared to it in that respect.
But it seems that this melting pot works somehow. It's one of the best places to make business in the world. So, I am glad that eZ Systems is present there and I wish great 2015 to them and especially a great eZ Platform launch!