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On December 1st, Kitsite will be launching a new hosted content management service called PostCMS. The launch will be based around a software Advent calendar, where a new feature will be released every day until Christmas.

 

"We're hoping to do for CMS what Salesforce and Basecamp have done for CRM," says Michael Kowalski, CEO of Kitsite. "We've focused on two key areas: usability for content authors, and flexibility for Web developers."

PostCMS marks "a new step in the shift towards utility software," company officials say, allowing "sophisticated content management services to be deployed without installing any software." The product has an Ajax-based interface that simplifies the management of content-rich Web sites and includes WYSIWYG page editing and metadata tagging. It also offers customization opportunities for developers, via a Web-based IDE.


"The idea is that you can get a site up and running pretty quickly. But then if you need to, you can customize almost everything. You can code your own Web services to integrate with other applications, you can write new workflows, and you can even build entire new user interface screens," Kowalski says.

Kitsite is a London-based company focused on Web application development and content management. The company was founded in April 2000 by the core technical team responsible for the development of the Guardian Unlimited network of sites.

Many other CMS products, especially the open source ones, force content authors to use essentially the same user interface as developers, despite their very different requirements, Kowalski says, adding "we've avoided that. To make the difference clear, the developer app and supporting site have a quite distinctive white-on-black appearance. We think of it as the 'evil twin' of the content authoring interface."

From 1st December until Christmas, one new feature will be added to PostCMS every day. The planned feature list includes design pattern library, support tracking, UGC moderation and, hopefully, little chocolate Santas.

 

PostCMS is free for developers who are trying the service out or building very small sites. For larger sites, pricing starts from £50 per month, depending on total users, pages and storage.

No doubt the Kitsiters wouldn't mind seeing Salesforce.com's numbers either. Salesforce.com reported a 74 percent increase in net income for the third quarter, aided by a 48 percent surge in revenues.

 

For the third quarter, the on demand CRM vendor reported GAAP net income of $6.52 million or $0.05 per share, compared to net income of $339,000, or $0.00 per share in the same quarter last year.

 

On average, thirty one analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial expected earnings of $0.02 per share for the quarter.

 

Earnings per share for the recent quarter benefited by a gain of approximately $0.01 per share associated with the sale of a minority investment. In addition, results for the latest quarter include approximately $14.2 million in stock-based compensation and approximately $1.4 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions, as well as a 46 percent tax rate.

 

Total revenues for the quarter rose 48 percent to $192.8 million from $130.1 million in the comparable quarter a year ago. Wall Street analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $190.6 million for the quarter.

David Sims is a contributing editor for ContactCenterSolutions. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.