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Future of WordPress and Movable Type

There’s a nice discussion on Jeremy Zawodny’s blog regarding the future of WordPress and Movable Type (via Weblog Tools Collection).

I would agree that WordPress and MT are definitely the leaders, but I would have to argue the point that

WordPress will come to be the de-facto choice in the world of self-hosted personal weblogs and low-end webhosting “value added” package. MovableType will be the blogware of choice in the corporate blogging world, both for internal weblogs and those that face the outside world.

Other than the ability to pay Six Apart for support, I don’t see what advantages MT has for the enterprise market. Numerous companies will arise to meet the need for WordPress support as long as the software continues to gain traction.

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2 Comments

  1. I think there’s a significant number of benefits of MT for businesses, starting from professional support, but covering a number of other areas:
    * broad platform support (multiple operating systems, databases, web servers and APIs are supported)
    * extensive programmatic hooks, not just for plugins, but for extending core functionality in a really robust way
    * a professional network dedicated to providing resources to business users and consultants who can help with deployment
    * separation of business logic from published content, letting you manage data better

    Obviously, I’m biased, but that’s just where I’d start differentiating Movable Type from any other tool on the market. Compatibility at the API level with both our other platforms, and at the template and tags level with TypePad, make for a really valuable benefit as well.

  2. Anil,

    I think I misspoke in my post. I should have written that I don’t necessarily see the distinct advantages of MT over WordPress for business use. This is different than what I wrote which implies there are no benefits for business. I can see numerous blogging platforms excel for businesses in this market. My only caveat is that I am starting to see a distinct ease of use between those tools like Movable Type that are blogging centric as opposed to Drupal where blogging was added on.

    I think what it will come down to is both the size and technical proficiency of a company’s IT staff. How big are they? Do they need dedicated support? What technical biases do they have? (i.e. if its a Microsoft shop, they may be more inclined to implement a .NET based blogging application.

    Overall, I only take exception to these “holy wars” that often have in IT. Windows versus Unix. SQL server versus Oracle. You get the point. Some people just get it in their head that there is only one right tool for the job and that is just simply not the case. I think there is plenty room for multiple blogging applications. It benefits everyone to have more successful platforms.