The newest version of Sitecore's flagship content management system, Web CMS 6.0, focuses on further refining and enhancing its core strength -- a great-looking, intuitive user interface.With nearly 1,500 customers running 5,500 different sites, Sitecore clearly has its share of fans. At the same time, the CMS has some detractors and some with a love/hate relationship with previous versions of Web CMS. Whether or not any minds will be changed by version 6.0 remains to be seen, but we'll need to wait until June 30 for the final product to be released beyond the current group of testers.

What isn't up for much debate is that Sitecore's administrative interface is just gorgeous. By mimicking the familiar Windows desktop interface in a browser -- right down to a Start button relabeled Sitecore -- it makes content creation, management, and administration esthetically pleasing and intuitive to use. All that beauty can come at a price, though; the slick interface is memory-hungry, and trying to do development on anything less than a powerful workstation could lead to sluggish performance.

On the functionality side, Web CMS 6.0 makes a number of enhancements that should please content creators and marketing departments alike. New features include improvements to inline page editing and management, and the introduction of built-in support for polls and tag clouds. In addition to UI and feature enhancements, the system boasts improved performance, scalability, and security, thanks in part to running on the .Net 3.5 framework. In terms of customer base, Sitecore is currently the leading enterprise-class Web content management system built specifically for the .Net architecture.

One other feature I'm eager to learn more about is Sitecore's "usability validation" capability, which helps developers and content creators confirm that sites meet ADA 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. As far as I know, this is a feature unique to Sitecore, and its approach is patent pending.

One last note -- the following quote from Sitecore's Web CMS 6.0 press release was just too irresistible to pass up:

"A Fortune 500 CIO that previewed Web CMS 6.0 described it as 'by far the most advanced CMS on the market now'."

You can't buy that kind of endorsement. I would love to know who handed Sitecore's marketing team that nugget on a silver platter...