The topic of integrating print technology systems with web technology systems often comes up in the newspaper, magazine and book publishing industries.
There is a key difference between Content Companies (e.g. newspapers, magazines) and Other Companies (e.g. pharmaceuticals). With the World Wide Web and information technology (IT) becoming part of everyday life, every company is becoming a content company in certain ways.
In the case of other companies like pharmaceuticals, aeronautics, construction, etc. their pre-digital products are not going away nor changing as drastically as a result of the world wide web and IT as is happening in the case of content companies like newspapers and magazines.
For those other companies, it makes sense to integrate the web systems like content management with their core products because their other core products are not fading away as a result of the web and IT.
However, in print media companies like newspapers whose legacy has been printing systems, their product in its printed form is fading away as a direct result of the Web and IT. So for them it may make sense to not spend too much effort on integrating legacy print systems with Web systems. Instead, it may be a better strategy to spend more resources on enhancing and upgrading the Web systems and digital media products. So for newspapers today, the 1990s holy grail of having one seamless print+web content management system may be less relevant in 2007. It may actually make better business sense to to keep the print publishing system and Web CMS separate, focus more on Web and digital media and allow the printed on paper versions of their products to gradually retire over the next two decades.
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