These companies were forced to enter to the CMS model due to three major reasons:
1- Explosion of popularity of CMS concept – Business people begun to see the benefits in terms of integration and solid data management
2- Growth of SE Marketing – Evolution of Internet as a new business channel. Web presence required fast response to market expectations and effective dynamic content management
3- Evolution of crawlers to Web 2.0 - Adaptation of the dynamic CMS structure into the algorithm of Google, MSN and Yahoo!, making CMS Websites extremely searchable and rankeable.
These reasons were strong enough to make Web Companies to expand over the competitive terrain of the emerging CMS market, and try to stop the Open Source tendency with a strong value proposition: Industry Specialization.
At some extend that differentiation significantly damaged the evolution of traditional Open Source CMS. If we
compare between traditional Open Source CMS and the platforms designed by those companies the result was simple and straight: Their systems were deficient, unfriendly and weak, but they had a value that was very strong at the time of evaluation of Purchasing Managers or IT specialists: Industry insertion.
Web Development companies understood very well the fragile side of the traditional Open Source CMS’s tendency.
Let me provide a fair example:
One of my clients in the automotive industry hired me to evaluate and recommend the best CMS system for the expansion of their online strategy. Five companies presented their solutions: four were strong development companies with their own packaged solution specialized in the industry; the other one presented an Open Source platform.
Without any doubt the OS was the strongest, but the client didn’t feel comfortable due to the lack of functionality oriented for the industry requirements. Even though my recommendation was clearly in favor of the Open Source CMS solution, the client decided to go for one of the packaged Open Source alternatives.
I’ve been involved in similar situations several times with clients of different industries: Municipalities, Lawyers Associations, Universities, Transportation Companies, etc.

I believe that the Open Source community is slowly reacting to this market situation, understanding the internal process of companies at the time to analyze and acquire a solution for their online business. Contributors to the Open Source CMS world are now more capable to understand that industry specialization is not against the Open Source philosophy, and the ultimate goal is to implement a high quality solution.

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About Miguel Todaro
(www.migueltodaro.com) He is the author of the book “Internet Marketing Methods Revealed” (ISBN-10: 1601382650 – 288 pages – Paperback color - 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches).
He is a Senior Marketing Executive specialized in different industries. Has been advisor of important corporations in marketing, multimedia and e-commerce projects. He is an expert in software development, with strong background in graphic design, multimedia programming and marketing. In 1997 he developed one of the first automotive e-commerce projects on the net, for the Italian company Fiat Auto International Corporation. As a consultant he helped major organizations such as UNICEF, AIGA, Oracle and IBM. He also developed experimental multimedia e-learning ventures for different companies in North America, including BP and Methanex Corp.

Currently he is working in his new book about behavioral marketing, to be released in 2010.