CMS vendor TerminalFour reaches 50th university milestone

4 Nov 2009

An Irish creator of content management system (CMS) technology has signed its 50th international contract with a university; Loughborough University in the UK, listed by the Sunday Times as the “University of the Year.”

TerminalFour’s Site Manager software now powers 962 university websites and intranets and some 9,800 global users have been trained to use its software.

Based on feedback

Providing WCM solutions to universities since 2001, TerminalFour’s Site Manager product has evolved based on direct feedback from the higher-education client community. 

Its software is used by some of the most prestigious universities throughout the world, including: University College Dublin (Ireland); University of Oxford (England); University of St Andrews (Scotland) and University of Virginia (USA).   

Loughborough University is home to more than 16,500 students and 3,000 staff, and over the past few years has received high-profile accolades, including “Best Student Experience” at the Times Higher Awards.

Re-developing website

To better cater for the information demands of its many different audiences, the university has made the decision to embark on a major website re-development programme and invest in a web content-management solution.

“Our website is an incredibly important tool for communicating with our large and varied audiences and it is essential that the information we provide is accurate, up to date, easy to navigate and well presented,” Ian Cairns, director of marketing and communications at Loughborough University explained.

“The introduction of a web content-management system will give our publishers greater control over their content and help them make a visit to Loughborough University’s website as intuitive, interesting and engaging as possible.”

One brand

TerminalFour’s Site Manager will integrate a large number of the university’s sites under one consistent brand. 

Ultimately, it will manage more than 150,000 web pages and 75,000 media files in a single user-friendly website that will become the university’s primary student recruitment, marketing and communications vehicle.

“The requirements of Loughborough University reflect those of institutes of higher education throughout the world,” said Piero Tintori, CEO of TerminalFour.

“They need to manage information that’s growing at an exponential rate and be able to rapidly construct and drive marketing and communication initiatives via their online presence.”

“They need to create interactive and engaging websites to compete for prospective students and research in a hugely competitive market. TerminalFour has spent almost a decade tailoring our solution to the needs of this market and this 50th client is testament to the quality of both the product and service,” Tintori said.

Site Manager 7.0 launch

The company is finalising arrangements to launch the new Site Manager 7.0 to help drive its international expansion.

Chief operating officer David Miller said it receives its global launch in November 2009 at the t44u event in Dublin and is already being heralded as the easiest-to-use and most advanced WCM product designed for the education sector.

By John Kennedy

Photo: TerminalFour has signed its 50th international contract with Loughborough University.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com