Vignette Corp, the Austin, Texas-based provider of web content application systems, has opened a second European office in Hamburg, Germany four months after setting up its European headquarters in London. A French office is due to open in the near future. Earlier this year, Vignette won a contract from Bertelsmann AG to develop a content system for the BeNet corporate intranet aimed at the German media group’s senior executives. Other European clients include German magazine Der Spiegel, Seden’s Aftonbladet newspaper and Telecom Finland. According to Adina Levin, senior consultant at US consultancy CapVentures, the global content management software market will grow by 94% this year compared to 1997. Vignette has just released version 4 of StoryServer, adding relationship management capabilities. StoryServer 4 uses personalization and collaborative filtering technology to enable online businesses to adapt their sites’ presentation and content to visitors’ observed behavior and explicitly-stated preferences. Vignette was set up in 1995 and has so far raised $27.8m in venture capital funding. Its US customers include Ziff-Davis’ ZDNet, Nasdaq and Citibank.
