Stibo DX
Stibo has centuries of experience with print and offers digital content capabilities in its modern Content Management System (CMS), though the vendor’s strategy and road map have been a bit unfocused.
- Stibo CUE supports a digital-first, highly componentized content model that co-exists — sometimes readily, sometimes uneasily — with print workflows
- CUE is therefore best suited to digital-first publishers that still maintain a vested interest in multiple print publications and need to rationalize cost of print
- Customers include Gannett (USA), The Economist, Mediahuis (Belgium), the Daily Mail (UK), Politiken (Denmark), The New York Times (USA)
Likely fit
Stibo DX is a potential fit for mid- to large-size publishers that still have a large revenue stream in print but also want a modern CMS to feed digital properties — especially those who are already using CCI or Escenic and want to unify the digital and print workflows.
At a glance
Primary Customer Fit
Large News Organization
Secondary Fit
Mid-sized Chain of News Organizations
Most Active Geographies
EMEA, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pac
Official Support Hours
24/7/365
Officially Supported Languages for User Interface
EN, DE
Third-party Language Support Available?
No
License Model
Custom quotations
Scope Summary
Highly editorial process-focussed platform well-suited to digital and able to support print optimisation while lacking functionality for front-end experience or revenue generation
Tech Base
CUE CMS: Java, SOLR, Angular, GraphQL API; CUE DAM: PHP, RabbitMQ; CUE Print: Java and C
Cloud Model
SaaS or self-hosted
Headquarters
Århus, Denmark
Head Count
210
What customers report
- Supports single source for both digital and print, with previews of the print edition within the browser updated as text is edited
- Functionality based on input from several large publishers and long-standing experience in media
- Print editors resist the “Storylines” interface because it breaks articles into components (so you can’t, for instance, select multiple paragraphs - though the vendor says this has now been fixed), though this works well for some digital use cases
- Vendor demos sometimes show functionality that isn’t fully baked in the platform itself
- Stibo DX seems to rely on several key high-knowledge employees, and it can be hard to get their attention
Background
Stibo DX is part of the Stibo Group, a foundation-owned corporate group founded in 1794 in Århus, Denmark. In 1979 Stibo acquired Atlanta-based Computer Composition Inc., better known as CCI, which produced systems for automating print news creation (NewsDesk and NewsGate), which was later renamed to Stibo DX.
Various other acquisitions ensued. Norwegian CMS Escenic, founded in 1999, was first acquired by Vizrt (Norway) in 2008, and then sold on to Stibo in 2013. This led to the development of CUE, which was launched in 2016. DC-X DAM was acquired in 2019 and is now being integrated as CUE DAM. Stibo DX’s headquarters remain in Århus, and the company also has offices in Atlanta (U.S.), Hamburg (Germany), Oslo (Norway), and Dhaka (Bangladesh).
Stibo DX’s CUE is now a set of products, including the CMS (CUE Content Store), digital asset management (CUE DAM), and print production (CUE Print). Add-ons include CUE Live (for liveblogging), CUE Digital (for e-papers), and CUE Video.
CUE Content Store’s “Storylines” interface for editing content is modern and fairly sophisticated, and uses a componentized model (where every paragraph is a block, and blocks can also be inserted with other content, such as images, videos, or tweets). CUE DAM has an extensive search for images, which can also extend across news wires (though CUE DAM is not required for the use of images, and another DAM may be deployed instead). CUE’s core strength is creating multiple variants of content, repurposing across multiple publications, or creating variants for print. Print previews can be checked from within the browser. CUE is entirely headless, so customers will have to build their own front-ends.
This CMS is best suited to publishers that still hold a large revenue stream from print, ideally already license a Stibo platform, and are looking for a digital CMS that potentially enables unified workflows.
CUE is subscription-based or based on a license and support fee structure. Stibo DX hasn’t indicated pricing and says licensing is custom per project. While Stibo DX now focuses on the SaaS offering, most customers seem to still run the software on-premises. For 2023, Stibo DX intends to launch a planning module with list, GANTT, and calendar views.
Stibo Group has undergone many changes over the past decade. While the printing business is with Stibo Complete, the emphasis currently seems to be with Stibo Systems, another separate subsidiary, which produces MDM (Master Data Management) solutions. CCI Europe was renamed to Stibo DX in 2020 and still seems to have to somewhat find its footing; traditional print media revenues may be dwindling, perhaps explaining why Stibo DX is beginning to find customers outside the media vertical.
Package scope (as reported by vendor)
| Core platform - i.e., bundled in product (yes/no/beta) | Add-On (yes/custom/3rd party) | |
|---|---|---|
|
Content lifecycle: author / classify / edit / approve / publish / re-purpose / archive / dispose
|
Yes
|
|
|
Basic digital / voice / media asset management
|
Yes
|
|
|
Support print publishing
|
Yes
|
|
|
Simple social media re-publishing
|
Yes
|
|
|
Optional modules: forms / polls / social widgets / etc
|
Yes
|
|
|
Connector library (OOTB connectors, APIs, etc.)
|
Yes
|
|
|
Bundled CDN (with DDOS protection)
|
Yes
|
|
|
User registration
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Subscription management and fulfillment - digital
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Subscription or membership
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Personalisation
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Ad management - digital
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Ad management - print
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Content management
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Research
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Content management
|
Yes
|
3rd Party
|
|
Video management / OVP
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
Audio management / podcasting
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Data journalism and visualisation
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Classifieds
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Commenting / community features/
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Newsletter production and management
|
Yes
|
3rd Party
|
|
Notifications and alerts
|
Yes
|
3rd Party
|
|
A/B testing
|
Yes
|
3rd Party
|
|
SEO
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Multi-title management with variable inheritance
|
Yes
|
|
|
Complex layout and subsite / subsection cloning
|
Yes
|
|
|
AR- / VR- enhanced services
|
No
|
3rd Party
|
|
Audience segmentation
|
No
|
|
|
Online user / partner forums
|
Yes
|
|
|
Regular user group meetings
|
Yes
|
|