“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose     

By any other name would smell as sweet;           

So Tridion would, were it not Tridion call’d,”

—Adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

SDL will release the next version of SDL Tridion in 2015 Q4 (estimated) as SDL Web 8. The name reflects a change in SDL’s Web content management offerings. Read on to see what influenced the name change.

This SDL Web 8 six-part series covers:

1. SDL Web 8: What’s in a Name? [this post]
2. SDL Web 8: Roadmap and Features
3. SDL Web 8: User Interface Quick Preview
4. SDL Web 8 Preview Video
5. SDL Web 8: Under-the-Hood Changes
6. Thanks for sharing!

SDL’s Story

Starting with language management, SDL has grown and changed over two decades, shaped by—and even shaping—the industries it touched. The following table highlights some key themes and related acquisitions.

 As the wide World moved to the Web, SDL acquired the products and teams to help you do the same. The acquisitions were all part of a strategy, as SDL Product Marketing Director Arjen van den Akker explains, to “enable organizations to deliver a digital experience across the entire customer lifecycle, from pre-purchase to purchase to after sales support. It has content as the foundation and works across devices, is personalized and targeted in real-time, it engages visitors through rich media and is relevant to local audiences."

SDL Tridion has long been a good corporate team player, playing nicely with other technologies, especially in its templating and publishing model. Starting with translation management, many of SDL’s own product-to-product integrations were extended with a similar “orchestration” approach in mind.

An Integrated Solution Stack

The following table shows how Tridion integrates with translation, media management, targeting, and campaigns both within the SDL suite and with other solutions.

Given the breadth of the Tridion product stack and all associated modules and integrations that sit alongside, SDL decided to simplify the positioning and naming to better reflect today’s market demands. The reality is that organizations need most or all of the mentioned modules so everything has been bundled into a new offering: “SDL Web”. SDL Web combines Web Content Management with Digital Media Management, Experience Optimization and Localization capabilities.

The following table shows the new names with the release of SDL Web 8.

SDL Web is comprised of:

 Tridion’s strength isn’t always in what it can do, but how well it plays in a customer’s ecosystem of products, solutions, and vendors. Its strength is in what it can give up; in its next release it gives up its name to become SDL Web.

Why Version 8?

The reason for the 8 in SDL Web 8 can be seen in the product’s recent history:

For those “in-the-know,” you may also note that SDL Tridion 2013 SP1 is 7.1 and there is an internal cloud release version 8.0. SDL Web 8 and its APIs will use the internal version 8.1; however, the official product name will still be SDL Web 8 (without a dot unless it’s at the end of sentence).

In the next post, SDL Web 8: Roadmap and Features (Part 2 of 5), we’ll take a look at the features for the Tridion release that is no-longer-called-Tridion.

Edit (Sept 21, 2015): updated the version history graphic (thanks SDL UX Designer Nikki Veldhuis) and identified the correct next post.

Edit (Oct 8, 2015): adjusted the expected release date. Though we're working towards a release date for core WCM functionality (aka "Tridion") in the next month or so, the full suite for SDL Web 8 will need subsequent updates. Look for official release information in the SDL Docs and communication from Support.