Why Drupal?
Every website communicates information to its audience. This information needs to be managed. A content management system (CMS) allows you to do this easily. Instead of manually uploading files and editing files in text editors, a CMS will provide a user friendly interface for creating and maintaining the content through its whole life cycle. This includes creating, publishing, editing, annotating, searching and deleting content. Using a CMS makes a lot of sense because you will be able to communicate more effectively with your audience.
The next question which naturally arises is which CMS is right for you. There are many to choose from ranging from simple to complex, turnkey to customisable, open source to proprietary. There is no one size fits all answer when it comes to content management systems. Some people will be happy with a simple blogging platform to communicate their thoughts, others will need something a more flexible.
Morpht has chosen to specialise in the Drupal content management system for a number of reasons.
Drupal provides good site building tools. It is possible to quickly build out a data model and provide views into the data model. This makes it possible to model pretty much anything you want and then provide a nice presentation layer on top of it. Simpler blogging platforms have a hard time modelling arbitrary data structures. If your site needs something more than pages, posts and categories, then Drupal is a good choice.
Drupal has lots of add-on functionality. There are hundreds of quality add-on modules for Drupal with thousands more providing extra capabilities. If there is an itch you need to scratch, the chances are that you won't have to scratch it yourself. Contributed modules will generally be able to provide code for most problems. This makes Drupal very good for quickly adding on extra functionality. Morpht has taken the best of these modules and built them into our own platform.
Drupal is open source. The fact that Drupal is open source may not be an important factor to all people, however, it is a large reason why Morpht has decided to go with Drupal. Open Source software is open to innovative influences from talented programmers. Improvements made by one team or developer can be fed back into the project making the whole better. In Drupal's case there are thousands of developers feeding improvements back in all the time. This means that it is unlikely that Drupal will atrophy.
Drupal has an active community. There are thousands of developers, designers, site builders, user interface (UI) specialists, performance experts all actively engaged in pushing Drupal forward. If you need help on a Drupal website then there is a very good chance that you will be able to find someone with the correct skillset for you. Choosing to go with Morpht to build your website is not locking you into a single vendor. If you want to move on then you are free to do so. This ensures the investments you make in your website will not be wasted. Choosing proprietary solutions often means that developer talent is limited and expensive, making changes to your site more difficult.
Drupal is evolving. Every new version of Drupal (we are currently on Drupal 7), pushes forward with new ways of doing things, bringing about better ways of working and improved functionality. The result is a platform which is capable of moving with the times.
Drupal supports eCommerce. The strengths of Drupal as a CMS are well known. It also is a very capable eCommerce system with integration with gateways such as eWay and PayPal.
Drupal is being used by a lot of big players. The advantages of Drupal are becoming obvious to a lot of high traffic high profile sites on the web, many of which are leaving their proprietary system behind. Drupal has been particularly successful in government, education and publishing.
Conclusion
Drupal is a good choice for sites which need rapid development of typical website functionality. It is proven to be effective on many high profile sites and looks to be a safe bet for future development.