The growing number of large companies with tens or even hundreds of Web sites for different departments or projects may want to check out Stellent’s Site Studio. Running on top of Stellent’s content management server, Site Studio automates and decentralizes the creation and maintenance of multiple Web sites, empowering business users without programming or HTML experience to build and update their own sites. The business users create the content and page design using standard templates and drag-and-drop library components provided by the IT staff, which maintains control over the look and feel, company brand and site navigation while delegating day-to-day work to the site originators.

Operating behind the scenes, Stellent’s server handles all the back-end processing — the workflow governing change approvals, the library of templates and components, and the WYSIWYG, point-of-content editing, which lets editors and reviewers update the copy and compare proposed revisions in context right next to the original version.

“Our differentiator is the multisite management with central control and distribution management,” says Dan Ryan, Stellent’s senior vice president of marketing and business development. “Companies have lots of tools for building Web sites, but we are trying to solve the business problem of a company with multiple Web sites — and maybe even different languages — and automate the whole process.”

Stellent developed Site Studio as an out-of-the-box module after recognizing that the customized versions created for early-adopter customers had wider applicability, he says.

Stellent’s users include Sony Pictures.com, which is creating a Web site for each of its movies; Carlson Travel, which is building sites for hundreds of its franchises; Procter & Gamble; Merrill Lynch; Blue Cross/Blue Shield; Sabre Airlines; and Seattle Public Utilities. Other companies could use Site Studio to create Web sites for specific departments or individual products, Ryan says.

Based on the number of users, the cost for Site Studio is half as much as the content server. For a minimum number of 15 business users, the server costs $50,000 and Site Studio an additional $25,000. The maximum cost for unlimited users is $175,000 for the server and $87,500 for Site Studio.

“If you buy this application and use it to manage 40 Web sites, it quickly becomes very cost-effective,” Ryan says.

Major competitors include Documentum in the content management space and Interwoven in the Web arena, he says.

Lisa Perrin, Web manager for Seattle Public Utilities, says the company is excited about Site Studio because it enables the IT staff to deploy Web sites more quickly and provides a simple mechanism to add employee “browse and edit” functionality. Authorized content contributors can simply go to the Web site and modify the content as needed, she notes.

Site Studio completed its beta launch on May 19 and will start shipping on June 19.