I now have a copy of the report and it does state "DotNetNuke is presently the leading .NET-based open source CMS".  Also stated in the report is that they didn't have access to some key information for DotNetNuke, like average weekly downloads.   DotNetNuke also came in 4th for total number of freelance developers, 3rd in number of publications, 2nd in rate of adoption, 4th in Google page rank, Quantcast rates DNN in 4th position of highest traffic (5th at Alexa and Compete), etc.

The report also indicates that "That data showed DotNetNuke was one of the three systems with the least favorable ratio of evaluation to actual use", page 48.

DotNetNuke averaged 1 negative comment for every 4.7 positive comments. e107 averaged 1 negative comment for every 3.1 positive comments. Sample Set Range: 1.7 to 10.4. Sample Set Median: 5.8. Sample Set Mean: 5.7

It is also worth mentioning that of the four .Net-based content management systems listed and rated on the Windows Web App Gallery, DotNetNuke is ranked the lowest, lagging behind Umbraco, mojoPortal and Kentico CMS. See, http://www.microsoft.com/WEB/gallery/Categories.aspx?category=ContentMgmt.  

It also looks like interest in DNN is dropping while the interest of another .Net system (Umbraco) is climbing. 

"The concern here is two-fold: Not only is this trend surprising in light of the many strength factors we found in the course of our research, but it is also a source of concern given the large amount of marketing and promotional activities aimed at this product. It seems that despite all the efforts, interest in the system continues to drop." - page 69

So the "demo" of DotNetNuke needs to be improved.  I wish they published the comments, that would have been very helpful.  Overall, DotNetNuke is the leading .Net CMS and with some improvments could be at the top of that report in a few years or less (if we could get those negative comments to learn from and fix).

There are a couple of factors to consider with regards to this report:

1. The usual PHP vs. .net differences
2. This report mixes community backed and corporate backed projects. But the report doesn't have any financial factors. i.e. revenue, profit, etc.  A CMS doing poorly in this report might be leading the pack in revenue/profit.

In my opinion it is highly likely we will see further declines in DNN popularity as more and more new features are made PE only in attempts to increase sales. These drops in popularity could be dramatic at times if a cool or highly sought after feature is made PE only.  Drops in popularity, while bad for the community, may not be a bad thing for the corporation. i.e. A necessary evil in order to acquire a good thing for the corporation.  It is also possible (while not as probable) that a bad thing for the community and a not so hot thing for the corporation could be a good thing for the investors. Which is another thing this report missed, and I would really like to see - which CMS's have third party investors(Venture Capital)?

I have always agreed that DNN needs to make money but the methods I'm not so sure about.  However, DNN Corp is showing the wisdom of their team on several fronts. Purchasing Snowcovered and the PEG awards were both very wise anti-fork moves for the corporation.

I have to disagree with you.  While many corporate resources will be focussed on product features for our professional edition, the Open Core will continue to get even more extension friendly.  Its also important to realize that PE runs on the same Open Core.  We'll also be spending a lot of time on the Community side of things building out Forge services for Open Source contributions, etc.  As stewards of the project, we definitely promote the use of Community Edition and the growth of our ecosystem of both free and paid products, partners, vendors, etc.  Our job has to be to help make it possible for more people to participate and contribute, we can't do it all alone and we welcome folks to participate in all aspects of the DotNetNuke ecosystem.  Our goal is still to be the most deployed, most valuable andmost cost-effective web platform in the world!

Scott Willhite, Co-Founder DNN