My Thoughts on netFORUM Enterprise
Overall, I think netFORUM Enterprise is still a very solid, relevant product, even though it was created in its initial versions almost 15 years ago. The backbone of the technology, the development toolkit, was truly ahead of its time when it came out, and it continues to be one of the most flexible tools out there available to associations. This is a critical factor, and has shaped an entire industry around the development partners doing custom development with netFORUM. If you have the budget, there are resources out there that can make almost anything happen within the system. When investing so much and so many years into a platform, its important to know that you won't easily find yourself in a dead end in a couple of years where the core system will no longer meet your needs, and it can't be properly extended either.
Of course, with great flexibility comes great complexity, so organizations really need to be careful how to customize and build out the system. It seems like associations just cant stop thinking up new ways to make their business model different from everyone else's, forcing IT teams to scramble to customize their systems every which way. With netFORUM in your hand, sure it can be done, but that doesn't mean it should!
In this day and age, associations are using multiple "best of breed" vendors to deliver various content to their customers, and everything needs to be integrated with core systems (AMS). With the right internal staff, netFORUM can be very empowering in this regard. Custom webservices can be built relatively easily, allowing systems to communicate together. There are also many pre-built integrations with various email marketing systems, accounting packages, social networks, job boards, and other platforms popular with associations.
In general, netFORUM Enterprise is very powerful. But I can't imagine having to use it at an association without at least one or two strong technical internal resources. There are gobs of external resources within the ecosystem of partners, consultants, and the company themselves, but you need to have some internal technical people to tie that all together in a way that is not completely overwhelming for the rest of your staff.
