Hi Sam,
Thank you for your interest in ExpressionEngine and welcome to the Forums!
I am happy to address each of your points. You will find that ExpressionEngine is very capable and flexible on its own, but it shines with the use of add-ons for certain functionality!
+ Multiple levels of user access
Absolutely. ExpressionEngine includes a Membership Module at its core. This allows for multiple member groups, each with a customizable level of access to either the content on the front end, or editorial control in the Control Panel.
+ Workflow management
You can manage basic workflows using EE Statuses. However, more complex workflows can be developed with add-ons like Better Workflow.
+ SEO tools
ExpressionEngine builds SEO friendly URLs out of the box. You can use several of EE’s tags and variables to increase this. Look over SEO Lite, and add-on that automates some of the metadata insertion in your templates.
+ Ability to support jQuery and be able to implement a dropdown or a “mega menu”
ExpressionEngine include jQuery, if you want, or you can use your own version if needed. The important thing to note here is that EE makes no assumptions about your content, or how you want to deliver it. It is a blank slate, and you can develop your site with any web-technology you need!
+ We would like to be able to insert a stock ticker widget as well as other IR information (history, quote, etc…)
There is an add-on that lets you tap into Google Finance, but you can use most any pre-fab widget if you have one in mind.
+ Room to scale (the site will initially be approximately 100-150 pages, but will definitely grow over time)
ExpressionEngine scales to the hardware that runs it. Several large, content heavy sites are built with ExpressionEngine.
+ We are willing to work with a developer to help us get started and build initial templates, however, we would like to be able to support the site after the initial build without additional outside help (relatively easy learning curve)
I would like to invite you to contact Marcus Neto, EllisLab Director of Business Development and Product Evangelist. He can get you in contact with the right team to help you with this, as well as show you some of EE’s abilities related to your other questions!
+ Site search
EE includes a Search Module for basic site search needs. There are also several search add-ons if you would like to fine-tune your site’s search facility.
+ Ability to display dynamic content
That’s ExpressionEngine’s bread and butter 😉
+ Ability to do live A/B testing
Absolutely. You can use different template groups to display different versions of your site’s design/layout using the same content.
+ Support a blog and other social media
EE was born to blog, and there are several means to integrate what you publish in ExpressionEngine with other Social Media. You can even build a 2-way social strategy an have ExpressionEngine pull in tweets or other social streams.
+ Versioning system
ExpressionEngine can be used with just about any VCS such as SVN, Mercurial and Git. The setup and use is a bit outside the scope of this conversation, but most ExpressionEngine developers these days have their development in VCS.
+ Asset management
That depends on the scope of asset management. ExpressionEngine has a File Manager for managing assets associated with your website content. It *can* be used to manage large-scale asset needs, but might not be the best tool for the job. Please ask Marcus about this and the context you need asset management.
We do not need:
+ International / multi-lingual support
+ Tracking or analytics tools
+ Visitor profiling
Well, if your needs change after getting on board with ExpressionEngine, it is flexible enough to do those things too. Even post-launch.
I hope I’ve covered most of your questions here, if you have anything else, please let me know!
Thank you again,