Intelligent Enterprise

For years now, Google has played fast and loose with information confidentiality and privacy issues. As if further proof were needed, the PR disaster that is Buzz should be enough to firmly conclude that Google is not suitable for enterprise use-cases.

It is inconceivable that enterprise-focused vendors, be they niche specialists like Hyland, Open Text or Autonomy, or household names like Microsoft, IBM or Oracle, would ever contemplate the reckless move that Google undertook in deliberately exposing customers' private information to all and sundry with Buzz. Even if they did contemplate such a move, it would never have happened, as these firms not only have too many checks and balances to ensure it could not. But additionally they have a solid understanding that enterprise customers would simply not tolerate, or ever forgive such a move. It would be commercial suicide.

Just the other week I wrote about the potential of using devices such as Apple's iPad for accessing enterprise documents. What seemed like good idea for the future turns out to be almost in the here and now. A small start up called SNAPPS has designed and launched a free app for the iPhone that provides secure access to IBM Quikr and IBM FileNet P8 documents; unsurprisingly an iPad version is in the works.

Forrester recently undertook some interesting research regarding content management investment attitudes in 2010 (covering document management, records management and Web content management). The overall finding was along the lines one might expect -- "72% of respondents intend to expand their use of ECM technologies" -- but there was an intriguing second key conclusion in the report: "49% could not estimate the ROI for any of their ECM systems."

Let me state my take on ROI calculations as clearly as I can. ROI calculations for information technology are junk calculations -- a fraud, a nonsense, and a complete waste of time. Clear enough for you? Oh, and by the way, ROI calculations from software vendors are even worse.

At CMS Watch we frequently have to explain to people why we have separate research streams for WCM (Web Content Management) and ECM (Enterprise Content Management). The explanation is frequently a response to the question, "aren't they just the same thing?" The simple answer is no, they are not.

First off let me state boldly and clearly CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Standard) is an important document management (a.k.a., ECM) standard -- the most important standard. But if your world is solely one of HTML and CSS then you can stop reading right here...

CMIS was recently ratified by OASIS and is already appearing in many RFPs. Nevertheless, it is a little misunderstood by some, and at times gets overlooked or misplaced. So here are three concise and valid reasons for putting CMIS on your list of RFP requirements.

My colleagues Tony Byrne and Shawn Shell (the lead analysts for CMS Watch SharePoint Research) recently reported on the hysteria generated around product announcements for SharePoint 2010 earlier this month in Las Vegas. There is plenty to be excited about in SP2010, especially if you belong to the SharePoint channel of resellers, consultants, developers, and system integrators. But over the past few weeks I have been noticing something of a shadow side to this excitement.

I may well be wrong, but I am starting to get the distinct impression that the SharePoint bubble is about to burst. Or at the very least, that enthusiasm for SharePoint is waning and demand for the platform set will begin to plateau.

Enterprises are facing something of a recruitment dilemma at the moment; one HR professional at a major healthcare firm told me this week that enterprise content management (ECM)-skilled applicants are looking for approximately 40% more in base pay than their peers with a background in CRM or ERP. This healthcare firm simply doesn't have budget to make the required hires, and that is not an uncommon situation.

Truth is, ECM professionals have been in short supply for a long time -- and even mediocre people can demand and receive decent money in this sector. This of course is a real challenge for employers.

I recently hosted a panel for ARMA that discussed compliance and records management issues related to Cloud Computing. It proved to be one of the most thought-provoking sessions I have been involved in for a long time. What became abundantly clear very early on was that records managers and compliance officers really need to get their head around cloud computing, and fast.

In the session we spent some time explaining that for every vendor out there that claims to have a cloud solution, only one in ten really has. That "cloud" relates to a virtualized world utilizing the Internet as a network -- whereas hosted and SaaS options (the nine out of ten) almost always have a specific data center location that they operate from.

As I have said before, at CMS Watch we focus on evaluating individual vendors. Nevertheless, we do think it is important for every buyer to grasp a basic understanding of underlying market dynamics.

For those of you interested at what is happening in the world of Enterprise Content Management (ECM), here is a SlideShare recording that looks at our updated Cross-Check analysis of the vendors as of September, 2009.

One of my favorite technology terms is "Shadow IT." The term is not employed often enough, and its role in undermining good information management should be more widely broadcast, because Shadow IT represents a plague on content management.

For those of you that don't know, Shadow IT refers to the technology that has been deployed (and once in a while maintained) outside of the formal IT organization. Commonly it refers to teams or groups who figure they can do things better and cheaper than by going through the normal IT channels.

Search-cum-enteprise content management (ECM) vendor Autonomy has announced an integration for its recently acquired WorkSite product with the iPhone. The WorkSite product is particularly well known and widely used within the Legal community. Smart mobile devices are increasingly usurping the role of laptops as the mobile computing device of choice, so secure access to documents in your ECM system via the iPhone makes a great deal of sense, particularly if you are an on-the-move attorney.

One small point of annoyance with this particular announcement is that it claims the iPhone integration to be the first of its kind. It's not, and in the spirit of debunking myths let me just remind the PR folk at Autonomy of the following:

>>Continue reading "iManage & iPhone: Something New, Something Old"


Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009
12:57 PM
>>Comments


Electronic Medical Records: No Slam Dunk

Here in the US, the topic of electronic medical records has popped back to the top of the agenda, due to an impending mass injection of government money. Long talked about, long promised and long mandated (remember HIPAA?) -- electronic medical records in the US are for all intents and purposes still a pipedream. Yet as a late adopter (to put it politely) the US can potentially benefit in part from experiences in UK and Europe in general.

The UK has long been pushing the benefits of and investing heavily in electronic medical records -- yet the slam dunk that the new administration seems to expect in terms of benefits has yet to be realized elsewhere. To explore why takes us into a range of big and complex enterprise content management (ECM) topics, but we can focus in on two key areas that will, without doubt, tax the new administration it moves forward with this initiative:

>>Continue reading "Electronic Medical Records: No Slam Dunk"


Posted Monday, March 16, 2009
12:53 PM
>>Comments


Ingres and Alfresco Offer an ECM 'Appliance'

This week Alfresco, together with Ingres, announced the release of an ECM "appliance."

Well, one thing we can say for sure is that Alfresco is never out of the trade press, and always seem to have something interesting to announce to the world. Overall that's a good thing as innovation can sometimes be in short supply. It's nice to see somebody bucking the trend. However, this particular announcement left me a bit befuddled. Mainly because it is not really an appliance as such, rather it's a software bundling of sorts.

>>Continue reading "Ingres and Alfresco Offer an ECM 'Appliance'"


Posted Friday, February 27, 2009
3:22 PM
>>Comments


Picking the Right Supplier in a Recession

"Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" -- so the saying goes. And in tough times there is, without a shadow of a doubt, a tendency for procurement and IT buyers in general to lean heavily toward very large (or incumbent) vendors, on the assumption that they represent a lower risk. But consider the following examples based on real vendors CMS Watch covers in its evaluation services:

>>Continue reading "Picking the Right Supplier in a Recession"


Posted Friday, February 13, 2009
9:19 AM
>>Comments


Autonomy Acquires Interwoven: A First Take

Today Autonomy announced it intends to buy Interwoven.

It was a surprise move for sure. Not that I was surprised that Interwoven was acquired, far from it; I expected that. But I did not expect them to be acquired by Autonomy. Autonomy has grown by acquisition and is one of the few firms that recently announced good revenues and a bullish outlook for 2009.


>>Continue reading "Autonomy Acquires Interwoven: A First Take"


Posted Thursday, January 22, 2009
12:06 PM
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Pollyanna and the Technology Market

The technology sector has been nothing but doom and gloom recently, but a recent report by the Aite Group shines a bit more light on to what is a fairly complex market situation. The report focuses on spending in the capital markets, and considering the spectacular turmoil in that sector over the past year, its a particularly interesting one to read. The skinny on the report is that IT spending will fall by on average 5 percent in 2009. A figure that is fall less severe than one might have expected, yet the logic behind the modesty of this prediction is pretty sound.

Firstly, just because legendary firms disappear and people are laid off, does not mean that information stops being processed. In fact in many cases, mergers and corporate downsizing create more information and more processing, though this is, of course, counterbalanced to some degree by a tail off in new applications and activity. But the initial information volumes remain fairly constant – and by their nature grow incrementally regardless.


>>Continue reading "Pollyanna and the Technology Market"


Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2009
9:06 AM
>>Comments


Who Loves the Incumbent Vendor?

One of my favorite little phrases is "double edged sword," and I found a perfect application for it recently: the discussion of "incumbent vendors" — those whose product(s) you're already using.

Imagine you have been using a particular vendor's technology for the past five or ten years. It could be EMC|Documentum or Open Text or any one of the 197 other products CMS Watch evaluates. I'll just call them Vendor X. But now it's time for an upgrade, or even a replacement of that technology. It did what it was supposed to do at the time, but now technology has moved on and it's time for a refresh. So you're kicking off a major project and starting up the RFP and shortlisting process.


>>Continue reading "Who Loves the Incumbent Vendor?"


Posted Friday, December 26, 2008
10:00 AM
>>Comments


Content Integration: Early Thoughts on CMIS

Since the announcement of CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Specification) I have been inundated with requests to speak and write on the topic. There's no two ways about it; CMIS has caught the imagination of buyers and the industry at large. Yet CMIS (pronounced See-Miss) is still only a specification, not a standard, and — as I talk to buyers, integrators and vendors — I'm aware that it is also a poorly understood specification. Of course this will be an ongoing story that will evolve over time, and it is one CMS Watch will monitor closely as it's one our subscribers are very interested in. But here are a couple of early observations from the field...

>>Continue reading "Content Integration: Early Thoughts on CMIS"


Posted Thursday, December 4, 2008
2:52 PM
>>Comments


SAP Operates in the ECM Shadows

To know what's really going on within a firm or the industry in which it operates you need to watch where the money is flowing.

In September money flowed in some interesting directions within the enterprise content management (ECM) sector. At Open Text it flowed out, as Chairman and CEO John Shakelton dumped almost all of his shareholdings. In contrast at NewGen in India it flowed in through a confirmed investment from SAP's venture arm (which has already invested in open source ECM player Alfresco, among others).


>>Continue reading "SAP Operates in the ECM Shadows"


Posted Friday, October 10, 2008
11:12 AM
>>Comments


Three Continents, One SharePoint Story

SharePoint has been on my mind a lot recently, not least because we have been undertaking more research on the product and its usage in an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) context. I've also had the unusual opportunity to speak to integrators, resellers and buyers on three continents over the past couple of weeks. The questions I asked may not have been scientific, or statistically meaningful, but they have at least been consistent. For example when I talked to buyers I asked:

• Does your organization currently use SharePoint?
• Does your organization currently use any other ECM systems?
• Are you planning to replace any existing ECM systems with SharePoint?


>>Continue reading "Three Continents, One SharePoint Story"


Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008
10:50 AM
>>Comments


Will Open Text Suffer Acquisition Indigestion?

Yesterday I got a call from my friend Paul Steep at Scotia Capital regarding this announcement from ECM vendor Open Text. Yes, you guessed it, Open Text is acquring again. Just as I predicted in July the firm has announced its intentions to buy Captaris.

At first glance it appears to be a good deal for Open Text, as it provides them with capture technology (image and text recognition, a' la Kofax) that they previously lacked. Captaris themselves acquired Oce Document Technology (ODT) a German-based forms recognition firm in January 2008 and absorbed its DOKuStar product range.

>>Continue reading "Will Open Text Suffer Acquisition Indigestion?"


Posted Friday, September 5, 2008
10:43 AM
>>Comments


Alfresco Offers SharePoint Alternative

Microsoft SharePoint goes open source? Shock, horror! Ok, well not quite, but an open source alternative to SharePoint is now an option with the release of Alfresco's Lab 3 Beta product. The new module allows you to hook Office into Alfresco, giving you the option to use Alfresco as opposed to SharePoint as your collaboration platform.

It's an interesting option. As readers of the CMS Watch ECM Suites Report 2008 know, Alfresco is one of the more interesting ECM vendors around. The question you might ask yourself however is, why would anyone want to do use Alfresco instead of SharePoint? Clearly open source enthusiasts will herald this as a major breakthrough — and those enterprises that espouse open source may well become customers. But then again, if you are going to dump Microsoft for the back end, why use Office at all, given there are open source alternatives?


>>Continue reading "Alfresco Offers SharePoint Alternative"


Posted Friday, August 1, 2008
12:46 PM
>>Comments


Legal Ruling Shakes Up E-mail Archiving

The whole issue of E-mail Archiving and Management (EAM) has come under the spotlight recently, triggered by a ruling by the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco — a ruling that touches on the Fourth Amendment "Protection from unreasonable search and seizure." Plaintiffs argued that when employers read the content of text messages sent by their employees — text messages that were held by a hosted vendor, Arch Wireless — that the employees' fourth amendment privileges were breached. In other words, even though the employees were using company-paid messaging systems, the employer should still respect their privacy and the confidential nature of personal message exchanges.

>>Continue reading "Legal Ruling Shakes Up E-mail Archiving"


Posted Thursday, July 3, 2008
9:53 AM
>>Comments


Avoid End-of-Quarter Buying and ELAs

Last week I had the pleasure of keynoting at the DocTrain event in Indianapolis (held at the truly magnificent Union Station venue), and also running a small session on "How to Procure Content Technologies." I have been running these small sessions for a long while now and they tend to prove very popular. Though I have been doing this for years, there are always new tricks to be added to the bag.

At the end of this particular session I chatted with the head of a leading US-based Enterprise Content Management systems integrator (who wishes for good reason to remain anonymous!) who said he liked the session but would have added two key points:

• Never buy at the end of a quarter
• Avoid Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs)


>>Continue reading "Avoid End-of-Quarter Buying and ELAs"


Posted Monday, June 30, 2008
9:32 AM
>>Comments


Archiving and the Limitations of E-Discovery

Last week we read about yet another major financial scandal allegedly exposed through the discovery of an e-mail message from a fund principal that apparently stated that their fund was going to be "toast."

The first thing I thought about this was that (if true) it was a fantastically stupid communication to put in an e-mail exchange. Secondly, I wondered why it took so long to find this e-mail — surely such high-profile financial managers would have their e-mail exchanges monitored automatically and an exchange like this should have rung every major alarm bell in the firm within seconds. Of course they could have been using an external system to get around that; we don't know at present. But this case once more highlights the limitations of e-mail monitoring (recently discussed here) and e-discovery, and conversely the value of content archiving.


>>Continue reading "Archiving and the Limitations of E-Discovery"


Posted Monday, June 23, 2008
2:23 PM
>>Comments


Cloud Computing vs. Green ECM

If there is a buzz around Web 2.0 in the Content Technology community, then there is a roar in the wider IT community around Cloud Computing. It's a great term, "Cloud Computing," as it conjures up visions of an invisible Internet — an ether-like zone in the sky where computing power and storage is unfettered by the petty restrictions of boxes, cables, and technicians. Cloud computing sounds fluffy, it sounds cool, it sounds limitless, it sounds like the future.

>>Continue reading "Cloud Computing vs. Green ECM"


Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2008
9:17 AM
>>Comments


Imaging: The Most Important Element of ECM?

As an "Enterprise-focused" content management analyst, I am asked two basic questions on a regular basis. The first is "what about SharePoint?" The second is, "what about imaging?"

At many conferences, and regularly via e-mail, people ask me about imaging in the context of ECM. Imaging is the major cost that most projects either forget about or dramatically under budget for. During the buying process it's all too easy to get caught up in the flurry of believing that every file will soon be digital, even though paper is clearly here to stay.


>>Continue reading "Imaging: The Most Important Element of ECM?"


Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008
8:43 AM
>>Comments


'Compliance' Is a Dirty Word

If there is one word I hate to hear used in this industry it's "compliance."

To me it's like fingernails down a blackboard, and frankly if I never hear it used again then I would be a happy man. Of course I have to endure the word in virtually every article and vendor press release I read. I don't like the word because it is a blanket term that used without context is totally meaningless, yet it's a word (much like governance) that sounds impressive and few people in the room will admit that they don't really understand it. Well let me be among the first to point out that the Compliance Emperor often has no clothes.


>>Continue reading "'Compliance' Is a Dirty Word"


Posted Thursday, May 1, 2008
10:37 AM
>>Comments


Oracle Enters The E-Mail Archiving Market

Oracle announced on Monday that it is entering the archiving market with the release of "Universal Online Archive." UOA positions Oracle to compete more directly against EMC and IBM in the e-mail and messaging archive space. It's interesting as only a year ago nobody was much interested in archiving, but in the past twelve months we have seen everyone from Dell to Google try to gain a foothold, and the market shows no signs of slowing down. It remains a chaotic and confusing sector risking a consolidation (which of course might not happen, or at least not soon).

UOA is built on top of Oracle 11g with technology acquired from Stellent, as well as from e-mail capture experts ZL Technologies. Why would Oracle be interested in archiving e-mails you may ask? Well the answer is simple: because there is an awful lot of it. And by archiving it, the messages will move out of Microsoft's servers and into Oracle databases. Remember in most firms e-mail is by far the single largest type of "data."


>>Continue reading "Oracle Enters The E-Mail Archiving Market"


Posted Wednesday, April 16, 2008
8:29 AM
>>Comments


Spoiling for a [Standards] Fight

The world does seem to love an XML fight. Last week, Microsoft scored a goal by getting its OOXML standard ratified as an international standard through ISO (International Organization for Standards) — a definite point score, since there were many other parties fighting tooth and nail to prevent this happening. OOXML is an important standard, with critical implications for the industry as a whole, and therefore represents a standard that we need to look at dispassionately to assess its true value and potential impact.


>>Continue reading "Spoiling for a [Standards] Fight"


Posted Monday, April 7, 2008
11:28 AM
>>Comments


HP Boosts Compliance Portfolio with Tower Buy

So HP finally made a move into the world of Enterprise Content Management by acquiring Tower Software of Australia. On the surface it's an unusual match for HP, as many had expected them to buy one of the top tier players such as Interwoven, Vignetteor even Open Text, but on closer consideration it's a move that makes sense. Revealingly, HP does not call this an "ECM" deal and focuses on the e-discovery and compliance benefits from Tower's addition, so it's possible HP has further moves to make if it wants to get serious about offering broader ECM services à la IBM.

>>Continue reading "HP Boosts Compliance Portfolio with Tower Buy "


Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2008
7:53 AM
>>Comments


Google Sites: No SharePoint Killer, But That's Not the Point

So Google has launched a product called Google Sites to compete with Microsoft's SharePoint. Even at first glance it is no SharePoint killer and is (as is normal for Google) more of a Beta product then anything that shows real maturity.

The real discussion we need to be having is whether these tools are the "productivity" applications they claim to be. Both Google and Microsoft have the means and depth to produce impressive tools, but just because something is usable and quick to deploy does not mean that by definition it is a good thing, particularly when it comes to managing confidential information. This is where things can go badly wrong. As we have discussed elsewhere, one of the major problems with SharePoint is not the technology, but its viral growth. What seems good to one end user can represent a compliance and auditing nightmare to their employer. With Google we have the added complication that by using their collaboration tools we are also entrusting our information to their care. Google has a strong and valid approach to confidentiality, security, and privacy issues, but it's not one that fully assures everyone.


>>Continue reading "Google Sites: No SharePoint Killer, But That's Not the Point"


Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2008
9:21 AM
>>Comments


Debunking the 'Web 2.0' Myth

My thanks to our friend James Robertson for pointing to an important UK study that debunks many of the "Web 2.0" and "Google Generation" myths that currently abound. I have bit of a reputation as a cynic, but the Google Generation is something of which I have simply seen no real evidence, despite vendors and fellow analysts arguing loudly about its importance in today's workplace.

>>Continue reading "Debunking the 'Web 2.0' Myth"


Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2008
7:40 AM
>>Comments


The Grim Realities of Content Security

My colleague Jarrod forwarded a link to a news story of how one person deliberately destroyed seven years' worth of corporate content/data with ease. Meanwhile, I had another tab open, regarding the White House's inability/refusal to archive e-mail messages, and had just finished reading about the loss of a laptop containing the personal details of 600,000 people — quite a busy day for data destruction.

>>Continue reading "The Grim Realities of Content Security"


Posted Friday, January 25, 2008
10:48 AM
>>Comments


Thoughts on EMC's Acquisition of Document Sciences

So EMC (read: Documentum) acquired Document Sciences. The announcement came over the holiday period and has been the topic of chatter in the blogosphere. It's an acquisition that makes perfect sense for EMC as it continues to reposition Documentum away from the traditional complex document management activities that established the firm — a market that is under attack from Microsoft and Open Text — and more into high-value, transactional document management and archiving.

>>Continue reading "Thoughts on EMC's Acquisition of Document Sciences"


Posted Thursday, January 10, 2008
10:11 AM
>>Comments


Oracle Hasn't Wasted Time on ECM Middleware

It was easy to get lost in the maelstrom that was Oracle OpenWorld. With more than 45,000 visitors, it takes over San Francisco each year. Its "appreciation" parties are legendary — this year three simultaneous stages featuring Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks, and Lenny Kravits — and made it clear (as if it were necessary) that Oracle is an industry giant.

In the wake of Oracle's acquisition of Stellent, enterprise content management (ECM) was firmly on the agenda. Or rather Fusion Middleware was firmly on the agenda, and ECM was discussed as an integral part of it. The Stellent acquisition was very different from the (admittedly much larger) acquisitions of Siebel and PeopleSoft, as they have continued as separate stand-alone business groups and products (albeit now running on the same middleware and platforms). Stellent the brand is no longer. The acquired functionality has already been repositioned and in some cases rearchitected as a set of services that coexist with other standard functions such identity management, security, integration, and BPEL.


>>Continue reading "Oracle Hasn't Wasted Time on ECM Middleware"


Posted Wednesday, November 28, 2007
11:13 AM
>>Comments


Is Search at a Tipping Point?

Has enterprise search finally reached the tipping point? Yes, seemed to be the conclusion of many of the experts at the recent Enterprise Search Summit West in San Jose, CA. Of course these are people with a vested interest in believing this to be the case, but there was palpably more energy, commitment, and enthusiasm for enterprise search than in previous years. I chatted with Sue Feldman of IDC and she confirmed my feelings that something has changed, that enterprise search is entering the mainstream, and that there is no turning back.

>>Continue reading "Is Search at a Tipping Point?"


Posted Tuesday, November 20, 2007
10:20 AM
>>Comments


ECM: The Payoff Comes With Real Change

It would be interesting to know how many failed enterprise content management (ECM) projects stemmed from the wrong deployment methodology. I was pondering this after a discussion with Liz Ure recently in London. Liz is the Head of Information Strategy for the Scottish Government and she talked about the inappropriateness of methodologies that emphasize implementation, rather than change.

There are any number of methods being touted for ECM, from Agile to Prince2 through any numerous of (AA-style) "step" approaches. I have long argued that any methodology is better than no methodology, and these are all fine in their way. But to Liz's point, they all emphasize successful system deployment, with a focus on "going live."

>>Continue reading "ECM: The Payoff Comes With Real Change"


Posted Friday, November 2, 2007
8:56 AM
>>Comments


SAAS-Based ECM? Here's My Dilemma

At every talk or seminar I give on enterprise content management (ECM) technology, I stress to attendees that they have many different options -- including software as a service (SaaS). It's still early days for SaaS ECM, but the approach is now joining open source as a viable alternative to traditional software licensing models. So I have no problem telling buyers that SaaS may be worth considering, but actually recommending that they pursue a SaaS option is still something of a stretch for me.

There are some very strong selling points for SaaS, including the relative ease of deployment and potentially much lower operating costs, not to mention the obvious appeal of obviating IT burdens such as patch management. Although ECM SaaS providers remain few in number, the scope of their offerings is widening. For example Xythos sells a dedicated SaaS option that seems to be building out a decent customer base for its basic-but-proven document collaboration services. SaaS ECM market leader Spring CM has a quite full offering — the equivalent of many traditional ECM vendors — with a wide range of productized applications, ranging from mortgage processing to hospital bill reconciliation.


>>Continue reading "SAAS-Based ECM? Here's My Dilemma"


Posted Tuesday, October 23, 2007
10:35 AM
>>Comments


Compliant Storage and Archiving An Oxymoron?

One of the great divides in the ECM world is the gulf between (and different understanding of) the needs of records management, on the one hand, versus IT storage on the other.

Archiving, storage and retention all sound like similar disciplines, and to hear some IT folk speak, you could be excused for thinking they are one and the same thing. All too often very expensive electronic storage hardware and software systems operate in ignorance of, and non-compliance with, legal and regulatory demands.


>>Continue reading "Compliant Storage and Archiving An Oxymoron?"


Posted Thursday, October 11, 2007
2:30 PM
>>Comments


Demystifying the Gartner ECM Magic Quadrant

Inclusion in the Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) is believed by vendors to have a very positive impact on sales. In the 2007 MQ for Enterprise Content Management, published late last month, it's clear that little (in Gartner's view) has changed in the ECM world. Well, we beg to differ: 2007 has been a period of major change! And so rather than harping on perceived weaknesses in this highly influential document, let's point out where the analysis in the CMS Watch ECM Suites Report differs from Gartner's.

>>Continue reading "Demystifying the Gartner ECM Magic Quadrant"


Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2007
10:34 AM
>>Comments


Open Text Keeps Up With Legal Sector

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendor Open Text recently announced that it will deliver a major upgrade to the acquired (ex-Hummingbird) eDocs technology for the Legal sector. Not earth-shattering, but important news nonetheless.

For starters it will come as a big relief to the very substantial customer base in the Legal sector that Hummingbird had built up before its late 2006 acquisition by Open Text. Secondly, it reaffirms Open Text's commitment to building on other repositories where sensible — in this case Microsoft — the platform that dominates Legal.

>>Continue reading "Open Text Keeps Up With Legal Sector"


Posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007
10:16 AM
>>Comments


Measuring Microsoft SharePoint Growth

Microsoft SharePoint continues to grow apace. In a presentation to financial analysts earlier this week, Microsoft stated that in the past year it has seen 35-percent year-over-year growth and revenues of a staggering $800 Million. The company claims is has shipped 85 million seat licenses to 17,000 customers since the beginning of SharePoint time (in 2001).

>>Continue reading "Measuring Microsoft SharePoint Growth"


Posted Friday, August 3, 2007
10:35 AM
>>Comments


A New Marketplace Greets EMC Documentum 6

Just a year or two ago, a major upgrade to the Documentum ECM platform would have been dominant news in the industry, but things change, and quickly. D6, the latest version of EMC's flagship enterprise content management platform, is undertaking a gradual roll-out through Q3 2007 to muted fanfare. EMC and its investors have high expectations for this new version, as the company's Documentum Content and Archiving division has shown only modest growth of 5 percent year-over-year, lower than most competitors.

>>Continue reading "A New Marketplace Greets EMC Documentum 6"


Posted Monday, July 30, 2007
12:58 PM
>>Comments


Oracle Tackles Files in the Database, Again

This week, Oracle announced 11g, the latest upgrade to its flagship database. The announcement brooks great interest within the ECM community because, as we detail in the ECM Suites Report, so many ECM tools (including all the leading players) utilize the Oracle database.

Of particular interest is enhanced support for "LOBs" (Large Objects), such as documents, drawings, images, and so forth. Oracle says 11g can now provide:
• Comparable performance to regular file servers for access to large files
• Greater compression capabilities
• The ability to encrypt LOBs within the database environment


>>Continue reading "Oracle Tackles Files in the Database, Again"


Posted Friday, July 13, 2007
12:05 PM
>>Comments


Microsoft, Big ECM and Big Pharma

This year's big Drug Information Association (DIA) conference in Atlanta concluded with something of a shock for enterprise content management (ECM) vendors. Microsoft SharePoint will now compete directly with established Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences-focused vendors EMC|Documentum and Open Text. Pharma was supposed to be sacred ground for the big ECM vendors -- one area of turf where few thought Microsoft would tread.

>>Continue reading "Microsoft, Big ECM and Big Pharma"


Posted Tuesday, July 10, 2007
3:49 PM
>>Comments


The Enterprise Content Management - SOA Divide

In the content management world, I sense something of a backlash brewing against SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), but I wonder how real or or even practical this is. With most Fortune 2000 firms already way down the SOA path, there seems to be no turning back. At the enterprise architecture level, there is no Plan B.
So the issue for me is not whether SOA is the way forward for ECM, but rather how seriously some of the ECM vendors are embracing it.

>>Continue reading "The Enterprise Content Management - SOA Divide"


Posted Friday, June 29, 2007
11:32 AM
>>Comments


Ingres Meets ECM to Boost Salesforce.com

The story begins with CA (Computer Associates), which spun off its Ingres line into a separate, open source project. Ingres is now teaming up with open source enterprise content management (ECM) provider Alfresco. The Ingres "Icebreaker" product (linux + database stack) will offer an ECM option provided via Alfresco.

>>Continue reading "Ingres Meets ECM to Boost Salesforce.com"


Posted Friday, June 22, 2007
7:01 AM
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ECM and The Reemergence of Process Reengineering

Another datapoint to contribute to my growing belief that large enterprises are now reembracing reengineering. It seems that there is only so much streamlining you can do until you reach a point where you need to completely rethink a situation. That point is being reached by more and more large organizations, and radical change is now on the agenda for banks, insurance companies and manufacturing firms globally.

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Posted Thursday, June 7, 2007
12:58 AM
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How Customers Should Prepare for Vendor Demos

Tony Byrne has provided some advice to vendors regarding product demos. Those ten points make essential reading for vendors and customers alike, but there is another perspective. Since I have personally sat in on those demos both as a buyers' advisor and as a vendor (system integrator), I need to add three points that customers should keep in mind when asking vendors to demonstrate their products:

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Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007
11:10 AM
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EMC Bows 'Transactional Content Management'

Transactional document management (high-volume throughput of relatively static documents) has long been dominated by IBM and FileNet. EMC this week announced that it, too, wants to compete in this lucrative market. Hence as part of its forthcoming Documentum D6 release, they have announced "TCM" (Transactional Content Management). Currently, TCM is essentially a user interface module for high-volume scenarios, to be complimented at a later date by changes to the core D6 platform as well as better application of EMC's Captiva technology.

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Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007
9:03 AM
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When Search and Content Management Collide

"When Search and ECM Collide" was the title of a tutorial I ran in New York this week. It's an important topic to explore as both Search vendors and ECM vendors both seem to believe that either

A. They can do without the other,
B. They understand the other fully and see the opposing technology as simply a minor supporting or interfacing toolset.




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Posted Friday, May 18, 2007
8:34 AM
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The 'E' in ECM Stands for Efficient Processes

At the recent AIIM Expo I had the privilege to lead a panel, "When E Means Big," where customers revealed lessons learned in truly huge ECM deployments, as opposed to the "regular" world of ECM. What struck me was how the discussion barely touched on technology, but instead gravitated toward such issues as governance, strategy, funding and ownership. A strong consensus emerged on the need for a detailed mid- to long-term strategy for ECM, that business cases needed to take into account cross-departmental processes and concerns, and that nearly all ECM at this scale is underpinned in some way by BPM (Business Process Management).

And most surprising: none of the panelists saw compliance as a key reason to deploy ECM tools. In their minds the only grounds for procuring such systems was good old-fashioned cost reduction and process improvement. This viewpoint appears to fly in the face of surveys and polls suggesting the opposite, but in line with anecdotal evidence for consultants and SI's who contributed to our recent ECM Suites Report research. Compliance is important, but improving the bottom line is essential...


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Posted Friday, May 4, 2007
10:01 AM
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Thoughts on Content Management as a Service

Are SaaS (Software as a Service) options viable for enterprise content management (ECM)? I hear that question with increasing frequency, and frankly, it's a difficult one to answer. There are plenty of vendor options out there - from pure plays like Spring CM, to hybrids like Xythos and Treno. But just because there are plenty of options doesn't means it's a particularly good idea.

I can see the logic of Basic Content Services (BCS) being delivered through the SaaS model, but full-blown ECM deployments seem much more of a stretch. In the world of ECM we are typically looking at complex processes with integration into legacy systems -- it's hard to see the match up with SaaS.

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Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007
8:52 AM
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Salesforce.com Adds Content Management

Yesterday, Salesforce.com, the hosted CRM giant, announced it will enter the ECM sector with Web 2.0-style collaboration software it acquired earlier this year from a start-up called Koral. It's a bold announcement that boasts the Salesforce Platform will "manage all enterprise information on demand - structured and unstructured." In fact it goes even further to state that Salesforce Content will "liberate customers from....software like EMC|Documentum..." so said charismatic CEO Marc Benioff.

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Posted Wednesday, April 11, 2007
10:15 AM
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Considering Smaller ECM Vendors

Currently on Intelligent Enterprise you can read my recent review of Xythos Document Manager Version 6. Though I have a short fuse with those who say that "basic content services" (BCS) are all that any enterprise needs for their ECM requirements, I remain nonetheless supportive of "lite" offerings.

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Posted Thursday, April 5, 2007
12:01 AM
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IBM Digests FileNet

Last week, IBM clarified its ECM intentions via a series of analyst briefings. In short the recently acquired FileNet P8 product will become Big Blue's main enterprise content management (ECM) offering, although legacy IBM products will remain supported for the foreseeable future. The latest version of P8 (version 4) is certainly a powerful solution for buyers of large-scale ECM systems and will benefit over time with the absorption of other IBM products, for example in enterprise search.

>>Continue reading "IBM Digests FileNet"


Posted Wednesday, February 21, 2007
4:12 PM
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Top Ten Reasons Your ECM System Runs Slowly

1. You are running your enterprise content management (ECM) system on old hardware and operating systems that need upgrading

2. The average size of electronic documents has grown to a point where current network bandwidth is insufficient to deliver documents to the user in a sensible time frame

3. You are delivering native format files to end users rather than making use of rendering functionality

4. You have allowed your users to dump content into your repository without concern for process, rules or structure, and now it's a humungous mess

5. You are running a centralized system but really should have a distributed one

>>Continue reading "Top Ten Reasons Your ECM System Runs Slowly"


Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007
2:04 PM
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Access Vs. Delivery: Two Views of Content Security

James Governer has prompted an important discussion on his popular blog regarding ECM and Security. He raises some very good questions while lobbying enterprise buyers to team with him to pressure ECM vendors to respond. I'm sure many ECM vendors will be secretly annoyed about this, for they pride themselves on their security capabilities. But it points to two different perspectives around security. The Architect views security as stopping bad guys from getting in (the Firewall Syndrome). The Document Management view casts security as assigning permissions (the ACL syndrome).

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Posted Wednesday, December 20, 2006
11:46 AM
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