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Theresa Regli

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Objective technology analysis for the French?

13-Mar-2008

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Enterprise Search, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Vendor Viability & Financials

Much like "le brunch" has infiltrated the Paris restaurant scene, Anglophone phrases like le CRM, l'ERP and l'ECM were omnipresent at Documation Paris this week. So were vendors at the conference podium, at the expense of anyone else. No analysts, no end-users (who weren't with a vendor), no one who wasn't selling a software product reached a microphone. Where's the objective and unbiased source of advice for someone looking to invest in content technology in France? Où est la Résistance?

Absent, apparently. Now, I'll admit vendor presentations here are very different from the ones you see at conferences in the US, or even the UK. They're not blatant and unapologetic sales pitches given by over-enthusiastic, perky and well-dressed marketing supermodels. During my time living in France, I never found the French to take well to marketing, though they do like the supermodels (so much so that the president married one -- pas mal). Still, the French are a people of discretion, and vendor presentations reflect that. Just as the French are complaining about the very public and un-French braggadocio of their president's romantic courtship, they'd do the same if blatantly wooed by a vendor. Marketing, in some ways, is downright un-French. When the French won the World Cup in 1998 (of football/soccer, of course), I wanted a t-shirt. Several days after the celebrations, shocked to have not seen any, I asked my friends where I could get one. They looked confused and shrugged gallically. Why would anyone want a t-shirt proclaiming that France had won the World Cup? It was several weeks later before I saw one in stores. Super Bowl marketing, it wasn't.

So why are the French so willing to sit and listen to sales pitches about software? Simply because they're trying to learn from someone, and vendors are among the few who are teaching it in their own language. Over coffee with French blogger Jean-Christophe Dichant, he pointed out that there's very few people writing about ECM technologies in French, which is why he started his blog. I asked him and several enterprise search vendors if there's a place for objective technology analysis in France, and if the lack of content in French makes a big difference. Dichant believes people who want to make the effort to perform substantial research will do so in English. Given our own customer base at CMS Watch is nearly a third in countries where English isn't the primary language, I'm not surprised to hear that, but it's still a challenge for newbies to the technology to also have to read about it in a language that may not be 100% comfortable with.

And what about objective analysis? "People here see analysis as paid off, and because of that, people see it as a very American business," said one vendor. "I'll never be in the top quadrant, because I don't have Autonomy's money," said another.

According to Dichant, the trend here is "de toucher" -- the French won't buy software without getting their hands on it and seeing how it really works, much like they insist on touching their fine silk scarves or deeply inhaling their wine. Bravo, we say, to that. Encore! Let's hope that's the next step for many of them after attending Documation, as it should be for you, too. Anything can be made to look good on paper. Le marketing is the same in any language. Vive la Résistance!