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Alan Pelz-Sharpe

iManage and iPhone - something new, something old

15-Jun-2009

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Selecting Technology, iManage WorkSite, Legal

This past week Search-cum-ECM vendor Autonomy announced that it was releasing 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:

• The Wireless DMS Suite for the iPhone from Matrix Logic
• The MST iPhone viewer from MST Technologies
• The open source iPhone Navigator for Alfresco
• The Dav-E based iPhone connection for Xythos
• The ReaddleDocs iPhone application

But of more interest than the iPhone integration itself was the return of the name "iManage." For those of you who have been around a while you may remember that iManage was a silicon valley start up that slightly mistimed its IPO and failed to make the huge sums of money that companies like Interwoven had done just a year or two before. In fact Interwoven -- a firm that had pioneered the Web Content Management mini-boom -- acquired iManage in 2003, and the iManage name was subsequently dropped. What followed was one firm (Interwoven) and two brands, TeamSite and WorkSite.

Now it seems that Autonomy is reviving the iManage brand, and effectively giving the iManage rump their independence back. The truth is the iManage team was never fully integrated into the Interwoven collection, so there is sense to this. There is also the fact that WorkSite suffered a bit at Interwoven, where the first and foremost passion was for WCM (TeamSite). Now under Autonomy's ownership WorkSite is likely to see a lot more love and attention, particularly around the areas of E-discovery and Compliance. Time will (as always) tell how it all will pan out, but, (as always) you can rest assured you will get "The Real Story" here.