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Alan Pelz-Sharpe

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EMC Documentum for your Case Management?

17-May-2010

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Selecting Technology, Documentum , Documentum, ECM Suite, Fabasoft Folio, iManage WorkSite, OpenText ECM Suite, Universal Content Management , Universal Content Management , WebCenter Content, Finance, Government, Health Care, Higher Ed, Legal

One of the more interesting and surprising things to emerge from last week's EMC World event in Boston was that the core Documentum Content Server has been repositioned into the xCP (Intelligent Case Management) product stack. 

Though not really a surprise that Documentum wants to build up its Case Management credentials in this burgeoning area (just think Healthcare, Government, Litigation and Insurance), it's far from clear why anyone would chose EMC Documentum over any other vendor's Case Management offering.

Case Management solutions vary widely, from pretenders to fully fledged players. Everyone from Autonomy to FabaSoft to Oracle has an offering,  There are even some third-party options available for SharePoint. But how each vendor approaches Case Management differs, since specific buyer requirements differ widely too.  Some enterprise buyers seek good BPM capabilities,  while others seek complex metadata management services, records management and retention or even the relative ability to manage files that can range from physical items through to rich media in the same context.  

There is much talk amongst consultants and vendors of the "commoditization" of ECM, but I see little evidence of that in the real world.  Sure, anyone can offer you check in/out and version control and workflow -- but not everyone does those things well, or even adequately -- and some do them too well and deliver you complete confusion and overkill.

One thing is for sure: one size most definitely does not fit all for Case Management.  Therefore, any buyer without a very solid handle on their business requirements and processes is walking into a selection minefield.

As for EMC Documentum, I gave up trying to understand their ever changing strategy(ies) some time back.  From once being the clear market leader they are now in an ever more crowded and ever more specialized and complex field (we cover about 30 in our evaluation research).  That said, EMC Documentum continues to be a key player, and we will continue to evaluate them, and on occasion recommend them to some advisory clients, assuming Documentum makes sense for that client's very specific needs.