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Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Documentum-EMC to offer embedded ECM

20-Nov-2006

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Marketplace at Large,

Commoditization of the repository level of the ECM market continues this week with the imminent arrival of EMC|Documentum "OEM edition." It's a canny move by EMC to try and stay ahead of the database vendors who are moving heavily into this space (IBM, Microsoft and Oracle). But I'm not sure how successful it will prove to be in practice. For starters, EMC|Documentum has little experience in the embedded market and as historically one of the most expensive options, the rock bottom pricing models demanded in the embedded market will certainly be a new experience for Documentum. At one level this appears to be a simple attempt to get broader reach, but at another it's a brave attempt to stay relevant. As the repository layers of ECM become commoditized by database vendors, the market for traditional ECM players becomes delivering industry-specific solutions on top of that infrastructure framework. But EMC has much bigger ambitions and wants to compete head to head with the software giants. It takes a good while to know whether an OEM model will become commercially successful -- as only large volumes of activity will return anything of value. What we know today is that this move is a jab at Oracle, and how SAP responds will be interesting to watch (indicator of if they have ECM ambitions of their own). And though those two goliaths own much of the business application market, this still leaves thousands of smaller app vendors -- a complex maze of channels to manage. Virtually all of whom run their applications on IBM, Microsoft, or Oracle databases. It remains unclear how this will play out...