Real Story Group. Make Better Technology Decisions.

Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Of magic quadrants and buyers' choices

8-Dec-2006

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

I have just been reading through the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM (available helpfully at the blogs of John Mancini, and George Dearing). This peculiar chart remains a highly influential document, loved and hated by vendors in equal measure. Inclusion in the famous top right quadrant might mean increased sales for the leading players, while relegation to a lower box, disaster. And for small vendors mention anywhere on the chart validation that they matter. For buyers of ECM technology, though, it is of limited value. For to imagine that the world of ECM is limited to those placed in the magical squares is to misunderstand fundamentally the actual market place dynamic. For example in this edition of the MQ, SAP is mysteriously listed despite the fact that it does not currently have an ECM offering. Other firms that do have an ECM offering are excluded. Open Source vendors such as Nuxeo, Knowledge Tree and Alfresco get no mention at all, and industry vertical players such as Cimage are mentioned, but their rivals Spescom are not. Day Software is surely more of a Web CMS company than an ECM firm.

In defense of Gartner the reasoning behind inclusion (and to some degree exclusion) is detailed in the accompanying text to the MQ, and as a particular snapshot of the market it is no better or worse than you'll find elsewhere; it just carries a much more influential brand on the mast head. Clearly, though, buyers should be a little cautious in using this as a tool to pull short or long lists together, let alone actually decide on a provider, since it only tells a partial story. For example, a small but financially solid (but excluded) vendor who is creating solutions that will effectively meet your needs might well offer a better option than a debt-riddled larger firm (inclusion in the chart is limited to those over $25 M in revenues), and down-selecting vendors simply because they are in the top right can make for a strange shortlist of incompatible products and platforms each trying to do different things. Remember vendors love the MQ and invest a lot of time and money in ensuring they are well placed. Buyers of technology on the other hand might be better advised to spend their time and money fully researching the ECM market and available options.