Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

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Another departure at EMC-Documentum

18-May-2007

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

How many good people can you lose before things start to suffer? The answer is usually not too many -- but in EMC's Documentum division we have now seen the departure of Dave DeWalt (former CEO), Howard Shao (Co-founder) and now Rob Tarkoff (former EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, leaving for Adobe) all in a short period of time. Considering that Documentum D6 -- a major upgrade -- is due to be launched soon, it's clear that not everyone is happy in Pleasanton. My core issue with EMC's acquisition of Documentum was that they have opposing business models: Documentum follows a consulting-oriented sell designed to reduce the amount of enterprise information to core essentials, while EMC wants to store as much of that information (that Documentum wants to eliminate) as possible. They are also two very different corporate cultures. For a while Documentum has been left to go its own way, but voices from inside (along with the recent key departures) suggest that the inevitable clash of directions is beginning. Yet with IBM and Oracle ramping up as competitors, the timing for them couldn't be worse.

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