Blog posts by Alan Pelz-Sharpe

ECM TALK - A New Podcast Series

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Sep-2010

Before speaking at industry events I often post a blog asking people to come along and say hello in person. In London a few months back James Lappin did just that, and though I knew of James as an Records Management (RM) expert by reputation, I had not actually met him in person ... Continue Reading

Hyland acquires Hershey Software

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 1-Sep-2010

Ok you probably did a double take when you saw that Hyland had acquired Hershey's. Sadly the world of chocolate and ECM are not about to merge. ... Continue Reading

When 66KB really equals 4.12MB

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 1-Sep-2010

Just as Route 66 in the United States has taken on a mythical status, 66KB is begining to take on the same legendary status in my own little world of ECM ... Continue Reading

Making sense of IT gibberish

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Aug-2010

Explaining technical concepts -- which are often quite abstract -- can be quite a challenge. So at the Real Story Group we often try to be creative in how we go about explaining things ... Continue Reading

IBM Acquires Datacap - First Take

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Aug-2010

Today IBM announced the acquisition of Datacap. It was no surprise really as Big Blue has been talking for a while about enhancing their overall imaging offering, to better leverage advanced case management ... Continue Reading

Document Asset Management?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Aug-2010

You probably see a variety of overlapping terms to describe the management of content. One example is "assets" -- aren't all content items assets of one kind or another? ... Continue Reading

Cri Du Coeur for Records Management

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Aug-2010

If you were to trust in the marketing swill that comes out of the vendor and analyst community these days, you would believe that large organizations are not just embracing ERM (Electronic Records Management) but that they are positively hugging and kissing it too ... Continue Reading

Updated ECM evaluations released

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 20-Jul-2010

Today we are releasing a fairly substantial update to our ECM evaluation research. Over the past few months we have been looking in detail into product changes across some of the larger and better known ECM suite vendors ... Continue Reading

ECM Price Lists: Why the Secrecy?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Jul-2010

Yesterday morning I was reading through Oracle's recently updated price list (yes my Monday mornings really are that exciting). I was thinking that I have long valued the fact that I can access simple, clear and open prices from major vendors like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. I might occasionally gasp at the prices listed ... Continue Reading

Justifying the cost of e-government

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Jul-2010

There is an outcry in the UK at the moment over the cost of building and maintaining Government websites. The figures released by the government relating to individual department website costs ... Continue Reading

ECM co-existence and the vuvuzela

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Jun-2010

I'm in the middle of reviewing feedback for a number of ECM product evaluations that I'm presently updating. The upgrade from minor version to minor version (1.7 to 1.8 etc) is usually heralded by loud marketing cries from the suppliers. Closer inspection though tends to reveal fixes and gaps plugged, rather than anything revolutionary ... Continue Reading

UK Budget Cuts and Public Sector IT

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Jun-2010

In the UK today, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne will announce his emergency budget details. The one thing we know in advance is that this will contain some of the most severe cuts in recent history ... Continue Reading

ECM Awards in Africa and the UK

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Jun-2010

One of the fun aspects of being an analyst is that people ask you to judge things. Though we refrain from categorizing "best" products and vendors, judging actual projects that exemplify good information management practice is always ... Continue Reading

Day 4 UK Roadshow - more SharePoint indifference

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Jun-2010

So here we are in London, the last stop on the UK ECM roadshow. London is certainly the biggest and busiest of the four events, with more from the private sector than public sector at this one ... Continue Reading

Automating manual processes - is it always worth the effort?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Jun-2010

For IT professionals it is taken as a matter of faith that automation improves efficiency, that making paper based documents and processes electronic is, in and of itself, a default benefit. But experience in the real world paints a more mixed and problematic picture ... Continue Reading

Day 3 UK Roadshow - Savvy Buyers

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Jun-2010

Theme of the day? Difficult to say really, but if I were to choose two it would be the content chaos and archiving ... Continue Reading

Day 2 UK Roadshow - SharePoint skepticism

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Jun-2010

Day 2 of the UK AIIM Roadshow and we are here at the Reebok Stadium Bolton (home of Bolton Wanderers football club). Theme of today amongst the attendees seems to be ... Continue Reading

UK roadshow diary Day One - dynamic publishing

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Jun-2010

Day One of the AIIM UK Roadshow started in Glasgow, a place I know pretty well. The sessions were followed by a long but stunningly beautiful drive down ... Continue Reading

See you at the UK ECM Roadshow

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Jun-2010

Just a note to say that I will be at each of upcoming AIIM UK Roadshow the week of the 14th June. I will be giving the closing keynote each day ... Continue Reading

Autonomy buys CA Information Governance - A First Take

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Jun-2010

Autonomy today announced that it has acquired CA's (formerly Computer Associates) Information Governance assets. These consist primarily of two main products ... Continue Reading

No magic in eDiscovery

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Jun-2010

In the American corporate world, eDiscovery is the "pain du jour," as requests to find and turn over documents grow exponentially ... Continue Reading

The case for Case Management - and Business Intelligence

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Jun-2010

Both IBM and now EMC have recently touted their improved Case Management capabilities, so I thought it timely to take a look at this area in a little more detail ... Continue Reading

Video: Meeting the System Integrator

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Jun-2010

I was myself once a systems integrator, and many of my friends still work for systems integrators. This is my roundabout way of saying sorry in advance for the following video ... Continue Reading

Multiple document silos - where to start?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 31-May-2010

Virtually every customer of ours manages multiple document repositories. The document volumes stored in these repositories can get enormous; even smaller organizations can produce millions of documents, while the largest run to billions ... Continue Reading