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Added By Apoorv Durga on 7-Feb-2012
Last week open source document management vendor Alfresco released Version 4 of its (commercially-supported) enterprise edition package. As we've come to expect from Alfresco, it's long on buzzwords and interesting new directions, but a bit short on functional niceties and architectural continuity ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 6-Feb-2012
I enjoyed an excellent day in Oxford last week speaking (and listening to the other speakers) at a CMS Expert Group round table event. Many topics of interest emerged, but the one that underlay several discussions -- and is also close to my heart -- was, "When is a Web Content Management project not a Web Content Management project?" ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 6-Feb-2012
Last week, IBM acquired erstwhile partner Worklight, an Israel-based vendor.
Worklight is a platform for developing mobile applications that enables you to build ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 30-Jan-2012
We've just updated our longstanding "subway map" for 2012.
Biggest changes have come around acquisitions (e.g., HP), and ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 26-Jan-2012
We've just released an advisory paper, "Are cloud-based file-sharing services too immature for the enterprise?” ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Jan-2012
There is of course much interest these days in both the cloud and more general usage of hosted/off-premise environments for managing electronic documents. Indeed it's an area that we have been receiving many more inquiries from our advisory service customers over this past year. Yet despite the interest, one area I find few buyers investigate thoroughly enough is that of file encryption ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Jan-2012
We have recently published our Document Management - ECM Market Analysis for 2012, and as a where-is-the-marketplace-headed snapshot, I think it's an interesting one. I have been writing these since the late 1990s and it's one of several analyst tasks that I really look forward to ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 13-Dec-2011
At such time you decide you need a mobile presence for your corporate website or for an enterprise application, you'll face some key decision points, the outcome of which will define how you execute on a mobile strategy ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Dec-2011
A skilled technology industry analyst is a rare bird: loves figuring out the innards of the tools, writes with depth and clarity, but can communicate effectively with business and IT leaders alike and coach them to make good decisions. We try to set a pretty high bar above and beyond that. If you've seen our work and think you'd be a good fit for a very demanding job, check out our ongoing analyst position openings ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 6-Dec-2011
It's that time of year for our team of Real Story Group analysts to reveal our 2012 predictions, where we try to predict what the future holds in the technology world ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 5-Dec-2011
Like all analyst firms, every year-end we make predictions. I think we're fairly unique, though, in going back to see how our earlier predictions fared. Let's see whether our predictions for 2011 actually panned out. These were the twelve predictions we made in December, 2010 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Nov-2011
Recently I fulfilled a lifelong ambition to be an actor (minor parts - small films) and I finally came to understand the meaning of the thespian question, "What is my motivation?"
It is an important question that we probably don't ask enough, and buyers might want to ask the same of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) suppliers. Yes, seriously ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 18-Nov-2011
Perceptive Software, which was acquired by Lexmark a while back, has announced a new product for Document Output Management (DOM) called ModusOne. It is a separate product that can work with or without ImageNow, Perceptive's Document Management tool that we evaluate in our Document Management Report ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 17-Nov-2011
OK, I'll admit it. One of my guilty pleasures in recent years has been the American television show, Storage Wars ... Continue Reading
Added By Stephanie Lemieux on 16-Nov-2011
You the customer can choose from among several fully-featured taxonomy management tools, yet each vendor has tackled the problem of managing vocabularies from a different angle. So how do you figure out which one is right for your context? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Nov-2011
We've just published an advisory paper for our ECM and SharePoint subscribers (non subscribers can purchase it here) analyzing the implications of large enterprise buyers considering Box.Net alongside Microsoft SharePoint ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Nov-2011
Last week we ran the SharePoint Symposium in Washington DC and kicked off the two-day event with a question to the audience. What single word best describes "SharePoint" to you? The preponderance of negative answers thrown out surprised us ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Oct-2011
Yesterday we learned that Lexmark, best know for its printers, had acquired Netherlands-based BPM (Business Process Management) vendor Pallas-Athena. This follows in the path of Lexmark's acquisition of Perceptive Software, a document management company (evaluated in our Document Management reviews) ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 14-Oct-2011
Not long ago, many were scoffing at Box as being just another California start-up foolishly comparing themselves to the SharePoint behemoth. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 10-Oct-2011
Once you decide to mobile-enable your enterprise information systems, the key question you need to address is whether to provide mobile access via Mobile Web (browser-based interfaces) or by offering downloadable applications ("apps").
This is a longstanding debate and proponents of both approaches will point to numerous benefits ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Sep-2011
Next Wednesday I will be hosting a free SharePoint-themed webinar. My intent is to look at SharePoint in 2011, its victories to date and its challenges ahead. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Sep-2011
This past week HP fired their CEO Leo Apotheker, making him the third CEO in a row to part with HP prematurely. But of all the departures this one one is the least surprising by far. His announcement that he was to buy Autonomy for a staggering $10.3 Billion -- far more than anyone else figured the firm was worth -- and spin of its market leading PC division was surely the most spectacular act of self-immolation in a long time ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Sep-2011
Since HP decided to buy Autonomy for just over $10 Billion dollars, there has been a lot of discussion over the acquisitions that Autonomy itself made over the years to expand its portfolio of products and grow its revenues. ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 31-Aug-2011
As Irene crawled up the coast, we Vermonters were ready for high winds and power outages, but never expected our rivers to crest beyond historic levels. Just about every story of data, information, or historic loss starts with the phrase “we never expected.” I never expected to experience an earthquake when I was in Virginia last week, either ... Continue Reading
Added By Shawn Shell on 25-Aug-2011
While SharePoint has been on the market since 2001, customers still get quite confused by Microsoft's licensing schemes. When I speak at conferences, I'm commonly asked about how to license SharePoint. Questions like "what can I expect to pay for SharePoint licenses" or "what specific licenses to I have to buy" are frequent topics of discussion ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 22-Aug-2011
Vendors are increasingly using more abstract labels to describe their products. Doubtless all these vendors employ well-staffed marketing departments who spend a lot of time working up this sort of nomenclature ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Aug-2011
I cannot say that the acquisition by HP of search giant Autonomy bodes well. Taking the parties' past histories into account, this simply doesn't seem to be a good long term match. Hence my advice is ... Continue Reading
Added By Sanjeev Gupta on 18-Aug-2011
I was recently updating the Nuxeo evaluation in our Document & Records Management Research, and the biggest news here is that the open source ECM vendor has replaced its repository layer ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Aug-2011
The research and consulting giant Gartner recently released a maturity model for ECM (Enterprise Content Management). Since its release (it's an overhaul of an earlier model), I have had a number of people point out to me the similarities between it and the open source maturity model for ECM that we contribute to, called ECM3, which is now a part of MIKE2.0 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-Jul-2011
When you advise customers selecting software, as we do, on occasion you run into very awkward and difficult situations. Recently we've seen more cases in which we (RSG) are advising buyers, and software vendors bidding on an RFP process have contacted us directly to elicit information and advice, or in two particular cases to try to bribe us ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Jul-2011
OpenText today announced that they are to buy Texas based-SharePoint partner Global360. Most acquisitions like this end up becoming quite disruptive for you the customer. Is this one any different? ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 13-Jul-2011
Some enterprises do indeed want to apply retention policies to employee tweets. EntropySoft, a content integration and migration vendor, has released a new connector for Twitter. EntropySoft already has a set of connectors that get OEM'ed into various packaged content and document management systems, many of which we cover in our evaluation reports ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Jul-2011
I was really happy last week to see that the long-awaited British Standards Institution Code of Practice (PAS 89) for ECM has been made available for public comment and review ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Jul-2011
We're hiring. Would you like to explore joining our top-notch team of analysts? Read the full position details here ... Continue Reading
Added By Sanjeev Gupta on 8-Jul-2011
Going through technology selection is like finding yourself a bride or a groom – everyone will we have their own opinions to share, with a lot of hype being built around each one's recommendations. But really, no one but you knows what you want and what your real priorities are. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 7-Jul-2011
Content Acquisition (or Ingestion) is an important step in many business processes. A form is a common way to acquire content or information for these business processes. Forms are everywhere - you fill up a form to buy an insurance policy, apply for a visa or request a new home loan. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 29-Jun-2011
By now you know that Microsoft SharePoint has a 3-year development cycle. Three years is not a long time for highly process-oriented functionality, like many types of document management applications. However, a long development cycle is a significant shortcoming in areas like Collaboration/Social and Web Content Management, where Redmond's circa-2009 codebase feels increasingly out of step ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Jun-2011
It's a discussion that reoccurs regularly enough with Real Story Group Document Management (ECM) subscribers -- how do I get skilled ECM staff? It's a tough question to answer ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 23-Jun-2011
Rules of thumb can be dangerous -- because of the inherent broad generalizations. But they can also be quite useful, especially if they highlight something that may be unpleasant to hear, but shouldn't be ignored.One such truths is that in general, your implementation cost for an enterprise implementation will come to 7 to 8 times that of initial licensing ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Jun-2011
Capture is an area of the ECM spectrum that often falls under the radar, despite the huge advances made in this area of technology over the past few years. Nowadays, capture accuracy rates are regularly in the high 90s percentagewise, while form recognition and consequent processing has become incredibly fast and accurate ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 21-Jun-2011
We've said this before on this blog, in various ways. But sometimes, the simple analogies seem to work the best: if you think of SharePoint, think of it as a Swiss Army Knife. That sounds great, doesn't it? It's like the multi-tool of content technologies. Imagine a major vendor and integrators turning up at dinner to explain how great their Swiss Army Knife is for any purpose, and yes, it's excellent to carve your food with, too. Why go with just a knife, if you can have a whole range of additional functionality in one system? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Jun-2011
Capture + workflow = ECM.
It's a simple formula that works most of the time in enterprise environments. It works for the simple reason that most electronic documents that require organizational attention typically are captured and proceed down a structured workflow ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 27-May-2011
One of the most common questions an enterprise technology buyer will ask of a vendor or supplier is, "What do you know about our business?" It's the kind of question that one gets asked in job interviews too, and just like that personal situation, how the question gets answered can have a huge impact on the result ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 23-May-2011
In this era of many enterprises moving content to the cloud, it is easy to get caught up in the potential benefits and rush to get started without properly protecting yourself ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-May-2011
Vendors claim DOD5015 compliance, but few organizations actually use the systems in a DOD5015 compliant manner. In short it is an over-arching standard that demands a particularly complex and cumbersome working methodology ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 16-May-2011
In Boston, USA for most of the month of May, I've been following with interest a local story about former Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi. A federal grand jury recently indicted the former Speaker and three of his associates on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and mail fraud, after DiMasi allegedly wielded his power to procure multimillion-dollar contracts for a software company, Cognos ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-May-2011
Well, it has been almost a year since Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch announced that his firm was to make a major acquisition. Today it happened. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-May-2011
I have been attending and speaking at the Enterprise Search Summit in New York this week, a good conference with many opportunities to rub shoulders and pick the brains of smart folk. But it's also an event that gives me a sense of deja-vu, since so little appears to change in the world of search. In fact I am fairly convinced that I could pull out a presentation from a decade back, brush off the dust, and present it with a straight face today ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 5-May-2011
In any content management system -- web content management (WCM), document management (DM) or digital asset management (DAM) -- how content gets persisted is an important aspect of the overall content lifecycle ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 3-May-2011
If you ask "What is a Portal" on twitter, you will likely get numerous replies depending on tweeples' point of view. For some, their Intranet is a Portal, while for others a public search engine is their Portal, and for still some others their own website is a Portal. Instead of ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 27-Apr-2011
This week, OpenText released version 8.1 of their WCM product. It features new media management capabilities, better support for mobile devices (result of their weComm acquisition) and some other enhancements. But more importantly, they ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Apr-2011
People often ask me about the origins of The Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch). How and why did we come into being? What made (and makes) us different? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Apr-2011
Last week we published an advisory paper for our ECM subscribers that analyzes some of the key challenges and limitations of using SharePoint's native services for Records Management (RM). The briefing focuses on the standard configurations supplied by Microsoft, outside of third-party software options. Here's the outline ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 1-Apr-2011
I'm pleased to share the results from some new, path-breaking research we've been conducting this year. Content Management technology is no longer necessary. Read the full release here ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 31-Mar-2011
I led a session at last week's Info360 event in Washington DC called "ECM & BI - a Shotgun Marriage." I was unsure about it from the get-go, as my fear was that I would spend 45 minutes essentially making a single point: that these two things are largely incompatible. What actually transpired was a bit more interesting ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 30-Mar-2011
Over the past few weeks I have been seriously challenged to revisit and reassess my views around SharePoint. As an analyst it is all too easy to fall into the trap of studying a topic, coming to a conclusion (hopefully the right one) and then sticking with that conclusion. Time and the steady pace of progress eventually change everything, and SharePoint is no different in this regard ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 14-Mar-2011
For most enterprises, selecting technology can be like picking a winner of the NCAA basketball tournament ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 9-Mar-2011
OpenText continues its long acquisition spree. After acquiring Metastorm last month, it has now acquired UK-based weComm, a vendor in the mobility space ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Mar-2011
What could have been a snoozefest in fact turned into a full-on attack of the value and promise of Cloud Computing ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 7-Mar-2011
Due to popular demand, I'm happy to announce that "Content Therapy" is back at the info360 Conference in Washington DC ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-Mar-2011
This past week in Los Angeles I spent a little time talking with three well established ECM (Enterprise Content Management) integrators and resellers. All three had started out business more than ten years ago, and had initially specialized in building and implementing solutions for the likes of Documentum, FileNet, Hyland, and OpenText ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 2-Mar-2011
This seems to be a season of "proposals" by open source vendors to attach pieces of their code to a larger foundation. It sounds promising, but the benefits for you the customer could remain far off ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 28-Feb-2011
Most software implementations fail to realize their stated objectives -- and much of the problem can be traced to a poor solution selection process. Very often a business unit leads the process, but they may have never done it before. Other times selection may fall completely to an IT team or individual, who in turn may have to guess at business needs in the absence of sufficient participation by their colleagues ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 18-Feb-2011
The era of the mega-IT exposition may be closing, but two large conferences -- info360 and Interop -- continue to thrive. I think it's because both events are very well run, and both focus on meaty business problems ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 10-Feb-2011
Today we've published an advisory paper called "When will DAM 'Lite' suffice?" This analysis emerged out of discussions with subscription customers about the digital asset management services now available within web content management technology platforms. Our customers sometimes ask us if they can use their WCM or document management system for their growing DAM needs. And then there's the constant question, "Can I use SharePoint as my DAM?" ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 8-Feb-2011
With the addition of our newest analyst, Irina, it seems like a good time to remind you where you can keep tabs on the latest research from the Real Story Group. We know that you consume information in a variety of ways, so we’ll try to accommodate your preferences ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Feb-2011
I can hardly believe it (joking) but OpenText has acquired yet another technology company (first picked up by my colleague Irina yesterday). This time around it is US-based BPM (Business Process Management) firm Metastorm ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 1-Feb-2011
There is no more challenging an environment for true ECM (Enterprise Content Management) than that of healthcare ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Jan-2011
For the past ten years we've been using check-marks (with plus and minus indicators) in our comparative ratings and scenario charts. Some of our research customers have asked for a more visually revealing approach, and we've settled on harvey balls ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Jan-2011
When I wrote about EMC imposing audits on long-term Documentum customers in February 2009, I received several communications from very disgruntled customers. I posited that this was a bad way of going about business, and figured EMC would temper their policing a bit. But it seems I was wrong. Despite customer fury, EMC and KPMG continue to invoke out-of-the-blue audits on some of their best licensees. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 14-Jan-2011
The tech blogosphere has been debating the apparent demise of the Java Content Repository (JCR) spec, especially after news that the open source Document Management firm Nuxeo dropped support for the standard. JCR's popularity and future are always debatable. However, it should focus you the customer on an important topic: what happens when a standard dies? ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 11-Jan-2011
Last week we released our 2011 Document Management (ECM) Market Analysis which includes the 2011 Document Management Cross-Check. Next week, my colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe, will shares the latest findings on the Document & Records Management market in a free webinar ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Jan-2011
Here's our latest "Content Technology Vendor Map," updated for 2011. We've accounted for several marketplace changes, and happily, numerous new stations. Many of you have asked us in the past to interpret the map and explain further how it can help you, so we'll do just that ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Jan-2011
Microsoft estimates that you the customer will spend a total of $6.2 Billion will spent on services related to SharePoint in 2011. According to my rough estimate, you can add $1.7 Billion in 2011 SharePoint license revenue on top. This for a product that many sales folk continue to tout as low cost, and sometimes even as free ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Jan-2011
Today we published our analysis of the 2011 Document & Records Management marketplace, including our "Cross-Check" review of buyer risk ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 5-Jan-2011
Business users want easy access to content and don't tend to care where it gets stored. However, the mechanics of storage have always been an important consideration for IT and System Admin folks ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 29-Dec-2010
There's a great new book that begins with two questions:
And then proceeds to answer them both. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Dec-2010
Just as Microsoft has its own very distinctive approach and definition for ECM, so too does Oracle. In fact as time goes on, Oracle's approach to ECM is becoming more individual and distinctive ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Dec-2010
The longtime document and records management product iManage WorkSite has had a turbulent history: launched in the dot-com boom years, it quickly found an enthusiastic customer base in the Legal sector. Acquired by Interwoven in 2003 it carried on much as before with relatively little interference from the web-centric management at Interwoven. But things change ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 22-Dec-2010
Lassi is a yogurt drink popular in India, but you wouldn't usually employ a washing machine to make it. Unless, of course your requirements are similar to those in this HSBC Ad. We call such differentiating requirements "scenarios." Think of scenarios as ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 21-Dec-2010
Every product and technology solution provider inherently brings some amount of risk. When it comes to technology, change is inevitable and often a good thing, but also potentially a strong indicator of risk for new buyers of technology. For example ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 20-Dec-2010
We have a job opening for a full-time analyst to join our research-and-advisory team. The person can be based in Northern Europe, India, or East Coast USA (preferably Boston or Washington area) ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Dec-2010
Yesterday our friends over at AIIM (Association of Imaging and Information Management) hosted a webinar that presented new work by sales & marketing guru Geoffrey Moore called A Future History of Content Management: "A Social Business Revolution" ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 14-Dec-2010
When you think of a smart phone or when someone tells you about multi-channel delivery, chances are that you are visualizing a cell phone, a PDA, or at the maximum, a tablet such as an iPad or Samsung's Tab ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 14-Dec-2010
After a decade of doing this, I can assure you that the demos vendors give during canned analyst and media "briefings" and the demos they perform for customers during the sales process are as different as night and day ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Dec-2010
We have a new new advisory paper out called "Develop the Right Shortlist with an RFI" that hits on a key gap in many procurement processes. For with most prospective content technology buyers, great effort gets expended on an RFP process at the cost of the RFI. In fact, there often is no RFI. This is a mistake ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 10-Dec-2010
You may be getting pressure to join a particular tool's bandwagon. This year it could be Drupal, Sitecore, Jive, or Liferay. Next year it will certainly be a different set of names. Our industry is nothing if not faddish. When faced with the bandwagon effect, I encourage you to pause and consider all the angles ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 8-Dec-2010
We always follow the communities around specific products quite closely. Whether an open source or commercial closed source system, product communities can give us great input on the real story. But one thing to remember is that the most active and enthusiastic communities are also a really biased source of information ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 6-Dec-2010
Offshoring, along with its many variants like rightshoring and nearshoring is a heavily debated topic. But like everything else, there are advantages as well as challenges that need to be addressed if you have to make it successful. ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 6-Dec-2010
One question I got over and over again from folks learning about us for the first time was, "where do you get all of the information about the vendors and products that makes it into your research reports and advisory papers?" ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 1-Dec-2010
As we approach the end of 2010, it's time for our team of Real Story Group analysts to reveal our 2011 predictions, where we make our best guesses as to what the Content Technology industry will hold for you in the new year ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 26-Nov-2010
Last week I helped my colleague Tony Byrne host the SharePoint Symposium in Washington DC. We ran many of sessions there and had a good turnout at each, hardly surprising of course as SharePoint remains a very hot topic ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Nov-2010
"Transactional document management" is a term not used often enough in my opinion. For it is, as the phrase goes, the "meat and potatoes" of ECM ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 23-Nov-2010
As you may know, we make twelve predictions every year, and every year, we go back to try to assess our accuracy. So, let's see how we did with our 2010 predictions from last December ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-Nov-2010
ECM3 is without a doubt the most successful maturity model for ECM, with downloads of the model passing the 5,000 mark recently ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Nov-2010
It seems timely to publish our EMC-Documentum family tree, as there has been a change in senior management there recently. I try not to comment too much on vendor personnel changes, since change is natural enough and people move on, but I think this one is worth an exception ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Nov-2010
No content management supplier today can start or end a sales pitch without a mention of mobile. Whether they be large ECM vendors talking about access to your secure documents on your Blackberry, or a B2C oriented web content management vendors discussing rich media delivery to the iPad ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 8-Nov-2010
Last week, Oracle announced its acquisition of Art Technology Group (ATG) for $ 1 Billion. At this price, it might appear smaller than other, better-known acquisitions such as those of Sun Microsystems ($ 7.4 B), BEA Systems ($ 8.5 B), and PeopleSoft ($ 10.5 B in 2004), yet it's an important acquisition, nevertheless ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Nov-2010
We've just updated several vendor evaluations in our Enterprise Content Management Report: ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 28-Oct-2010
I tend use cars as a metaphor to describe the differences among software products. Even in internal discussions among our team of analysts. Which is how this came up last week: I described a particular system as a Toyota compared to another vendor's Ferrari ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 27-Oct-2010
There are some things in life that just shouldn't be considered optional, like deploying a web content management system in a three-stage Development-Test-Production environment, or even four, with Staging thrown in. Most enterprises run their actual websites and web applications in ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Oct-2010
My post yesterday about Autonomy reminded me to explain a bit more about software vendor "roll-ups" and what they really mean to you the customer ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 14-Oct-2010
Alfresco recently released a new community version 3.4 of its Content Management System. The enterprise version of this will be released later this year. The latest version has some new features as well as enhancements such as a sample application called Web Quick Start, DocLib portlets, Distributed Repository Replication, Enhancements to Alfresco Web Editor (AWE) and Share. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Oct-2010
In the past week mega-vendor Autonomy saw its share price plummet by 20% -- a huge drop by anyone's standards. Much discussed in the financial press, it's also news that will be much discussed and publicized by Autonomy's competitors ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 8-Oct-2010
When I was a pup in the enterprise technology industry, I noticed that some of the best solutions came from smaller vendors. Upon hearing this, my elders would pull me aside and say, ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 6-Oct-2010
Most enterprises I encounter who are implementing new information management systems (like Web CMS, Portals, Collaboration, DAM tools, etc.) understand the importance of employee training, and we certainly advise customers to pay close attention to it with RFPs and program planning ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 5-Oct-2010
In the latest 11g release of their ECM suite, Oracle has made some key changes that they claim will make the platform more open and less proprietary. But there's a catch. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Sep-2010
I find traveling and speaking at industry events a huge opportunity to engage with people and get a feel for what is really going on in the broader user community. And in my third trip to Brazil for the ECMShow I can report with confidence that a whole lot is going on here ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 27-Sep-2010
Are you an Intranet leader expected to stay abreast of multiple related technologies? If so, please join me for a complimentary webinar next Monday ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 27-Sep-2010
What, your system vendor doesn't have an app store yet? Apple has popularized the concept, and most phone platforms now have something similar: Google's Android Market and Nokia's Ovi Store come to mind. So now everyone has to have one, not just devices, but enterprise software as well ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Sep-2010
In many end-user organizations, software support fees can make up the bulk of the yearly IT budget. This is hardly surprising when vendors typically like to calculate support contracts on the basis of ~20% of list pricing per annum, in perpetuity ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 20-Sep-2010
Vamosa means "let's go" in Spanish, and sadly the UK-based content migration technology firm Vamosa is indeed going...away ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Sep-2010
HP has been offering Document and Records Management (RM) for two years. Yet, buyers typically don't short-list the vendor, and many don't even know that HP has an offering in this space ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 10-Sep-2010
Dynamic Publishing Systems manage the assembly of reusable components for publishing, along with the delivery of aggregated content to multiple personalized channels. Some examples of Dynamic Publishing are: ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Sep-2010
Our product evaluations are here for one purpose alone -- to provide buyers with truly independent, technical, and critical assessments of the products they are considering. What this means in practice is that some products get added to our services, and others quietly get dropped ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 9-Sep-2010
We have often talked of content migration before, but we have now started to content migration technology and practices more formally and will be expanding our coverage to include short reviews of key content migration vendors in the near future ... Continue Reading
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
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
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
Added By Apoorv Durga on 30-Aug-2010
Last week, I attended two conferences in Delhi. Coincidentally, both of them were on similar topics. The first one, organized by Indian trade body, NASSCOM was about mobile Internet and appstores, while the second one was about mobile applications (although it ended up as a conference for sales pitches by device vendors) ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 19-Aug-2010
All enterprises need to archive certain documents, but what's the best approach? Specifically, are there better alternatives to the traditional TIFF format? In a new advisory briefing, we argue that PDF/A brings several advantages ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 19-Aug-2010
There's an odd fascination with equestrianism in technology. Vendor landscapes are often described as horse races; there's leaders and laggards, winners and losers. That's great for gamblers, investors, and jockeys. But it's not very useful ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 18-Aug-2010
There's a lot of mysticism shrouding Autonomy's mega-search offering, "IDOL." Not in the least bit because every piece of software that is acquired by the vendor is either "plugged into," "powered by," or "integrated with" IDOL. Supposedly, ... Continue Reading
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
Added By Apoorv Durga on 11-Aug-2010
In a new Advisory Briefing for our SharePoint and ECM subscribers, we evaluate how the CMIS connector targets different use cases where SharePoint needs to inter-operate or co-exist with other applications. ... Continue Reading
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
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
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
Added By Theresa Regli on 2-Aug-2010
As a digital asset management analyst, one of the most common questions I get is, "Why doesn't Adobe have its own DAM?" ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 28-Jul-2010
Adobe Systems today announced their intent to acquire Day Software. We've seen Adobe featuring in many Content Management RFPs and although they had some of the necessary pieces including Adobe Contribute and LiveCycle, they were never taken seriously as a Content Management player. An OEM deal with Alfresco a few years back though well intentioned didn't help much but this announcement will surely change the situation dramatically. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 22-Jul-2010
With SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has strongly promoted the platform's upgraded content management capabilities. Now that the hype is died down, and there are production implementations in the field, it's possible to take a harder look ... Continue Reading
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
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
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Jul-2010
Many of our enterprise research customers are reporting an interesting trend: fewer responses to their RFPs (a.k.a., "tenders"). Even vendors they had at the top of their lists may decline to bid. This puzzles them ... Continue Reading
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
Added By Tony Byrne on 8-Jul-2010
I'll agree with mega-vendor Autonomy on one key point: Search technology is really important. But is it so important that search functionality should dominate your choice in a content management system? ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 6-Jul-2010
After a long spending spree -- pretty much on anything XML -- SDL has now acquired small Dutch vendor Xopus ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 28-Jun-2010
The community commons ECM Maturity Model (www.ECM3.org) progressed to v2.0 last week ... Continue Reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Added By Tony Byrne on 15-Jun-2010
Here's our latest take on the marketplaces we cover. We still can't fit all the vendors we evaluate, but we're getting closer ... Continue Reading
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
Added By Apoorv Durga on 14-Jun-2010
One of our predictions for this year was about the rise of mobile as a delivery channel -- much more closely integrated with your content technologies. Most vendors provide some sort of mechanism for delivering content to mobile channels ... Continue Reading
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
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
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
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
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
Added By Shawn Shell on 1-Jun-2010
Microsoft has created much broader management capabilities and better integration services. SharePoint now carries many more enterprise features, like business intelligence reporting and managed metadata. The resulting package is an increasingly complex platform that may have become that very complicated tool it originally displaced ... Continue Reading
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
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-May-2010
The world of document management is not one that most people associate with fun, laughter and good times. It has been described (by me on occasion) as about as exciting as watching paint dry ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-May-2010
We have been updating our evaluation of Open Text for ECM this week, and I was musing with my colleague Apoorv that although Open Text is one of the largest ECM vendors in the market ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-May-2010
Case in point: Today I chatted with the good people of Elkhart County, Indiana, about their experience of trying to consolidate all their document management needs to a single provider ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-May-2010
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. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 14-May-2010
Alan and I wrote this piece (requires free registration) for CFO Connect, a thought-leadership magazine for CFOs and other senior finance professionals operating in India. The idea was to introduce people to Compliance and how ECM's strong technology platform can help companies meet their compliance needs. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 13-May-2010
I was reading the excellent Web Site Migration Handbook by our good friend and colleague David Hobbs -- and a quick Twitter exchange with him got me thinking about the importance of testing and QA in migration ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-May-2010
Microsoft and its partners have good reason to party, but for you the celebrations could come prematurely ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-May-2010
It seems to be acronym soup week, and though we can all be guilty of cooking this particular recipe at times, EMC is becoming a master chef ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-May-2010
I have been in the document management business for over 20 years now, and though on the one hand ECM and Document Management technology has moved into the mainstream, in other regards it remains in the dark ages ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 11-May-2010
My colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe and I frequently engage in friendly debate. Recently, we've been discussing the pros and cons of using scoring spreadsheets in the vendor evaluation process ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-May-2010
So onto number three in our family tree mini-series, Autonomy. As a Brit that lives in the US, I find Autonomy an interesting vendor to watch ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 7-May-2010
At this week's J Boye conference in Philadelphia, I joined a panel reviewing some of the "hot topics" from the event. As you might expect at a gathering of web and intranet managers, the issue of governance kept recurring ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 6-May-2010
CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Specification) has been ratified as a standard by OASIS. What is it and what does it mean to buyers and users of ECM and Document Management technology? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-May-2010
One of the events that I most looking forward to this year is the AIIM UK Roadshow - 14-17 June ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 28-Apr-2010
They say nothing unites us Indians more than Cricket. Mash that up with Bollywood, big money, politics, as well as sleaze, and you get the multi-billion dollar Indian Premier League (IPL) ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 22-Apr-2010
Please join my colleague Alan Pelz-Sharpe next Tuesday, 27 April at 11am EDT for a free webinar, "Why ECM and WCM Projects Fail: Best Practices to Prevent Your Project From Failing" ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Apr-2010
Let's move onto number two in our mini-series of ECM "family trees," EMC Documentum. (The first tree was Open Text.) ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Apr-2010
We've just published our 2010 ECM and Document Management Market Analysis, and it makes for fascinating reading ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Apr-2010
This week I have been heads down reviewing RFP responses for a large ECM project. These vendor proposals could give readers the misimpression that the products in a complex suite of modules were all designed on the same drawing board ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Apr-2010
I just finished reading an excellent article in Hedge Funds Review called "Records management in the new regulatory environment." It's piece that echoes much the same message I've been preaching for years now: ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Apr-2010
A common question asked by our advisory customers is whether they should use a software vendors' professional services arm. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Apr-2010
When trying to explain what Document Management is to friends and family curious about my work, I often give ask them to think about the last time they visited the doctor or a hospital ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 8-Apr-2010
One of my favorite parts of my job is the educational aspect - helping people new to content technology understand what it does and how it works. ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 7-Apr-2010
This session will be a fast-paced debate exploring a variety of controversial ECM-related issues and trends ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 6-Apr-2010
This past week I have been working to update our ECM and Document Management market analysis ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 1-Apr-2010
For the last several years, I've had the honor of hosting our Stump the Consultant panel at the info360: AIIM Expo ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 1-Apr-2010
I'm delighted to announce today that we have just released new research on emerging technologies that will transfer live human beings to the Cloud ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 31-Mar-2010
As we continue to grow globally, we're looking for a motivated account exec in the UK or Europe ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 31-Mar-2010
It's been a year now since we launched our ECM Maturity Model under Creative Commons, and it seems to have proven comprehensive as well as extensible for different groups adapting it for their specific environments ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 31-Mar-2010
Theresa Regli recently recorded this video using one of her favorite analogies: selecting the right enterprise software is a lot like selecting the right wine to have with dinner ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 25-Mar-2010
Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the open source ECM Maturity model, "ECM3" ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Mar-2010
When Oracle acquired Stellent in 2006 I thought the best piece of technology they got their hands on was the imaging tools that Stellent had themselves previously acquired from Optika ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 24-Mar-2010
Whether the economy has begun to turn the corner, we don't know, but if this graph from Indeed.com is any indication, times have at least not been getting any worse for job-seekers with "content management" on their resumes ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Mar-2010
Is it a buyers' market for content technologies? Some enterprises believe that technology suppliers are so hungry for business that they will line up for kilometers to respond to an RFP. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Mar-2010
I almost had a heart attack today when I realized that Info360 (previously AIIM Expo) is less than a month away. This year will be particularly busy for me as ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 19-Mar-2010
There are many ways to measure success of an information management project. Project leaders typically want to "help" your colleagues, but how do they know they're successful? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Mar-2010
Whilst recently working on a change management initiative for one of our multinational clients, I had a bit of an "aha!" moment. I was in the midst of explaining to the assembled team members how their future information management system ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Mar-2010
As you may know, a lot of our work at the Real Story Group involves helping people make the right information management buying decisions. Not surprisingly, one of the most common areas where our customers seek our counsel is with vendor scoring and assessment methodologies ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 26-Feb-2010
In case you weren't thinking "interoperability" was EMC's middle name, EMC hopes to convince the world otherwise with its EDN Monster Mash -- a Developer Challenge designed to showcase the mashability of EMC's Celerra, Centerra, Documentum, and Atmos Online product lines ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Feb-2010
There's a question that keeps popping up around our industry: "What is Enterprise Content Management?" ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 23-Feb-2010
Today we released a new advisory paper, "How the New Platforms vs. Products Debate Impacts Your Success." Subscribers to any of our EI Watch, SharePoint Watch, and CMS Watch research streams can ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Feb-2010
On the document-management shortlist of a mid sized publishing firm this month lay four bidders: a specialist incumbent, two household name vendors (IBM & Microsoft), and an open source option ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Feb-2010
For years now Google has played fast and loose with information confidentiality and privacy issues. As if further proof were needed ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Feb-2010
Over the last few weeks there has been a flurry of media interest in the fact that SAP is reselling EMC Documentum and Open Text products. It's a flurry (bordering on blizzard) that is of little or no relevance to actual buyers of these software products ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Feb-2010
Welcome to the Real Story Group! For my colleagues and I this is an exciting time, and part of a continuing adventure that I hope you will join. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Feb-2010
One of the founding principals of business process change is the concept of understanding and defining the current "As Is" situation, before analyzing it and then constructing an ideal "To Be" situation. ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 17-Feb-2010
An open source implementation of the new Content Management Interoperability Specification (CMIS) was released last week called "xCMIS." Developed by the folks at eXo Platform ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 17-Feb-2010
Welcome to the Real Story Group. Today we cut over to our new website(s) ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Feb-2010
Early next week, we will be re-launching this website, adding some new sites, and at a more fundamental level, revamping the way we serve our customers. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Feb-2010
Our colleagues over at Forrester recently undertook some interesting research regarding content management investment attitudes in 2010 (DM, RM and WCM). The overall finding was along the lines one might expect ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Feb-2010
The launch of Apple's iPad last week has caught the imagination of armchair critics worldwide ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Feb-2010
Our job here is to advise buyers of technology, never vendors. But today I am going to make an exception and give the vendors out there a solid tip. Do your homework before responding to RFPs ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 2-Feb-2010
Last week SAP announced that it would begin reselling EMC Documentum products to the Insurance and Finance industries. It's not a world-shaking announcement, but it is interesting for one simple reason: ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 28-Jan-2010
While Steve Jobs was introducing Apple's iPad, Oracle was explaining its own approach to hybrid hardware/software offerings. Oracle yesterday announced that it has completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 26-Jan-2010
Among the various categories of content technologies that we evaluate, Oracle has been very quiet over the past year. For the past two years, actually, Oracle has urged customers and partners to look forward to the "11g" series of upgrades across its various application sets ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 20-Jan-2010
We're looking to hire a UK- or Europe-based (with native English) sales and support executive. You can ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-Jan-2010
Today the Indian IT services giant Tata announced that it was to acquire BT Mosaic. It's an acquisition worth examining in a little more detail, since we will likely see more of the same over the coming years. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Jan-2010
I heard the words "Deep Web" used this week at an industry gathering. It's something I have not heard in quite a while, and looking around me in the room I figured that few people there had any idea what this term actually refers to ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Jan-2010
At CMS Watch we frequently have to explain to people why we have separate research streams for WCM (Web Content Management) and ECM (Enterprise Content Management). The explanation is frequently a response to the question, "aren't they just the same thing?" The simple answer is no, they are not ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 6-Jan-2010
It's not often that a well-known vendor simply vacates the software space, effectively forfeiting a chunk of the market to competitors. But that's what Open Text has decided to do with its main enterprise search offering. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 16-Dec-2009
Yesterday we issued our twelve predictions for 2010. Once again, I'll look back at our 2009 predictions and see how we did ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 15-Dec-2009
With only a few weeks left in 2009, it's time for our team of CMS Watch analysts to reveal our 2010 predictions, where we make our best guesses as to what the Content Technology industry will hold for you in the new year ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 7-Dec-2009
While the ECM mid market is often ignored, we've noticed a recent vibrancy particularly among document management solutions in this tier. We've created a SlideShare presentation ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Dec-2009
First off let me state boldly and clearly CMIS is an important document management (a.k.a., ECM) standard, the most important standard. But if your world is solely one of HTML and CSS then you can stop reading right here ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 2-Dec-2009
We've just updated our "Content Technology Vendor Map" for 2010 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Nov-2009
Today we release some new ECM research. It focuses (as does much of our broader research) on the so called mid-market. ‘Mid’ is a terribly misleading term ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 13-Nov-2009
Earlier this year I caused quite a stir when I predicted the death of taxonomies. Taxonomists worldwide told me I was an idiot, nuts, completely delusional. Some were deeply concerned that their jobs were threatened, as if employers would change org charts based on my prediction. Others secretly told me they agreed ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Nov-2009
As subscribers who received our recent advisory paper know, there is plenty to be excited about in SP2010, especially if you are a part of the SharePoint channel of resellers, consultants, developers, and system integrators. But over the past few weeks I have been noticing something of a shadow side to this excitement ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Nov-2009
Last week the catchily-named organization ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that it had approved the use of Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Korean, and twelve other languages -- that are not based on the Roman/Latin alphabet -- for use in domain names ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Oct-2009
Last week I hosted a panel for ARMA that discussed compliance and records management issues related to Cloud Computing. It proved to be one of the most thought-provoking sessions I have been involved in for a long time. For what became abundantly clear from very early on was that records managers and compliance officers really need to get their head around Cloud Computing, and fast ... Continue Reading
Added By Apoorv Durga on 19-Oct-2009
This is an important week for Microsoft. In the face of a major offensive from Google’s “Gone Google” campaign, they launch Windows 7 and also reveal some interesting developments at the SharePoint conference in Vegas. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Oct-2009
There is a some noise being made today about SAP's decision to become a reseller of Open Text's ECM products. Call me Mr Miserable, but I'm not sure that its really a game changer. SAP and Open Text have been involved in a long, torturous courtship, that so far has failed to result in a marriage ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Oct-2009
Later this week I will be at the ARMA Expo in Orlando ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 10-Oct-2009
This week we welcome Apoorv Durga to our analyst team. Based in Dehli, India, Apoorv has previously served as as a ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 8-Oct-2009
We are rapidly approaching the fall conference season, and this year I am particularly excited about returning to beautiful Aarhus, Denmark ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 7-Oct-2009
In the past few weeks, two high-profile people have departed established content management vendor empires for upstart players ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 6-Oct-2009
If you're following the content management space closely, but aren't a Java wizard, the JSR (Java Specification Request) numbers can become a bit of a puzzle ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Sep-2009
I am a fan of AIIM and its market research, so I always make a point of reading and absorbing any new reports that come from them. The latest ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Sep-2009
Enterprises are facing something of a recruitment dilemma at the moment -- one HR professional at a major healthcare firm told me this week that ECM-skilled applicants are looking for approximately 40% more in base pay than their peers with a background in CRM or ERP. This healthcare firm simply doesn't have budget to make the required hires, that is not an uncommon situation ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Sep-2009
As I have said before, at CMS Watch we focus on evaluating individual vendors. Nevertheless, we do think it is important for every buyer to grasp a basic understanding of underlying market dynamics ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 23-Sep-2009
Had a nice chat the other day with an old acquaintance who previously held two interesting jobs: as a practice lead at a major technology analyst firm, as well as heading up "analyst relations" for a major vendor. This is not uncommon; there's a revolving door between staff at vendors and analyst firms ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Sep-2009
Sometimes a secondary service or subsystem in a content management platform can gum everything up. This came to mind when a couple of our advisory clients ran into trouble with some non-core -- but important -- services. ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 21-Sep-2009
Those of you in the content management world undoubtedly know about AIIM -- the non-profit organization with a long history of providing education and other resources to help you address the challenges of managing enterprise content. AIIM is currently in the process of electing a new board member to join their current board ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Sep-2009
One of the challenges we face at CMS Watch is the continuing need to bridge the gap between those new to ECM, and the deep industry insider knowledge that our subscribers seek ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Sep-2009
The past year or so IBM has been promoting the concept of "Agile ECM" in its marketing for FileNet P8. It is an interesting concept both at a marketing and implementation level regardless of whether P8 itself really fits such a label itself ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 31-Aug-2009
Blogger Julian Wraith recently asked CMS pundits to comment on The Future of Content Management. This is a topic I get asked about a lot, not only by CMS Watch customers ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 27-Aug-2009
One of my favorite technology terms is "Shadow IT." The term is not employed often enough, and its role in undermining good information management should be more widely broadcast, because Shadow IT represents a plague on content management ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 27-Aug-2009
"Unstructured Data" is the fancy term we use to refer to "Content." Historically we've employed this term to differentiate "structured" data (sitting in neat rows and columns in a database) from complex files that typically need attached metadata for essential context ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 26-Aug-2009
Capture Specialist vendors play in a very specific part of the ECM spectrum ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Aug-2009
I recently posted a piece regarding storage costs for ECM that seemed to garner some interest, so I thought I might just flesh out some of the assumptions I made in that a little further ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 24-Aug-2009
The "places" where we work have changed and continue to change. To those of you reading this blog entry on your iPhone, Nokia E-Series or Blackberry device ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 17-Aug-2009
Today we released a major update to our Enterprise Content Management technology evaluations. Our release highlights some important trends ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Aug-2009
We have had an interesting internal discussion at CMS Watch the past few days, surrounding the cost of storage for content technology systems. It is a discussion that too few buyers have before embarking on costly ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Aug-2009
During a conversation with a journalist today about ECM and the US healthcare sector, we discussed why so little progress has been made toward electronic document and records management ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 3-Aug-2009
There's a saying in Hollywood, made famous by screenwriter William Goldman, that "nobody knows anything." It's a lament that sometimes seems to apply to the IT world as well. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 16-Jul-2009
Intranets have been around for more than in a decade in many enterprises, yet developing an effective intranet remains a puzzle for many information and communications managers ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 13-Jul-2009
A lot of my time is spent evaluating technology, and I have a confession to make: the licensing is one of the least spectacular bits to review. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Jul-2009
One standard/specification that gets little attention in the ECM world is XAM ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 10-Jul-2009
One of the questions at a "town hall" debate I facilitated at last month's Enterprise 2.0 conference addressed the topic of information lifecycle management for enterprise social spaces. Most of the attendees didn't seem to think it was necessary. I disagree ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 9-Jul-2009
The word "silo" (referring to a single, monolithic resource repository of some kind, often dedicated to a single vendor's applications) has such negative connotations these days that to suggest silos are actually good or necessary is to risk excommunication from the IT priesthood ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 3-Jul-2009
I frequently receive questions like this: "We're a major regional hospital, what's the best CMS for us?" Or, ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 2-Jul-2009
As Murraymania swept the UK, I settled into my seat on Court No. 2 last week, on Wimbledon's always-action-packed middle Saturday ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 25-Jun-2009
As I talk to people in the content-technology industry (if I may call it that), I'm struck by a common thread that has begun to emerge in conversations involving roadmaps and futures ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Jun-2009
Self immolation is a rare, some may say mythical event. Yet in the world of content management it is more common than you might think ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Jun-2009
This past week Search-cum-ECM vendor Autonomy announced that it was releasing an integration for its recently acquired WorkSite product with the iPhone ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Jun-2009
....Go to 10 companies with Documentum. In 8-9 of them you will find end-users that know the name ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Jun-2009
At CMS Watch we evaluate an awful lot of products, and making sense of all this research can be a challenge. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Jun-2009
An announcement caught attention the other week, though I don't have much insight into the details yet. In short a new RM (Records Management) standard has emerged ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Jun-2009
Earlier this week EMC announced that it was providing more extensive development support for Documentum. This is something we had to comment on, as in our various product evaluations we have long called out EMC Documentum for providing relatively poor support ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 27-May-2009
At CMS Watch, we're advocates only for you, the technology customer. But sometimes the customer is unreasonable ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 26-May-2009
If you're like most other professionals, the economic downturn has you looking critically at business processes. Want to learn more about that? ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 25-May-2009
Earlier this week, I blogged about ECM and Open Source -- and the different landscapes buyers will encounter in the Enterprise Content Management marketplace versus the Web Content Management marketplace. I think there's a similar paradigm when it comes to SaaS ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 20-May-2009
We're often asked why there are so few ECM open source options, when at the same time the Web CMS marketplace supports so many open source alternatives? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-May-2009
This morning as I awoke at an ridiculously early hour (jet lag), to find my mailbox full of questions from journalists, commentators, and CMS Watch research subscribers asking for my take on the deal. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-May-2009
A couple of weeks back ECM vendor Objective announced that they had acquired Limehouse, a UK social software provider ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 6-May-2009
The business world is full of tumult these days, and times like these are known to give rise to strange bedpartners. But few would have expected the kind of union announced by Open Text just a few hours ago ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 27-Apr-2009
There's been an interesting development with regard to Content Management Interoperability Services ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Apr-2009
Compliance is one of the watchwords of 2009... ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 6-Apr-2009
One of the more popular sessions at the recent AIIM show in Philadelphia was this year's "Stump the Consultant" session ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 1-Apr-2009
But how much can you really blame them? We report the full story ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 30-Mar-2009
Here's a picture of (left to right) Kas, Jarrod, and Theresa getting ready for various sessions tomorrow ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 26-Mar-2009
A month ago we quietly launched a new maturity model for ECM. It was a two-year global effort among ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 25-Mar-2009
Economic downturns tend to accelerate change in the IT world: People with budgetary authority find themselves taking a fresh look ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 20-Mar-2009
Do you think your content technology project challenges are unique? ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 18-Mar-2009
Autonomy's acquisition of Interwoven formally closed yesterday ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 18-Mar-2009
Spring is here, and, as in Autumn, this means new products released and new version numbers ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Mar-2009
Here in the US, the topic of electronic medical records has popped back to the top of the agenda, due to an impending mass injection of government money ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Mar-2009
It has always surprised me how many firms name their internal ECM applications and systems after the product that it runs on. ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 6-Mar-2009
We've put together a schedule (pdf) of when we'll be presenting and when we'll be available for office hours at Booth #320 ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 5-Mar-2009
Based on feedback from you, we've modified our subscription options a bit ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 5-Mar-2009
The AIIM International Expo and Conference in Philadelphia, PA is rapidly approaching. One session that I am particularly excited about is ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 3-Mar-2009
CMS Watch seeks a Technology Analyst based in the UK or continental Europe to evaluate Web Content Management and other Content Technology vendors ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 3-Mar-2009
Today we updated our semi-famous "subway map" for 2009 ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 27-Feb-2009
I'm looking forward very much to moderating the ECM Analyst Panel at the AIIM Expo on ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Feb-2009
This week Alfresco, together with Ingres, announced the release of ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Feb-2009
It often becomes apparent to buyers that the most complex part of an ECM project is often the capture (imaging) portion ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Feb-2009
I'm pleased to share that CMS Watch, Wipro, Hartman Communicatie, and Smigiel Consulting Group have published Version 1.0 of an ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Feb-2009
Over the years I have heard of many enterprise software customers being audited by enterprise content management (ECM) vendors ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 20-Feb-2009
For the past year or so there seems to have been a battlefield of sorts emerging between proponents of social networking and all things E2.0 and the more traditional proponents of ECM ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Feb-2009
Methods and definitions in the world of Records Management (and subsequently ECM) have been long established and remain, in many cases, as valid today as they ever have. ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 17-Feb-2009
It's amazing to me that so many of the vendors we cover at CMS Watch (even some that claim to have deep expertise in marketing and social-web sorts of things) still haven't figured out ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Feb-2009
You really can't envy the task of records managers in the public or private sector. Many are still tasked with archiving hard copies of ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Feb-2009
Fine summary in CIO Magazine's blog, about various customer "gag orders" some major ERP vendors are attempting to impose contractually ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Feb-2009
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" -- so the saying goes ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 9-Feb-2009
As an obsessive fan of baseball's Boston Red Sox, I am one of the last people to defend the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez. As an analyst of content management technology and practices ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 2-Feb-2009
We're starting to see more vendors coming out with Flex-based user interfaces, sometimes extending them as full-blown desktop applications ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 2-Feb-2009
Our job at CMS Watch involves more than simply writing and researching technology evaluations; we also spend a lot of time advising and guiding our customers ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 28-Jan-2009
SaaS is all the rage these days. It's the one "IT& trend for 2009" no pundit has missed. But the reality is that ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 23-Jan-2009
"Channel partners" are consulting or integration firms that implement or provide supplementary services to a software vendor's technology ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 23-Jan-2009
The announcement yesterday that Autonomy would buy Interwoven (a deal that should close in the second quarter of this year) has a number of interesting ramifications ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Jan-2009
We're looking to hire a full-time Marketing Associate ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Jan-2009
Today Autonomy announced that they intend to buy Interwoven. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Jan-2009
Retention Management was certainly a buzzword in 2008 ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 14-Jan-2009
We've written a fair amount about Vignette Corporation's various travails over the past year ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 13-Jan-2009
The technology sector has been nothing but doom and gloom recently, but a recent report by the Aite Group shines a bit more light on to what is a fairly complex market ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 12-Jan-2009
In a new report, Gartner reportedly points to effective use of ECM as something that can help enterprises make IT greener. The idea is that ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Jan-2009
Since HP acquired Tower Software almost a year ago, I thought it about time to review progress to date ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Jan-2009
Customer-driven, web self-service will surely become a dominant theme for 2009. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 8-Jan-2009
Two noted content management gurus, Bob Boiko and Erik Hartman, are preparing an annual publication called ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Jan-2009
Quarterly results have never been so closely scrutinized as they are right now. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 7-Jan-2009
After cruising along as $200m/yr companies through middle part of this decade, Vignette and Interwoven appear to be headed in opposite directions ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-Dec-2008
One of my favorite little phrases is "double edged sword," and I found a perfect application for it recently, in a discussion of "incumbent" vendors ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Dec-2008
The ECM world is dominated by EMC, Open Text, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle -- all big vendors with equally big publicity machines to keep their brands and "story" right ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 16-Dec-2008
Today we released our annual predictions for 2009 ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 1-Dec-2008
This week, my colleagues Jarrod, Alan and I will be at the Online Information Conference in London... ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Nov-2008
As we start to look back on the past year, one of the key trends we have seen is the resurgence of interest in capture software ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Nov-2008
Since the announcement of CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Specification) I have been inundated with requests ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Nov-2008
It was the quote of the week: timely and definitive, perfectly summing up the value of ECM ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 20-Nov-2008
Recently, I've heard several people make the statement that "law firms grow most during tough economic times" ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 19-Nov-2008
I recently had a wide-ranging interview with Government Computer News ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 17-Nov-2008
You can now review the schedule for the late March AIIM Expo 2009, to be held in Philadelphia, PA, USA ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Nov-2008
Yesterday I attended the Interwoven annual Analyst Day in New York. It was an interesting day in many respects ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 13-Nov-2008
Day Software's David Nuescheler (CTO) and Kevin Cochrane (the company's new CMO) were in town last week, and we had an interesting lunchtime conversation, much of it centered on the long-awaited Version 5 ... Continue Reading
Added By Janus Boye on 26-Oct-2008
On Friday Microsoft announced a few interesting details on the next service pack for SharePoint. ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 25-Oct-2008
October 30 marks what could be a bitter-sweet day for Java aficionados ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Oct-2008
I've been advising a large enterprise in the midst of a somewhat complex Web CMS and Component Content Management implementation ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Oct-2008
One of the words that makes me most cringe when I hear or see it in vendor marketing is the word scalable ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Oct-2008
Every day I am assaulted by a barrage of press releases, almost all of which contain nothing of interest ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 20-Oct-2008
I tend to be a bit "old school" when it comes to note taking and writing, something that can drive my colleagues ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 17-Oct-2008
We're looking forward very much to the annual J. Boye conference in Aarhus, Denmark during the first week in November, because ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Oct-2008
I have decided that I love user group meetings, and I want to go to more, so please invite me to yours... ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-Oct-2008
To know what's really going on within a firm or the industry in which it operates you need to watch where the money is flowing ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-Oct-2008
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technology goes back around 30 years, and at it's heart lies document management and workflow ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 30-Sep-2008
Not long ago I bloggged about the newly announced Content Management Interoperability Services specification, which is ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Sep-2008
SharePoint has been on my mind a lot recently, not least because we have been undertaking ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 24-Sep-2008
Most content management professionals know very well the importance of user-based acceptance testing, and understand the high stakes involved ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Sep-2008
Today I'm proud to announce the release of the 2009 edition of The ECM Suites Report ... Continue Reading
Added By Shawn Shell on 16-Sep-2008
In case you didn't read the blog entry about CMIS by Kas, Microsoft, EMC, and IBM recently announce that they, along with other vendors like Open Text and Alfresco, have submitted a new content integration standard ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 12-Sep-2008
If you're a regular reader of this blog -- or our various reports -- the HartmanEVENT 2008 in Utrecht, The Netherlands next week ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 10-Sep-2008
It's often said that the great thing about industry standards is that there are so many of them. Now we have one more ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Sep-2008
September this year sees an early start to the conference season, and I find myself first in the Netherlands and then off to India ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Sep-2008
Today I got a call from my friend Paul Steep at Scotia Capital regarding an Open Text announcement this morning ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Sep-2008
Today we are really excited to launch our latest online course, Fundamentals of ECM Technology ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Aug-2008
Is SAP slowly moving into the ECM space? ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Aug-2008
It wasn't news that rocked the world, and in fact most observers didn't even notice it, but I was struck ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Aug-2008
Last week Microsoft announced new licensing arrangement for its products, including SharePoint Server 2007 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Aug-2008
A question we are often asked is "Does CMS Watch provide consulting services?" In fact this question is asked so often, I thought a quick blog entry might be in order. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Aug-2008
Laserfiche is an ECM vendor we have been watching and writing about for a while, and our coverage of them in The ECM Suites Report is set to extend this year as we evaluate their new Rio offering ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 31-Jul-2008
Microsoft SharePoint goes open source? Shock, horror! Ok, well not quite, but an open source alternative to SharePoint is now an option with the release of Alfresco's Lab 3 beta product ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 25-Jul-2008
Vignette and Interwoven have released their second-quarter 2008 results, and it's a study in contrasts ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 23-Jul-2008
A new season brings an updated vendor map: ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 16-Jul-2008
Last week I wrote about Open Text's acquisition of eMotion, and may have added to the confusion over the alphabet soup of DAM, MAM, and MOM ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Jul-2008
We're pleased that CMS Watch now covers ten different technologies, but I suspect that many of you take an interest in only one or two families of tools ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 9-Jul-2008
Late last month I had the pleasure of attending the Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Symposium in London, UK, where I presented a summary of our research recently ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 8-Jul-2008
Over at the Adobe Developer Connection website, Belgian developer Sébastien Arbogast has posted an interesting article (a tutorial of sorts) on how to write next-generation web apps in Flex ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Jul-2008
Open Text is back on the acquisition trail. The company announced Thursday that they ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 27-Jun-2008
This past week I had the pleasure of keynoting at the DocTrain event in Indianapolis (held at the truly magnificent Union Station venue), and also running a small session on "How to procure Content Technologies." ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 23-Jun-2008
There's something vaguely Orwellian, at times, about the language that turns up in quarterly and annual reports ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Jun-2008
Oracle keeps moving down ECM trail with two new acquisitions to add to their growing portfolio. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-Jun-2008
It's been a while since there was a big product announcement in the ECM world, but today's announcement by Adobe that they will be embedding Alfresco ... Continue Reading
Added By Janus Boye on 2-Jun-2008
It might come as little surprise that Oracle is very actively moderating their Oracle wiki, but a recent blog entry reminded me just how important culture is to wiki adoption ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 2-Jun-2008
You may remember a while back we launched our little competition to come up with a new name for our vendor positioning chart ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 2-Jun-2008
It's easy to forget just how big the world is -- but when you fly to Brazil as I did this past week, you can get some idea ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 30-May-2008
If there is a buzz around Web 2.0 in the Content Technology community, then there is a roar in the wider IT community around Cloud Computing ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-May-2008
As you know at CMS Watch we write critical product evaluations to help you avoid expensive procurement and deployment mistakes ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 13-May-2008
As a content producer, it has been fascinating to watch the evolution of channels where technology suppliers talk to technology customers ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-May-2008
As an "Enterprise-focused" content management analyst, I am asked two basic questions on a regular basis ... Continue Reading
Added By Janus Boye on 3-May-2008
When budget-building time comes up, many technology customers face the interesting question of how much money to put aside for new software licenses ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 2-May-2008
On a flight back to Boston from London yesterday I took a little time to digest what I had observed during the past week in the UK. It was an odd week really, and somewhat disconcerting as the contrast between the US and the UK was quite stark ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 30-Apr-2008
It's hard to know how Documentum is doing these days, now that it's been assimilated into EMC (the $32 billion ILM colossus) ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 22-Apr-2008
Our partners in Denmark, J. Boye, have just published a white paper, Wiki in the Enterprise ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 21-Apr-2008
I have used a slide called "The E in ECM" in various PowerPoint incarnations for years ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Apr-2008
If there is one word I hate to hear used in this industry it's the word compliance ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Apr-2008
Oracle announced today that they were entering the archiving market with the release of "Universal Online Archive." UOA is an interesting entry to a market ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Apr-2008
Blink and you might have missed it, but Symantec signed an important OEM deal with Autonomy the other day ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 11-Apr-2008
There's nothing like promising a Playboy centerfold to drive people (well, men mostly) to an upcoming technology conference ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 6-Apr-2008
Since moving to the US in 2002 I have become a fan of The Atlantic magazine, and in particular the last page of each edition that contains the "Word Fugitives" column ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 4-Apr-2008
The Gimmal Group's Dan Elam recently pointed me to an important and seemingly under-reported ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Apr-2008
The world does seem to love an XML fight. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 3-Apr-2008
One topic that keeps coming up in conversations with buyers of content technologies -- and of course those that sell content technologies -- is the topic of a looming recession ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 1-Apr-2008
Great theater. Awesome Indian food. Hyde Park in springtime ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 1-Apr-2008
A couple recent news items find SAP and IBM both in a bit of legal hot water ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 31-Mar-2008
So HP finally made a move into the world of ECM by acquiring Tower Software of Australia ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Mar-2008
I'll be running a two-day intensive ECM workshop in Rome this April, geared for the needs of project implementation and selection teams -- as well as the business managers who oversee information management initiatives. ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 13-Mar-2008
Much like "le brunch" has infiltrated the Paris restaurant scene, Anglophone phrases like le CRM, l'ERP and l'ECM were omnipresent at Documation Paris this week. So were vendors at the conference podium ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 13-Mar-2008
It seems to me IDC may have missed (or at least skimmed over) some important conclusions in its newly released 2008 update of last year's widely cited The Expanding Digital Universe ... Continue Reading
Added By Adriaan Bloem on 7-Mar-2008
Web CMS vendor SDL Tridion has opened a new office in Germany, almost eight years to the date after their first attempt ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 5-Mar-2008
Herewith some random thoughts on the first half of the 3-day AIIM Conference & Expo in Boston, MA, USA ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 5-Mar-2008
Many different tools -- and scores of vendors -- fall under the rubric of "content technologies." Can they be organized on a single page? ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 3-Mar-2008
Though we are not psychiatrists, as technology evaluators covering various content technologies, we spend many hours listening to some sad stories of software implementations gone wrong... ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 2-Mar-2008
Actually, "BPM" stands for Business Process Management,, although some implementations can become quite monstrous indeed ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Feb-2008
This coming Wednesday at the big AIIM Expo in Boston we are hosting a session called "Fix your ECM problem." It's a bit of "serious" fun ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 29-Feb-2008
I'll be moderating a morning keynote panel at the AIIM Expo in Boston, MA, USA, entitled "The Future of Information Management: The CIO's Perspective." ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 28-Feb-2008
So Google has launched a product to compete with Microsoft's SharePoint, called Google Sites ... Continue Reading
Added By Janus Boye on 19-Feb-2008
jboye08, the annual international web conference in November in Aarhus, Denmark has begun accepting speaker proposals ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 12-Feb-2008
According to the latest Report on Information Technology Spending for the Federal Government, the U.S. Treasury Department is requesting $28.2 million to spend on Enterprise Content Management systems in Fiscal Year 2009, up from ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 12-Feb-2008
Today we released a research summary arguing that Enterprise Content Management (ECM) products are ill-equipped to meet the security requirements of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Feb-2008
I sat in on the keynote panel at LegalTech in New York yesterday. As an old cynic I tend to think that I have heard it all before (and I probably have), but yesterday I was jolted awake by some quotes that left me ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 6-Feb-2008
Yesterday, security analysis firm CYBSEC S.A. released an advisory describing a vulnerability in Documentum 5.3 that, if uncorrected, would "allow an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files on the server filesystem." ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 1-Feb-2008
Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes wrote an interesting piece about industry analyst firm The Aberdeen Group ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 30-Jan-2008
We all have our computer time-wasters. For some it's games, for others, IM'ing with friends. For me, it's the geo-web ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Jan-2008
Terminology in the content technology business is a tricky thing to deal with: different interpretations of the same label can leave buyers confused, and mis-sold ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Jan-2008
My thanks to our friend James Robertson for pointing to an important UK study that debunks many of the "Web 2.0" and "Google Generation" myths that ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 25-Jan-2008
Let's peek back into ECM/WCM vendor Vignette following last week's speculation about the company's financials ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Jan-2008
My colleague Jarrod forwarded a link to a news story of how one person deliberately destroyed 7 years worth of corporate content/data with ease ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 22-Jan-2008
We're looking for a full-time technology/industry analyst to join our growing team ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 20-Jan-2008
We'd like to welcome Barbara Feldman, our new Customer Relationship Manager, who joined us on January 2nd ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-Jan-2008
Blink and you would have missed it -- for lost in the all the headlines of ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 16-Jan-2008
Our partner Erik Hartman's firm will be delivering IOA and BPM certificate training in Belgium and the Netherlands this year ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 10-Jan-2008
I have recently become addicted to a TV program called Clean House, where they find people whose homes are a chaotic mess -- with junk and trash accumulating to the rafters ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-Jan-2008
So EMC (read: Documentum) acquired Document Sciences. The announcement came over the holiday period, and has already been ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 7-Jan-2008
So the new year begins, and the first thing on my agenda is to run through my calendar for the year; 2008 brings a lot of potentially great events worldwide for ECM ... Continue Reading
Added By Kas Thomas on 21-Dec-2007
Ironically, one of the main roadblocks to widespread adoption of JSR-170 (the Java Content Repository standard, now more accurately referred to as JSR-283) may be Java itself ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 18-Dec-2007
CMS Watch principal, Theresa Regli, makes an interesting point about what we didn't predict for 2008 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Dec-2007
I have just returned from a Copenhagen seminar event (organized by our good friend and colleague Janus Boye), and just prior to that the Oracle UK User Group conference in Birmingham. Both events were organized exclusively for end users ... Continue Reading
Added By Theresa Regli on 12-Dec-2007
We're currently conducting research into the Digital Asset Management marketplace, and we're seeking a couple of good independent experts to help us out ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Dec-2007
Dear Santa: It's early to be sending desiderata, but I imagine after this very eventful year your develop -- I mean elves -- must be very busy. Anyway, I'd be grateful if you could leave any of the following ... Continue Reading
Added By Janus Boye on 5-Dec-2007
Almost exactly a year after MOSS 2007 was released, Joel Olesen, Sr. Technical Product Manager at Microsoft, finally shed some light on future product plans ... Continue Reading
Added By Jarrod Gingras on 4-Dec-2007
Today we released the ECM Suites Report 2008, evaluating 32 Enterprise Content Management vendors. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 29-Nov-2007
Question: What's the difference between a backup and an archive? ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 28-Nov-2007
At the Gilbane Conference keynote today, execs from ECM vendors Alfresco, Oracle, IBM, and Adobe focussed on -- perhaps inevitably -- Enterprise 2.0 ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 26-Nov-2007
Something appears to be quite amiss at Interwoven. On 15th November a notice of non-compliance was served against the company by NASDAQ. ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 22-Nov-2007
Here in the USA it is "Thanksgiving" holiday -- a very pleasant time when we gather with family and declare our various gratitudes. In that spirit, I'll list some content technology things for which, I think, we can all be grateful ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 20-Nov-2007
It's easy to get lost in the maelstrom that is Oracle OpenWorld. With over 45,000 visitors, it takes over San Francisco each year. Its "appreciation" parties are legendary ... Continue Reading
Added By Tony Byrne on 13-Nov-2007
Last week at cmf2007 Raimond Kempees, a developer and consultant at Radagio, gave a nice talk assessing MOSS 2007. Among other things, Raimond relayed some of the challenges ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 25-Oct-2007
It would be interesting to know how many failed ECM projects stemmed from the wrong deployment methodology. I was pondering on this after a discussion with ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Oct-2007
Major enterprise search vendor Autonomy announced today that they will acquire Meridio, the Northern Ireland-based Records Management vendor which had originally hitched its wagon to Microsoft SharePoint ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Oct-2007
Autumn is conference season here in the US, and one of the events I am most looking forward to is KMWorld in San Jose, California, from 6-8th November. ... Continue Reading
Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Oct-2007
At every talk or seminar I give on buying ECM technology, I stress to attendees that they have many different options -- including software as a service (SaaS). It's still early days for SaaS ECM, but the approach is now joining open source as a viable alternative to traditional software licensing models ... Continue Reading
