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We have just released a new Advisory Paper, 2012 Document Management (ECM) Market Analysis. This paper looks at where the ECM market is headed in 2012 and aims to help document management buyers navigate the myriad of products and vendors in this segment — while avoiding pitfalls. Download and read the Advisory Paper here.

We've just published an update to the Document & Records Management Version 7.1 Report. Version 7.1 includes updates to Oracle WebCenter Content.

It's a fact of business life that software vendors sometimes go out of business or vendors sunset their products. This actually happens less than most customers fear, but when it does happen, the results can range from damaging to catastrophic. Therefore, a prudent customer will monitor key technologies and suppliers for potential problems. Fortunately, a failing vendor or product will exhibit telltale signs of coming failure. Led by RSG founder Tony Byrne, this webinar will share ten key "early warning signs," so you can conduct your own risk mitigation accordingly.

Recently we have seen large enterprise buyers considering Box alongside Microsoft SharePoint. Just a year ago, SharePoint was practically the sole contender in light document management situations; now the situation has changed quickly and dramatically. With heavy investment funding, Box is rapidly positioning itself as a SharePoint contender, going so far as posting a billboard in Silicon Valley stating, "Box.net vs SharePoint -- Sharing should be simple. Challenge us..."

But is Box.net really a SharePoint killer? If not, what does its rise tell us about how enterprises are (and are not) utilizing SharePoint?

With rare exceptions, most enterprises do not employ business software "out of the box." Rather, they create applications. Applications are a specialized implementation of a piece of software that achieves a particular business purpose, and they are critical to obtaining value in your specific business environment. However, creating applications requires development expertise, time, and funds. Applications also require configuration management: the process of synchronizing and testing multiple concurrent changes. Yet even with testing, bugs and instability frequently haunt them. SaaS (Software as a Service) and cloud-based services obviate only some (but not all) of these challenges.

It's been over 10 years since we first came across SharePoint and so much has changed in that time. Changes both in terms of the products, but also in terms of buyers and market expectations. Alan believes that SharePoint is approaching something of a crossroads, one that users of the platform may be more aware of than Microsoft and its partner channel. The times they are a-changing...and SharePoint has evolved in ways nobody could have expected. The competition, meanwhile, is far from rolling over and giving up. In fact it has adapted remarkably well. Who is buying SharePoint in 2011, why are they buying it and when might this Microsoft steamroller of success finally begin to run out of steam?

When you or your software vendors provide mobile access to business applications, there are two broad choices:

1. Create downloadable applications (or mobile apps) that are optimized for different device/operating system combinations.
2. Create web-based applications (web apps) that target a broader mobile population of browser-enabled devices.

Proponents of web-based apps claim that technologies such as HTML5 will make mobile apps obsolete. There is merit to this argument, but it's not completely valid. Both approaches will continue to coexist, and therefore you need to decide which approaches are suitable for your scenarios. This paper helps you make these choices.
Download this advisory paper here.

SharePoint's licensing structure has always been complicated, and with new variants and options, SharePoint 2010 is no exception. Moreover, with the advent of BPOS and its successor Office 365, you have recourse to new deployment options with distinct licensing models.

Depending on which version of SharePoint you deploy, the licensing cost can range from nearly zero to hundreds of dollars per seat. This is because Microsoft sells several versions of SharePoint, but each version is packaged with different capabilities and licensing schemes. If you don’t understand the varieties, you'll only get half the story.

As a buyer, in order to budget for SharePoint accurately, you need to assess the various levels and deployment options carefully.

It's a fact of business life that software vendors sometimes go out of business or vendors sometimes sunset their products. This actually happens less than most customers fear, but when it does happen, the results can range from damaging to catastrophic. Therefore, a prudent customer will monitor key technologies and suppliers for potential problems.

Fortunately, a failing vendor or open source project will exhibit telltale signs of a coming failure. By identifying these signs as a customer, you can conduct your own risk mitigation accordingly. This paper identifies ten potential warning signs and offers an approach to distinguish between simple technical or business hiccups, and potentially serious trouble. It includes a simple quiz for you to rate likely risk levels among your key technology suppliers.

We've just published an update to the Document & Records Management Version 6.2 Report. Version 6.2 includes two new chapters: Ephesoft and IBM Datacap. We have also updated several product evaluations, including ABBYY, EMC Captiva, Brainware, and Kofax. In addition, the "Dissected" chapter has all new graphics and all chapters now use our standard Harvey Balls.

Although eForm (electronic form) software solutions have been available for more than a decade, many organizations continue to use paper-based or static electronic forms, like printed PDFs and Word documents. This is due in large part to an insufficient understanding of potential eForm benefits, aggravated by a lack of knowledge about best practices for moving from traditional forms to eForms. As a result, many enterprises are missing business opportunities. The business rationales for moving from traditional, static forms toward more dynamic electronic forms are manifold: error rates fall, processing times shrink, and customer experience improves. This paper provides practical advice for organizations that are considering a transition away from traditional forms.

Download this advisory paper here.

The word adobe traces its roots to spoken Arabic, where it was al tub, or "the brick." Adobe's recently announced Digital Enterprise Platform (ADEP) can be best described as a tub of bricks for building tablet, mobile, web, and desktop applications. The "tub" in this case is CRX -- the repository layer that Adobe took over via the Day Software acquisition. ADEP also incorporates Adobe's longstanding LiveCycle offering, along with other related services and glue code. Although the first version of ADEP won't go live until August 2011, it represents an important attempt to rationalize and integrate a variety of Adobe tools and services under one framework, with multichannel "Customer Experience Management" as the unifying theme. There's important long-term potential here, but the real customer value remains unproven at this time. This paper looks at the promise and the potential pitfalls of ADEP from that perspective.

Download this advisory paper here.

The software engineering community has spawned many different methods to estimate levels of effort for implementing projects. You could debate the validity or accuracy yielded by these projection methods, but the fact remains that they're widely employed. However, in our experience, established methods generally don't fare well for packaged software implementation efforts in general -- content management projects in particular. In this advisory, we examine the shortcomings of traditional approaches, and explore more useful alternatives.
Download this advisory paper here.

Every organization around the globe -- public or private -- is required to manage its records. It's a requirement that is sometimes de-emphasized, underfunded, or even ignored, but nevertheless, records management (RM) remains a constant obligation. This begs the question: As more organizations take a "cloud-first" approach to information technology services, is the cloud a sufficiently mature or suitable environment in which to manage enterprise records? This question becomes more acute as SaaS vendors and enterprises turn more to infrastructural cloud services (like Amazon) for document persistence. In these early days, the implications for RM are still playing out, but key issues have emerged around data, functionality, and operations. This advisory briefing outlines eight key considerations for managing records in the cloud, so that you can make fully informed decisions.

Download this advisory paper here.

Content persistence refers to how you store digital information while maintaining your regular content management activities. In any content management system -- albeit web content management (WCM), document management (DM) or digital asset management (DAM) -- how content is persisted is an important (but oft-ignored) aspect of the overall content lifecycle. Business users typically want easy access to content and don't tend to care where content is persisted. However, the mechanics of persistence have always been an important consideration for IT and system admin specialists -- particularly since these decisions can impact the business user experience, as well. A content management system usually persists content in a file system, a database, a custom repository, or some combination of the three. Different product vendors take different approaches to persisting content, with some offering more flexibility than others. In all cases, you have critical trade-offs to consider before finalizing your approach.

Download this advisory paper here.

SharePoint has become ubiquitous across enterprises for collaborative document sharing. However, despite the large volumes of documents that have been created, managed, and stored in SharePoint environments, records management (RM) requirements rarely have been addressed properly. In fact, many customers complained that MOSS 2007 lacked robust or credible RM options, but SharePoint 2010 has seemingly addressed many of these concerns. Download and read the full Advisory Paper here.

MarkLogic is a unique platform that can provide impressive, infrastructural services for XML storage and processing. We deliberately don't classify MarkLogic as an enterprise search tool or a content management system (it lacks core content management features, such as versioning and workflow). This paper analyzes why, and despite the fact that MarkLogic has strong search capabilities of its own, we don't recommend it for enterprise search -- or even consider it to be an enterprise search system. Download and read the full Advisory Paper here.

Download a recording of this 30-minute webinar originally aired on 18 January, 2011. Alan Pelz-Sharpe highlights the newest trends and where the marketplace is heading, and explains the 2011 Document Management Cross-Check. 22MB WMV file.

The 2011 Document Management (ECM) Market Analysis is now available for download. In addition to analysis on the state of the Document Management (ECM) market, this advisory paper includes our new and improved Document Management Cross-Check that evaluates buyer risk. Download the 2011 Document Management Market Analysis here.

We've just updated two evaluations in our Document & Records Management (ECM) stream: Autonomy and Oracle. We've overhauled both of these evaluations to address recent changes within these products and companies. Download the updated chapters and comparison charts here.

Requests for Information (RFIs) will help you gather information to make better decisions, and eliminate suppliers that cannot or should not be working with you. Download the advisory paper here.

This briefing looks at several challenges that arise when you offshore an ECM project. It also explains how to best handle these challenges as well as recommends best practices. Download the briefing here.

We've just updated three evaluations in our ECM stream: HP TRIM, Hyland, and Oracle. Plus we've added a new evaluation, ImageNow from Perceptive Software - a company recently acquired by printer firm Lexmark. Download the updated chapters and comparison charts here.