Media

Recent Press Releases

25-Jan-2012 - Newly Released Advisory Paper Urges Caution with Cloud-Based File Sharing

18-Jan-2012 - Major Collaboration / Social Platforms Coming Up Short on Business Applications

09-Jan-2012 - 2012 Document Management (ECM) Market Analysis Released

05-Dec-2011 - 2012 Technology Predictions Released

13-Nov-2011 - Taxonomy Management Tools Replacing Spreadsheets for Enterprise Vocabularies

01-Nov-2011 - The Real Story Group Releases New ECM Report Covering Case Management and More

13-Oct-2011 - Major Digital & Media Asset Management Update Released

See all press releases.

In The News

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on IT consolidation
01-Feb-2012 | Real User Monitoring | "IT Should Consolidate with Caution"

As we all know, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so when you attempt to reduce duplication across systems in IT, you have to keep this in mind.

We’ve all seen through departmental purchases or sprawl or mergers and acquisitions, companies can be saddled with a dozen content management systems, multiple customer relationship management packages and so forth. What’s more, when users get frustrated by overly complex enterprise software, they sometimes take matters into their own hands and use simpler cloud services instead.

What’s an IT Pro to do?

This morning on Twitter, Alan Pelz Sharpe from the Real Story Group suggested that consolidation might not be as clear cut as you might think, and in fact, even if you sucessfully combined systems, what would stop them from proliferating willy-nilly all over again.

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on the ECM industry
01-Feb-2012 | CMSWire | "The ECM Industry Continues to Grow"

The enterprise content management and document management industries have turned the corner, according to Real Story Group principal Alan Pelz-Sharpe. CMS Wire talked to Pelz-Sharpe, whose group recently released its annual report on the enterprise content management industry. The growth and movement in the industry is going to bring some new trends for 2012 and on.

Alan Pelz-Sharpe: Enterprise Search is not easy
01-Feb-2012 | Information Management | "Enterprise Search Is Not Easy"

We've heard cries that the enterprise search market is dead, that thefight is over and that it is now a two-horse race between Microsoft and Google. There may be some truth in this, but it's certainly not the whole story. The enterprise search market continues to move forward, albeit with a few major challenges. The downside is that these challenges can make what seems like a simple search product selection and implementation project for the enterprise more complex and costly than expected.

As of mid-2011, the search market is dominated by three big names, Google, Microsoft and Apache Lucene. The Google appliance continues to sell well at the departmental level within organizations. Microsoft, via its dominance with Office and SharePoint, has become the de facto search application for many back-office needs. And Lucene has become ubiquitous as an embedded search engine in many products and applications. With these three very different dominant search engines in the market, it can be hard to make a mark as an independent search vendor today.

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on industry changes
01-Feb-2012 | KMWorld | "Tracing the ancestry of a product"
When organizations buy knowledge and information management technology, they often do so from trusted and preferred suppliers. On the surface, that approach makes a great deal of sense, but a closer look at what is being sold will occasionally make you think twice. Information and knowledge management technology offerings would appear to have evolved in terms of complexity and breadth over the past decade. Yet, some offerings on sale today have long and sometimes infamous heritages, even though their branding and marketing may suggest they are shiny new and "cutting edge." Gaining an understanding of a product's ancestry is essential work to undertake for any technology buyer in today's market.

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on The Future of Enterprise CMS
18-Jan-2012 | CMSWire | "The Future of Enterprise CMS: Interview with Real Story Group's Alan Pelz-Sharpe"

The Real Story Group published its annual report on the enterprise content management industry last week. We talked to Real Story Group (RSG) Principal Alan Pelz-Sharpe, who outlined some of the main findings and who argues that the industry has already passed a turning point which will result in some established and newer trends gaining ground in the year to come.

The first thing to be said, apart from the fact that it has turned a corner, is that the document management industry is growing, says Pelz-Sharpe. The RSG research shows that far from hitting the industry, the current recession has seen many enterprises sticking with traditional vendors.

Pelz-Sharpe also points to the level of activity in and around newer cloud-based offerings. Enterprises looking for solutions that provide efficiencies to carry out their business dealings with reduced work forces see the cloud-based offerings as one possible solution.

Irina Guseva on Lots of talk, little movement toward cloud Web content management
04-Jan-2012 | Search Content Management - Tech Target | "Lots of talk, little movement toward cloud Web content management"

Despite all the hoopla surrounding Software as a Service (SaaS), organizations are taking the slow path to migrating to cloud web content management (WCM) systems, according to analysts, who say there’s more talk about the move than action.

“In general, there’s no big shift toward the cloud when it comes to WCM,” said Irina Guseva, an analyst with Real Story Group in Olney, Md. “I wouldn’t say companies are transitioning away from traditional on-premises software to the cloud even though the cloud has major impact, especially as it relates to open source software. It’s more of a complementary option for organizations, but the liftoff hasn’t happened.”

Like any SaaS software, cloud-based WCM promises advantages inherent in the delivery model, including quick time to deployment, reduced investment in hardware and infrastructure to run the system and the option for scaling to accommodate the ebbs and flows of business. While the ability to be up and running quickly is one of the more heralded aspects of cloud-based WCM, some experts say the ease-of-management promise has far greater appeal, as companies look for more efficient ways to administer and update burgeoning content stores to support a multichannel, global delivery strategy encompassing mobile, apps and the Web. 

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on Oracle purchasing Endeca
18-Oct-2011 | Computer World | "Oracle boosts enterprise search with Endeca purchase"

Oracle's purchase of Endeca is not surprising, said Alan Pelz-Sharpe, an analyst with the Real Story Group. Autonomy, which is Endeca's biggest rival, was in talks with Oracle before Hewlett-Packard acquired Autonomy, Pelz-Sharpe wrote in a blog post.

"Though financial details have not been disclosed, it is safe to assume that Oracle paid far less than the $10 billion-plus that HP spent on Autonomy," he said. The Endeca acquisition fits neatly with Oracle's growing interest in the online retail space, Pelz-Sharpe noted.

"Endeca has carved out quite a niche in providing unstructured data analytics in the retail sector, with decent -- albeit broadly mimicked -- guided navigation capabilities," he said. "Additionally, Endeca has a pretty good reputation for customer service and for investing in ongoing research and development, in sharp contrast to Autonomy." 

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