Let's move onto number two in our mini-series of ECM "family trees," EMC Documentum.  (The first tree was Open Text.)

Just to be clear, the purpose of this little exercise is mostly serious fun, and little bit of education into what makes up a "Suite" offering from an ECM vendor. It's not to make judgments regarding the vendors' choice of acquisitions or growth strategies. 

To my eyes EMC is most interesting as I have been following the firm since I worked on a Documentum project in 1996-97 for John Brown Engineering. This family tree differs from the Open Text's in that Documentum themselves were acquired by EMC in 2003. EMC then acquired some other vendors, so the tree fills out a bit.

However, as you can see Documentum seldom made any acquisitions for most of their independent years, and were identified as a firm that liked to build everything themselves. Near the end of their independent existence they started to acquire in earnest with eRoom and Bulldog et al.  Undoubtedly this tree will look very different in a few years time, as I have no doubt EMC will be adding more branches to it.

Click to enlarge

As always, let me know about any omissions or errors so that I can correct them.

To see our evaluations of these vendors and their suitability for your business needs, consult our ECM research.