I am a consultant deploying SharePoint. I did have a very large customer a year ago that used both Documentum and eRoom very heavily only and I got to administer both of those for a year. I like to learn non-Microsoft technologies since most my bread and butter does come from Microsoft. But I got to configure and administer Documentum and eRoom, I learned how to do the customizations I needed to. But you know what…after being back on SharePoint after that, I realized that my difficulty using eRoom was more that I am use to the way Microsoft implements their functionality and therefore intuitively know where to look for something or what to expect (taking Office 2007′s horrible menu structure out of it!). So me, as being a heavily invested Microsoft user, does find SharePoint better primarily by that. But I am at least honest with myself…I know it is not necessarily that SharePoint is a better product, it may be, it probably is not knowing their fast to get it out the door record…but when it comes down to it…I like how it “looks” and navigates better, I like its integration with the very latest Office products…hey you know if Microsoft didn’t require that we would all still be on XP and Office 2000. Sometimes a “push” in the new direction is a good thing. I have been a consultant for over 20 years. Whereas I don’t like to generalize things, I do agree that we have two basic types of users, Microsoft and non-Microsoft. I have many heavy Unix/Linux based customers that don’t even take the time to properly evaluate the new Microsoft products. They glance at it and state “ooh it just wreaks of Microsoft…just look at those menus…”

I think what we all have to remember in evaluating products, is that, if they weren’t very close in the true functionality, feature set comparisons, and performance…we wouldn’t even be having these conversations I think Josh’s statement was meant to be alittle more generalized. When two products are very close to the same functionality and performance, what is best for your customer? Time costing product comparisons at a very detailed level…or looking at their user base to see what the majority of them are use to and will therefore probably adopt easier. I hope the best for both products…if they don’t both stay very close in the running we will just all be stuck with one of them…and then we know we would be more dissatified wouldn’t we.

Not trying to get off topic here, but why wouldn’t you use TaskSpace? Our largest Federal client uses eRoom and they want to use WebTop for their Business Processes, bouncing back and forth with eRoom when collaboration was necessary. The interface for WebTop leaves a bit to be desired and is not as friendly as eRoom. They do like TaskSpace though. Do you not like the idea of using different interfaces for different purposes? This particular client has users who have bounced from one interface/application to another to perform their work each day. They’re used to it.

Not sure if I would use Taskspace. It would depend on the business process and the interactions required. I’d rather have everything inside of one interface, and paying extra for Taskspace when it should be surfaced in eRoom seems excessive.

BTW, for one of our clients, we use the XML and COM API’s of eRoom 7.x to populate eRoom databases, calendars, attachments, project plans etc with data from an external Oracle Enterprise Database.

We also are in the midst of integrating it with a different ECM product (not Documentum – Don’t ask) via the API and it works beautifully. (This client also has Documentum for BPM only and that is being integrated via API programming. Content entered into eRoom triggers events that start a business process in Documentum. Similarly, business processes in Documentum will be configured to allow collaboration in eRoom along with programmatic return to the Business Process when certain actions in eRoom are performed.

I have been and continue to be a big fan of eRoom and will probably be one for quite some time. So, take my ramblings with that in mind.

One area that I disagree with you on is about the requirement for more or less ECM. Depending on what you want to do with the content, eRoom should handle it just fine. If you need collaboration around that content, eRoom can handle it. If you need workflow, it can do that to an extent as well but more so with the API. I would use the ECM for workflow anyways. Perhaps via the new WEBTOP for transactional content called TAskSpace.

I think I’ve written enough.

Take care