EMC Making Some Moves
Taking a break from D6 to observe and rant about Documentum’s recent changes. They announced, buried in another press release, Thursday that Mark Lewis is taking over the Content Management and Archiving group and being presented with the title of President. I am mixed on this move as he replaces Mike DeCesare, one of the guys that helped Documentum grow. Of course, he was a sales guy, and Mark Lewis, the former head of Legato [Edit - 7 Sept 2007: He has been the Chief Development Officer and came from HP], is more technically savvy and may be a better choice to lead the CMA.
Now for a rant. For a few months I have been enjoying my position of building an ECM practice. There are two major challenges to building a practice, winning business and hiring the right people to deliver. I’ve been doing that, but EMC has been making my job harder.
Not that they are doing anything wrong, but they have been hiring people that I have been trying to recruit. Two spring to mind. Both of them got great opportunities that fit what they wanted to do very well. I am happy for both of them as I know them personally and wish them well.
I am happy that EMC is hiring quality people. This goes beyond these two and on to others that I have tracked. It goes beyond their Professional Services and is at various levels. This is all good for the future of both the product and company. However, the problem is this…EMC is removing a high percentage of quality hires from the hiring pool for partners. This is my problem, and I am re-doubling my efforts to identify quality people so that I can transform them into quality ECM people.
Oh, and I am going to start recruiting inside of EMC in retaliation. 
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Laurence,
Mark Lewis isn’t actually replacing Mike DeCesare, there’s an internal replacement for Mike. Mark will be taking overall responsibility for the entire CM&A business unit. Personally, I think that this is a great move, all the interactions that I’ve had with Mark have been very successful & enjoyable, he a very smart and personable guy.
BTW, I don’t think Mark came from the Legato acquisition but I could be wrong.
Andrew
Good luck with the recruiting campaign…too funny.
Thanks Andrew. I seem to recall that Mike had been running things in the CMA for a bit, and thus my statement. However, Mike keeping his old position and Mark running things is fine by me.
And you are right on Mark and Legato. I just checked his bio and have updated accordingly. Still like his background.
Mark was instrumental in bringing Documentum under the fold of EMC from the start. With him being a proponent of CMA, I think ECM Architects will stand to benefit with this move as it will help Documentum increasingly becomes the “spoke” of the EMC ILM story.