To be honest, I fully expect only one of the established leaders (EMC, IBM, Oracle, and Open Text) to make it. Microsoft might make it two with their Office365 offering but there is the separate concern that SharePoint will collapse under its own weight after two more releases.

Seemingly aware of all this, last year at EMC World, Rick Devenuti announced during the Momentum keynote a new strategy for Documentum. Based around the concept of the New User, the idea was to support the transition to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) reality hitting many organizations through new clients, new deployment methodologies, and even new architectures.

This year had more of the same. It what was more of a report card than any major news, aside from the Synplicity announcement. So I’m going to give out grades for the execution of the strategy. Here are the ratings:

• Above Expectations: The information presented exceeded the expectations set a year ago and the realities of the evolving marketplace.
• Satisfactory: Pretty much on course as per last year. Given the realities of software development, especially for systems as complex as Content Management. This is still a good rating because expectations were set pretty high.
• Unsatisfactory: A fallback or failure to met expectations. Cut functionality or significantly changed timelines are reasons that this would be awarded.

Keep in mind that even with good scores, determining whether or not any of this is going to be delivered in time to meet the needs of the market is a function of all vendors in the space as a whole. EMC can’t control what the other vendors do over the next year. They can try to shape the discussion of the market but there is no guarantee that they will be successful.

Moving to the Cloud

Above Expectations: Yes, above expectations. Jeroen van Rotterdam set some high expectations last year. All EMC did this year was either confirm or exceed  everything promised last year.

• Next Generation Information Server (NGIS): On track for the most part. It won’t be out this year but with the details that have been shared, it is looking better than expected. For the first release, the D2 client functionality is planned to be supported. I’ve always told them to not support everything in the first release to speed delivery and they seem to agree.
• Hybrid Cloud: Yes, true hybrid. NGIS and D7 will be able to dynamically exchange content and solutions between the two systems. That’s right, you can interact with content in one place and send it to the other if you need it for broader consumption. On the flip side, if you decided you need content to be limited to the on-premise server, you can do that as well.
• EMC OnDemand: This was as expected There was very little exciting announced here outside the confirmation of Service-Based billing. While not a cloud architecture, people can get many of the benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS) with this offering.
• Syncplicity: This was the big surprise and the reason that EMC is getting a high grade here. I’ll have a separate post later on the acquisition and what it means. One thing it does say is that EMC is going to fight and try and make a splash in the Cloud-based Content Management space THIS year.

Unified Client

Satisfactory: This was a mixed bag. The concept of developing a new Unified Client was abandoned when D2 was acquired from C6. As a whole, that isn’t a bad thing. The work they are doing on D2 as they move forward with the next release seem to be very good. It looks more functional and “modern” than most legacy interfaces that you come across.

Of course, there are issues. Digital Asset Management appears to be basically on hold until late 2013. That is a shame as EMC had a decent offering and I know many people that are more than a little tired of waiting.

In the meantime, the rest of the community are going to have to settle on a standard interface  that appears to be configurable for most non-case business cases. When tied with NGIS, it should be a fairly complete Cloud-based Content Management solution.

xCP

Satisfactory: If you were at the conference and really looked into the upcoming xCP client you might be wondering why this is just Satisfactory. Simple, the expectations and needs of the marketplace are pretty high.

The current xCP version was a dramatic improvement over the previous way Documentum clients built both Case and Business Process Management (BPM) solutions. Unfortunately for EMC, the whole market has been driving forward in this area and xCP 1.0 has some limitations that can require some work to remedy.

One the positive side, the new tooling for building xCP 2.0 applications seems to be solid. Good enough for several partners could build applications that appeared to work well during demos in only 3 weeks time. Were there issues? Yes. Given the several months until release, that is to be expected.

Which takes us to the negatives. The release has slipped over the course of a year. This is understandable given the year plus estimate given last year. Factors to consider:

• xCP 2 has significant design changes that are designed to allow it to work with both the upcoming D7 and NGIS. The goal is plug and play. This necessitated making xCP non-dependent on the Content Server. This was likely not easy.
• Structured Data Types are a thing of the past in 2.0. This is a good thing as the introduction of the business object is a welcome consolidation of concepts that has been needed for some time. On the flip side, migrations to 2.0 just got challenging. Any potential migration tool is likely a 2013 deliverable. I heard xCP 2.1 and xCP 2.2, though more of the former.
• Software development estimates more than six months out are generally guesses. I’ve done a lot of development projects in my day. If there is enough to do that you need six months to code it, there will be slippage. Turnover, unseen complications, and the massive amount of testing required are just realities of product development.
• Testing is ongoing. According to many sources, the product is in a primarily performance and quality testing phase. I suspect this is a slight exaggeration, but I do believe that all major features are likely coded.
• I’ve also heard that Rick has a lower tolerance for bugs than predecessors. This is a good thing as a buggy release could kill EMC in the market. There is a lot less room for error now than there was even just two years ago. Of course, that also lengthens timelines.

Everything Else

Above Expectations: This is actually more a function of the low expectations than anything else. The overall strategy had changed so much over the last five+ years that keeping a steady strategic direction exceeds expectations. It also helps that this is likely the only strategy than can keep them relevant in the coming decade.

EMC had lost all benefit of the doubt. Simply by executing successfully over the last year has kept them in the conversation. I can’t say they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt back, but there is no reason for current users to abandon Documentum because there is no future.

The community is in wait-and-see mode until the fall.

The advent of Documentum 7 (D7) is a huge plus. EMC has begun managing its own solution using  OnDemand and they are starting to truly feel the pain that the community has felt for years. These benefits are being introduced along with some significant performance improvements that should finally allow massive scaling of Documentum on-premise without feeling like a miracle worker.

The mobile client is making some good strides. Details aside, given the past performance of mobile components, this is a minor miracle unto itself. If they can continue this pace they will be in good shape in the future.

Final Thoughts

That about wraps it up. Overall, very little earth-shattering. It was hard to get excited about upcoming products and features that were announce a year ago. They fact that everything was consistent was actually a VERY good thing. If there had been a collection of new things, then the crowd would have had to worry. As it was, we all smiled and nodded our heads.

EMC gets checkmarks across the board. Given how long it has been since that was the case, it is hard to complain. Momentum Vienna should be very interesting and exciting if everything stays on track. If you want to be there when the future of Documentum is shown off, then I strongly urge you to make plans now.

Given my role with AIIM, I’ll only be there if I am speaking on the Content Management space and the changing role of the Information Professional. If you are a Reporter, Analyst, Partner, or Client, you need to be there to see history.

Of course, whether the history made will be good or bad for the industry, which needs innovative players, is in the hands of EMC.

Notes

• Making the choice between Innovation and Governance shouldn’t be required. These choices are made and cause unfortunate consequences. See banking industry in the US the past few years.
• Delivery of New User interfaces
  • D2 3.1 and now 4.0
  • Documentum Mobile 1.1 (iPhone) and now 1.2 (IRM support)
  • Syncplicity (acquisition from yesterday)
• Brian Roche takes stage to show D2 4.0
  • Demo being done on a Mac
  • Showing preview of content in the application itself.
  • Showed Google maps showing “where” the document was last updated.
  • Get to pick different workplace based upon what you are working on and your role
  • Showed adding of Twitter widget.
  • Must be a Google gadget
  • D2 4.0 can co-exist with 3.1
• Mobile First, first class experience
• Talking about EMC OnDemand managed service model
  • Documentum 6.7 OnDemand
  • Captiva 6.5 OnDemand
  • Document Sciences 4.1 On Demand
  • D2 3.1 and Global Services delivered OnDemand now
• Demo of xCP 2.0, GreenPlum, and Document Sciences working together using xCP 2.0 as the front end. Showing how the app is made within the xCP and DocSci builder applications.
• Documentum 7 (D7) GA Q4, Limited Q3. Foundation of xCP 2.0
  • 8x TCO Improvement
  • Private-Cloud optimized
• Captiva 7.0, Unified Operator UI, Unified Designer, Improved Classification (2H 2012)
• Demo of Syncplicity
  • Provisioned an account for Jeetu in demo
  • Admin can act on user behalf (missing from most comparable apps)
  • Has activity streams to supplement folder navigation
  • Jeetu lost network connection, so this is live demo
  • Has remote wipe feature for any of the devices (Generally want for entire device, but app specific is good) Can remote wipe by device, all devices for a user, and by folder.

Not sure what is next. May be a good time to track me down. Will likely end up in the Bloggers Lounge. There are espressos there. Maybe a triple.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but may not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.

Notes

• Architecture looks same as before, though likely a new diagram. D2 Configuration added but nothing surprising at this point. Very high-level model.
• Trying to move away from coding content applications to either;
  • Composing applications in xCP
  • Configuring interfaces in D2
• Contrasting Today’s architecture with Future (NGIS-Next Generation Information Server)
  • NGIS is multi-tenant Public Cloud Architecture
  • Marginal cost to add a tenant needs to be almost zero
  • SOAP is gone, only REST
  • D2 Config part of core configuration component
  • Created Documentum Markup Language to translate current model into XML to facilitate transformation from current stack to NGIS. Starting with D2, xCP next
  • Goal is design against current stack and allow for flowing it between the current stack on-premise to future cloud stack off premise. Includes solution and information (likely assumes an up-to-date xCP or D2 solution)
• Setting-up NGIS authentication with either internal LDAP or OpenID.
• Investing in both the current platform and NGIS
• For D7, working on performance and scalability
  • Improved Context Switch performance (reuse of session by other users)
  • Improved cache management, lower memory and CPU
  • Improved capacity of session and response times, reduced sessions in Oracle
  • Session to User ratio is dramatically better. less than 20 sessions for 400 users. D6.7 needs 80 sessions for 100 sessions.
  • Around 300 users, response times die around 100 concurrent users and spikes up. D7 session response time more than 300% better even when scaled to 500 users
  • More graphs (all 64-bit), very impressive, D7 is reletively flat to 400+ users while D6.7 is spiking up at 100 users. (Even taking values aside, the ratio of performance improvement between the two is dramatic)
• This is all done through various means. Jeroen is showing a graph that just focuses on the new type cache methodology
• Going for a pure REST approach, takes time to do right
  • Abstracting resource types from Documentum platform
  • Supporting resource mobility (HTTP redirects)
  • Connecting resources across products in seamless manner to application
  • Discoverability of resources
• Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA)
  • Apache Standard Architecture for Natural Language Processing customizations
  • Coming Released in xPlore 1.2 (Nov 2011)
  • Example is Content Intelligence Services (CIS)
• Federated Search in Mobile, Webtop, and CenterStage. D2 and xCP not currently surfaced.
• (Note to all Federated Search is the reaching out to other search indexes to display one result set. Is not Enterprise Search which is one search engine and multiple source systems)
• Hyperic based monitoring solution per customer in D6.7 sp2 and onwards (later this year). Plan to have it eventually allow you to correct errors or have it automatically correct errors. (this and many tech improvements are stemming from On-Demand efforts)
  • Includes Logging
  • Windows and Linux
  • Later this year for D6.7 sp2 is likely Q4 but no commitment for earlier. “Later this year” is catch phrase. Will have to ask others.
• XMS is designed to help automate the deployment of Documentum.
• D2 configuration based upon user and object type and a priority order
• Semantic model of xCP generates REST services
• Stateless BPM engine will allow user to trigger a process and have result appear in the interface
• xCP and Big Data
  • in xCP 2.0, built-in integration for Greenplum from xCP through xCP Designer, same for Document Sciences xPression
  • Stateless engine will interact to interact with Greenplum directly
  • Conditional output from Greenplum  can create letter from Document Sciences without user interaction, all through engine

Time for more coffee. Going to find a good spot to see Tucci’s keynote. Enjoying the conference so far, but lots to learn.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but may not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.

Overall, I heard good things. Jeroen van Rotterdam was there to actually speak on the Next Generation Information Server (NGIS). Lee Dallas and Mike Mohen was also in attendance. For those that don’t know Mike, he is the host of the always popular DFS Real World Examples and Best Practices sessions at EMC World. In fact, the quality of the speakers was pretty good and the only negative thing I heard was that there was only one day of individual sessions.

When people want more of everything, that is a pretty good thing. The EMC people were sitting around at the end of the day thinking about what to do for the next one. That is a very good indicator for the Documentum developers that make the systems work.

Did Someone Ask for Notes?

While I was only there for the social at the end of the day, a couple former colleagues of mine from Washington Consulting, Inc. were in attendance. One, Anand Alagappa, took some notes that I convinced him to share. When reading his notes, keep in mind that as he took them that he hadn’t planned on anyone reading them besides himself. I also seem to recall him running out of battery power at some point as well.

If you have any questions , please comment and we’ll see what we can do to clarify things.

One more note, I heard that xCP 2.0 is slated for the fall of 2012. I think applies to D7 as well, but that wasn’t explicitly stated.

Note, these are notes and may have errors. Any release dates may change at any time.

Lee Dallas spoke about partner certification program, EMC xCP certification paths. (Welcome and Partner Program)

Jeroen VanRotterdam, Chief Architect EMC Information Intelligence Group

Mentioned about his blog www.emccrazycontent.com

Journey to Cloud

• On demand

Pervasive Governance

• Unified and simple ediscovery
• Trust in the cloud

Business transformation

• Captiva
• xPression

Now Available:

• D2 interface v3.1
• Mobile iPad interface v1.1

2H 2012

• D2 v4.0
• Mobile v1.2
• xPression v4.5
• Captiva v7.0

D2 new Documentum client

• Shorten implementation cycles
• Easily configured to respond to the needs of the user

Documentum mobile client

• Available on apple app store
• Collaborate with co-workers while on the road
• Secure access to enterprise info

D2. Configuration matrix

• D2 is basically a targeted rules engine
• Customizations are expensive
• Better UI experience

D2 3.1 available now

D2 4.0 ui changing

D2 – COTS client – configured ECM

• Sop management
• Agency collaboration
• Contract management

xCP – Custom applications

• Loan origination
• Hr on boarding
• New account opening

D2 is the unified client for static applications Rich media and collaboration

• CenterStage & eRoom entitled to D2 v4.1 (2013)

Webtop upgrade path to xCP application (from coded to composed) Or from customized to configured ( D2 bundle / D2 premium / D2 standard)

[Editor: Deleted block of notes that didn’t make much sense]

Journey to the cloud

• EMC on demand architecture
• Vcube manager
• Vcube – managed by EMC experts

Kazeon – file intelligence and eDiscovery v4.6 Universal connectivity Handle social media Unified discovery of content in disparate repos

Xplore enterprise search

• Full text
• Meta data – XML based
• Security xacml
• Facet computation – modified lucene
• Predictive Analytics – hidden

Advanced search core components

Ui server cloud services

Client components – JSON and REST

• Rest is like build a new API
• Formalizing data model of Documentum
• Building XML schemas for data model
• xMS (xCelerated MAnagement System) radical change in deployment

Next presentation by Chief architect IIG pro services (don’t know his name) [Editor: It is Mike Mohen]

DFS – extjs, flex , adobe pro, filenet, sharepoint

IIG integration trends

WSDL on decline, REST is more in demand Custom portals More demand for XA, JTA More security options

• SAML and kerberos
• Open social is a standard

JPA/ hibernate interfaces with contents services

DFS JMeter testing harness

At this point, my battery was dying and I just listened to the presentations:

There was a presentation on D2 by a EMC senior systems engineer

• Showed a D2 demo
• Showed how The client application created from the spreadsheet-style configuration services

xCp 2.0 Presentation by ….[Editor: Dan Ciruli]

• There will be only one tool (probably will be name xCp Designer) to build process, forms (extjs)
• Everything will be build offline and deployed to the application server and docbase (a single war file, which will have dar)
• the generated files on app server is based on spring framework
• No Structured data types while building process
• Package attributes are available and so no process mapping (Not sure how the reporting works without SDTs ….)
• Talked about creating relationships between object types (one to one, one to many, many to one) as opposed to one to one relationship between object types in xcp 1.5
• No new development on Process Analyser and it is given to a EMC partner (forgot name) for development
• Process simulator…end of life

After this – there was a presentation on Records Manager

• What is a record, formal records
• How records are created, retention policys applied, file plans created (brief overview)

Last year I was pretty strong in my criticism of EMC’s lack of vision or strategy in the Content Management space. In a way I should thank them because it inspired me to write a post on the Future of Content Management that was later received fairly well at Gilbane Boston and info360.

Of course, none of that helps my existing Documentum clients, nor does it help the community at large. Well this year, EMC presented both a vision and a strategy at EMC World. I was pretty excited, not so much because I thought it was the best vision, but because it even vision.

Introducing Sarah, the New User

The vision kept hitting you in the face everywhere. It was all about “The New User”. After a while, I got tired of “The New User” and decided that the picture looked like a Sarah. As a result, when I refer to Sarah, I’ll be talking about the mythical New User.

Sarah is a pain in the butt. She wants to use her device, be it an iPad, Blackberry, or her Android. She also wants to us her laptop of choice. She wants to be able to do this anywhere and use all sorts of content that nobody ever designed SharePoint to effectively manage. The most irritating thing, she’ll use external tools with no enterprise controls if you don’t provide the tools for her yourself. (I think Sarah would like Omnipresent Content Management).

Jeetu Patel actually wrote a blog post talking about the new user. The post clearly outlines EMC’s thoughts about Sarah. Buy into the vision or not, this vision is the basis on which EMC is going to create solutions for the future.

It really isn’t anything revolutionary. The vision boils down to the Consumer IT world driving the Enterprise IT world. While overly that is an overly simplistic rendition, it is a valid vision. It doesn’t address the problems we are going to have with the volumes of content, but it does address how people want to interact with content in the future.

To be honest, that is a side of Content Management that EMC and other traditional vendors have ignored for far too long.

Getting From Here to There

So now we have a problem to solve. How is EMC going to deliver on their vision? Is there a plan?Well, according to Rick Devnutti and Jeroen van Rotterdam, they are going to build a new public cloud capable platform (Next Generation Information Server). They are going to build new unified clients for xCP (single builder interface) and a single user-experience for all content management. All of this in D7 in summer 2012, just over a year away.

Wow, that sounds like a lot. It is also all at least 1 year away and a lot can happen in just 6 months in the software world. To be fair, if EMC presented a date that was sooner, I would not believe them.

What about the meantime? Well, they are leveraging some previous work to kick a mobile client out the door in July 2011 for the iPad. They plan a new mobile release every 3 months or so with updates and/or new platforms, iPhone being targeted for the second release. Subsequent releases will be determined when the dates gets closer.

As for the cloud, Jeroen, Jeetu, and Rick all said that the current platform was not public cloud ready. (All you salespeople, I hope you heard that). That is why they are creating the vCube option for EMC OnDemand. Essentially just Managed Services, it will provide Documentum on demand and will include multiple environments. Essentially EMC is taking the burden on itself to to stand-up and deliver Documentum when needed.

EMC OnDemand looks snazzy, but I’ll believe the 2-hour setup time when I time it with a stopwatch. I’m more likely to believe, and happy to accept, a 24-hour turn-around with zero issues. Trust me, I can find plenty to do on a Documentum project during a 24-hour time-span.

So we have a strategy that may be able to deliver the on the vision. One last detail…

Execution

What is needed now is execution. While I have great faith in what we will see over the next six months, it is the longer-term execution that we need to see.

Let me tell you why I think the next six months looks good…paranoia. After previous debacles with releasing CenterStage and other announcements, EMC has cracked down on product announcements. Products need to be real before they are announced, complete with prototyping and resources committed for completion. In fact, they considered not announcing EMC OnDemand because it was so far from GA, even though it is scheduled in the 6-7 month timeframe. They decided that they had to announce and make that commitment to the community. It is technically feasible as they aren’t creating anything new, just putting it all together in a new way.

Another point is the fact that Jeroen’s presentations, while cool, were loaded with disclaimers showing items that were “projects”, “experiments”, and “architectural thoughts”. That means none of it might make it into a “Product”. I suspect that a lot will, but they weren’t committing to anything.

I think this little “joke” illustrates the problem. Two years ago, we were told that a mobile client for EMC was coming in the Q3/Q4 timeframe as part of the CenterStage 1.1 release. Now  the current plan is to have a Mobile client, iPad first, in Q3 of 2011. The joke was that when they promised the mobile app, they hadn’t promised which Q3. I got them to commit to this 2011 for the demo we saw this year.

The question isn’t if they can hit the near-term dates. The question is if they can hit the D7 date with the Next Generation Information Server at the same time while hitting multiple rolling mobile releases.

If you miss one date by more than a couple of weeks, their credibility will take a hit. Benefit of the doubt is gone for EMC in this area. On-time, quality, releases is what they need to deliver right now.

After all, this isn’t just about the faith of the Documentum community. Their are competitors out there and it only takes one of them to beat EMC to the finish line to cause all sorts of troubles for them.

Lastly, and I do mean this, Good Luck EMC. Your going to need it.

• Starting with a floor show. Meant to demonstrate high-tempo of changes at IIG.
• Lot of transition in the IT world. There will be winners and losers.
• Winners will have vision and “gravitas” to deliver on that vision.
• New World, New Implications:
• Choice Computing
• Data Centers Unify, but Data Disaggregates
• New Roles: New developer/ cloud architect, data scientist..all support the new user
• Recapping yesterday’s announcements
• xCP is the Action Engine for Big Data
• Information Fabric = Process + Analytics+ Content Mgmt+ Governance+ Social Collaboration
• Rohit Ghai, VP of Product Development takes the stage
• Four Strategic Priorities
• The New User [aka Sarah because she deserves a name]: User Experience, Choice, Agility
• Transform: Enterprise Readiness, Accelerated Composition, Information types
• Journey to the Cloud: OnDemand…
• Information Governance
• CenterStage 1.2 is GA now
• Mobile App – iPad version is first, coming in Q3
• D7 in 1 year, summer 2012, provides new unified client and “Platform Fully Cloud Enabled”
• Right after D7, Doc Sci and Captiva “Next” versions will come, SharePoint and improved form factors
• Back to Jeetu
• Information Fabric enables Big data-enabled applications, Enterprise social collaboration (Cisco Quad) and Extended enterprise collaboration (Box)
• Discussing the need to leverage innovation taking place in the broader marketplace.
• No company can out-innovate Silicon Valley as a whole.
• Commitment to Choice: SharePoint, Cisco, and Box
• Cisco taking the stage with Jeetu
• Showing the iPad Cisco Quad app.
• Monitors brand via social media. It gives alert and gives information.
• Moving to laptop to use full browser app to marshal resources
• Applying retention policies to Community that user is creating
• Meetings and all content is stored in the Documentum repository.
• August is target to have first instance of Quad/Documentum solution. Planning some work with the OnDemand offering.
• Jeetu is by himself again, but bring Aaron Levie of Box to the stage
• Aaron said Jeetu’s hair is “off-premise”
• Showing how you can access Documentum content, respecting its security, using the normal Box clients.
• Showing the the Documentum Retention Policy alert through the Box interface.
• Showing two-way synch interface between Documentum and Box
• Rolling out in limited release, much more in Q3/Q4 timeframe
• Aaron is done, solid applause
• Talking about the xCP Accelerator Challenge (announcing winners)
• Using past-tense in talking about ECM market. Seems to apply to the market more than their position.

Okay, time to digest, find caffeine,Internet to upload this, and have some conversations. See you out there.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

Be sure to remember the Disclaimer at the bottom of this post. It was meant for posts like this one.

• Session will be repeated Wednesday morning
• D7 and xCP 2.0 (one of the biggest projects in product group) are tied together
• Case Management (xCP) built on-top of Content Management
• xCP Product Principles
• Enable intelligent business decisions
• Composition and configuration over code
• Responsive and usable
• Think beyond documents, people, process, and information in business context
• Leverage private cloud
• Build a future-proof product
• This quarter, D6.7 and IRM 5.0
• D6.7 SP1, xPlore 1.2 at end of calendar year
• xCP 2.0 Controlled release at start of 2012
• D7, xPlore 1.3 and xCP 2.0 in June/July 2012 timeframe [Over a year out, lot can happen]
• 6.7 features
• Kerberos SSO support for non-windows platforms
• WebSeal SSO support
• Windows Server 2008 R2 native 64-bit support in about 3 weeks, not other platforms
• Safari 5.0
• Office 2010 support for Application Connectors
• D6.7 SP1
• IE 9, Firefox 4
• Red Hat Linux 5.6 for Content Server
• D7 will have more emphasis virtualization platforms, not just VMWare
• Asset tracking
• Tracks usage of applications [Helps with license audits]
• Leverages EMC Asset Management and Planning Tool
• Lot more hacking prevention in Webtop 6.7, Get v Post, no cross-frame scripting, anti-MIME sniffing…
• Java 2 Security Support in 6.7
• IRM 5.0 has native Office 2008 and 2010 support
• Continued Federal standards compliance in D7
• Pervasive Section 508 compliance (TaskSpace and DA better in 6.7)
• FIPS 140-2 certification
• Centralized key management
• AES-based encryption
• Web Services and IIG [See notes from earlier Web Services Session]
• Webtop will be in D7. Most used version of interface
• Key UI Principles: User Experience (fast/modern), Choice Computing, Agility (composition vs coding)
• Unify client apps, create mobile apps, use Spring and ExtJS
• 2011 adding file browsing into CetnerStange
• Combining Process Builder and other building tools will be unified in D7/xCP 2.0
• Mobile client date will be out soon, “Nowish”
• xCP 2.1 (post D7) will have mobile UI generation in Builder tools, At runtime, detect incoming device and server appropriate UI and functionality
• CMIS Adapter coming for Federated Search
• Microsoft is not supporting FAST after this calendar year, plan move to xPlore now. Supported on D6.5 sp2 and above. Upgrades in place  [Details on launch post]
• xPlore 1.2 will have thesaurus support and spell checking
• xPlore 1.3 (D7 stack release) will have Cloud Integration improvements
• xPlore now means entire platform works in VMWare
• xCP 2.0 will be optimized for vFabric and have Dynamic provisioning app deployment and monitoring
• xCP 2.0 Overview (aka the new Builder)
• Unified set of tools, New Runtime (Composer, Process Builder, Forms Builder, Process Reporting Services, TaskSpace)
• New tools for Case Modeling
• More on Hyperic in D7/xCP 2.0

Off to the opening of the Expo which opened at the start of this session. Need caffeine, badly. See you there.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

• Documentum Foundation Services (DFS), SOAP/WSDL
• Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS)
• Part of platform with 6.7 release earlier this month
• REST API (reinvigoration of efforts) [Some applause]
• Non-core DFS functionality ships with supporting products (such as RPS services)
• 6.7 DFS
• WebSEAL integration
• Native .NET support for UCF (removes need for JRE on client)
• Details on CMIS. [See the rest of my blog for details on CMIS or my latest presentation on SlideShare]
• Documentum REST SPI
• EDN Labs project in 2009
• Plan to have updated releases this year
• REST given for 3 use cases
• Rich Internet Apps
• Mobile Applications
• Cloud-based Applications
• Stressing the DFS is not being replace by REST. Used for “tighter” integrations

Norrie doing the REST API Technical Overview now…

• Highlights
• Pragmatic REST API for Documentum Platform, not 100% RESTful, but ease-of-use taken into account
• Intuitive resource model covering basic and adbanced Documentum data and functionality
• Simple JSON and XML representations
• Linked resources for API navigation
• Standard authentication protocols
• No date given on Release 3, working on it and will be this year and based upon previous feedback
• Several code examples, progressing to iPad Application example
• [Generally solid examples and tips. Will want to have presentation on hand if you are learning REST using the REST API]
• Going to be a WAR file
• Stateless for flexible scaling/High Availability
• Authentication and Authorization
• Deployment Configuration
• Implemented with Spring Security
• Support for Multiple Protocols
• HTTP Basic
• Multiple SSO
• Kerberos
• OAUTH
• Mature Authentication Customization Framework

Back to Ahson for Roadmap

• Early Access for REST is 2011Q3 – 2012Q2, existing members maintain access
• Plan for updates every 2 months, maybe faster, trying for agile model
• D7 in Q2/Q3 2012 REST API will be part of core
• No update to CMIS for 1.1 support because the finalization of 1.1 is still some time away, plan for faster support

Of to meet my co-presenters for my Wednesday presentation for coffee. Need to go over some of the details of the presentation. After that, lunch at the EMC Community Luncheon

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.

1. Rename the Intelligent Case Management product family to Intelligent Content Management.  After all, isn’t Case Management something you build on top of an intelligent content server with a nice configurable xCP framework?  There are other solutions that fit there as well.
2. Give Victor Spivak a Keynote at Momentum. Victor is great and we love to hear him talk about how things work.  He could talk about the cool plans for the backbone of the future of Content Management.  At the end, bring in Jeroen van Rotterdam to do some demos.  It is extremely entertaining to watch him when he himself isn’t always sure that the demos will work. (tip of the cap to Chris Campbell for this idea)
3. Build xCP 2.0 on the Next-Gen Content Server for D7. This is the funding concern.  Victor didn’t say when, but with all the qualifiers he gave, I expect that the move to xDB in the backend is not near-term.  It should be.  I’ll explain why in more detail in a later post, but there is a lot of money to be made by putting an Intelligent Content Server in the cloud.  My family photo album may be a commodity and free to store online, but my company records with retention policies and content analytics identifying trends will not be free for quite some time.  Imagine being the first DoD 5015.2 certified RM system that runs, and is certified, in the cloud.  Marketing legs that will last a long time.
4. Take Momentum back to New Orleans.  Let Tucci bring EMC World if he wants.  No more Vegas or Orlando.  Let’s go somewhere fun and new.  Three words on the 2003 conference: Best. Conference. Ever!
5. Separate non-Webtop UIs from the Content Server release schedule.  Let the client applications release more often and have shorter testing cycles.  Allow them to innovate.  You’ll never make them feel like the latest web apps, but you’ll keep them within a year or two.  With Webtop, and whatever follows, you have to keep at least one app that can deliver everything the Content Server provides.
6. Bring the Users back to Momentum.  I used to attend Product Advisory Forums.  Not just to give feedback on the roadmap, but to give ideas for the roadmap.  The first day had tutorials for those that were getting started with a new product line, introducing it, the concepts, and how to use it.  Half the sessions were case studies, presented by business users.   There used to be 6 tracks with more sessions per track than there are now, and that was before the developer conference was merged.  Market to the business users.  Give them the speaking slots.  Reward sales reps if they get multiple customers to present.
7. Attend Momentum Europe.  Never gotten to go, but I bet if I was in charge they would let me attend.
8. Refuse to conform.  I already do this.  In fact, the only reason I have this item in here was to get the list to 9, which is neither 8 (AIIM) or 10 (Letterman).  The point is that the product that just conforms will never lead, never generate excitement, and will never have the world hanging on every word that the President of the company says.
9. Create a Vision and Share it with the World.  I’d craft some awesome vision and share it.  I’d push to achieve it.  I’d do whatever I could to make my enthusiasm for the vision contagious.  I would create excitement in the industry about my products.  People may still circle the date for SharePoint 2013, but they would also be circling the date for D7.

Of course, then my day would end and people would go back to what they were doing before I arrived.  The would head to the bars talking about that nut that snuck in and sat at Mark’s desk all day.

• “My Documentum” suite (packaged as one offering)
  • My Documentum Offline
  • My Documentum for the Desktop
  • Formerly File Share Services
    • Re-architected for 6.5 sp2
  • My Documentum for Outlook
    • Formerly Documentum Client for Outlook, aka DCO
    • Native integration into Outlook
• My Documentum Offline
  • Deployed internally at Documentum (EMC?)
  • Access content when offline
  • Automatic synchronization
  • Conflict resolution mechanism
  • Full offline metadata support
  • Subscribe to content
  • My Documentum Offline Demo
    • File folder shortcuts on the desktop
    • Right-click functionality
    • Setting the synch rules in the repository seems easy to understand, distinctive icons for each setting
    • Can get synch history for a document, not just current user’s history
    • Specialized folder shortcut for Subscriptions
• My Documentum for the Desktop
  • Exposes Documentum as a file share
  • Native access at OS level
  • Work-in-place link management – OLE (!!!)
  • Support for distributed content
  • Support for MAC OS
  • Demo
    • Can see/edit attributes and versions
    • Can use the Desktop search as well
• My Documentum for Outlook
  • Native integration with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007
  • Comprehensive metadata management
  • Offline access and support
  • Capture content, in context, and tag with properties
  • Advanced search and Discovery
  • Currently in a controlled release
  • Demo, same basic features as other products
  • Personal archiving use case
• DCO customers get a 1:1 license swap
• FSS customers get the suite for a promotional price (MAC users that can only use FSS may be getting the raw end here)
• My Documentum Offline is free to Webtop users
  • Meant to replace Application connectors which are not being killed, just not improved
• This is being released in 2009-Q4
  • Outlook client in 2nd week of July 2009
• D7 Offline and FSS products will be merging – 1H – 2010
• Expose CenterStage Social Networking in D7.5
• Not heavily customizable, not in the use-case
• Works with 6.0 and above, standard for all clients

Off to the Bloggers Lounge.  I need a double espresso before Mark Lewis gives his keynote.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.

In 7.0, we are looking at the prospect of Lucene support for the more plug-and-play repositories, while the larger ones will still be able to leverage a larger, multi-node, FAST installation. (Works great! Seriously, I mean it.)  This is fine, but supporting two search engines, neither of which you actually own, is an issue for any vendor.

So what is the solution? Last week I read an article speculating on the prospect of EMC looking for a search company to add to their portfolio. Now the article was pure speculation, but that is what makes it fun.  Let’s see if it makes sense and who could EMC acquire.

The Why

I already covered the need for it to be in their ECM platform, but this isn’t enough. That need has been around since the 90′s and there have been plenty of companies to acquire along the way. There are, however, some newer drivers.

One is Information Management. This is not just content, but structured data. It also needs to be managed as a record and found when needed. Business Intelligence, ECM, and portals are a traditional grouping of three technologies for IM, but search ties it all together. EMC wants to manage your information from cradle to grave, so search is something that would make sense.

A second driver is e-discovery. This is a strong push with the CMA group at EMC this year, with good reason. As dull as it may be, it is critical to users and represents real ROI that can easily justify purchases, even in this economy. I heard a stat that a company can expect to spend $6.5 mil in discovery costs per year for each billion dollars of revenue (sorry, still looking for a published source). EMC made $14.88 billion in revenue last year. Even discounting that figure heavily, e-discovery makes sense. The kicker is that the cost doesn’t include judgements against the company that could have been avoided with proper Information Management/e-discovery.

A third driver is that Oracle, IBM, Microsoft (FAST), and Open Text all have some sort of search solution.  Normally if you see the product vendors, however re-branded and evolved, of Stellent, FileNet, SharePoint, Open Text, and PC Docs in a group, you would expect to see Documentum there. EMC is not on that list and it sticks out.

There is a lot of money in them-there hills. Who wouldn’t want a part of it when it already fits into your business plan. Forget aggregators and federators, like AskOnce, with a search platform, they can search everything that doesn’t already have an active index, or just everything.

The Who

This is the fun part, who might they acquire? I’m going to work off of two lists, non-niche vendors from Gartner’s 2008 Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology, and those put forward by the article that started this rampant speculation.

• Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Open Text: The competition. They won’t sell EMC their search component individually and EMC either can’t (Oracle, MS, and IBM) afford to buy or doesn’t want (Open Text) everything that comes with the acquisition.  Shoot, Open Text might acquire one or two search vendors.
• Autonomy: Interesting, but unlikely.  Autonomy just bought Interwoven and aren’t likely in the mood to be bought.  They are building a great e-discovery story and if they merge the Interwoven technology well, they may move up to the previous bullet.
• Google: No. Too expensive and Google is not the best choice for enterprise search at this time.
• Endeca: The best position in the leaders quadrant and they seem pretty bright. They are based in Boston, so the culture would most likely be a match as well. This is my leading candidate, but that just means that it won’t happen.
• Recomind: This one gets special attention as they focus on e-discovery. I’m don’t know that if they could work under the Documentum covers, but they have a strength in EMC’s target solution and they are used by some competitors for their e-discovery suite.  That would be a two-for-the-price-of-one benefit. I would file this as an e-discovery acquisition more than a search acquisition though. That means if they bought Recommind, they might still buy someone else.
• ZyLAB, Vivisimo, & ExaLead: Nothing exciting for these guys. ZyLAB is a Microsoft only platform and ExaLead has limited U.S. presence, though EMC hasn’t discriminatedin the past. I don’t know enough about the technology for these guys, but they are possibilities.

My favorite dark-horse candidate? Lucene. Now, before you start with the whole open-source thing, EMC could take the Lucene code and start building upon it themselves, giving back to the community.  They could keep some new components/extensions for themselves and offer support. If you sign-up for support, you get the extensions. Linux went through this, and Alfresco has a mixed open-source and enterprise model, so don’t knock it. This is my favorite and one that allows them to keep down the current path that they are on right now. They main downside is that they would have to work to build the revenue streams as opposed to buying the streams and expertise.

Time will tell, but it should be interesting. Maybe we should start a pool.  I got 20 on Endeca.

In his post on the Elephant, John talks about the load of Junk DNA in Documentum. As the product has evolved over the last 15 years, things have been left behind and other things that worked, haven’t evolved. My recent post on the Audit Trail has led to a couple of posts addressing both of these aspects.

User Names versus Object ID

I mentioned in the Audit Trail that I and an index on either user_name or user_id. Rajendra wrote a post about the merits of each field in the system and how both are used. It is a nicely detailed post and comes to the same conclusion that I always had in my mind. The name is better for performance and the ID is better from a space/data consistency perspective. Denormalization of the database can be good for end-user performance as long as you test it thoroughly, which Documentum has on this feature.

Then came a comment from Andrew Goodale that explains why both are used. The ID was not guaranteed to be immutable because of how the LDAP synchronization worked. That has been resolved in D6, so going forward it will be useful. The user name is still everywhere though and it will be for years.

Just one more piece of junk DNA in Documentum.

Is the Audit Trail Secure and Complete?

As always when I talk about the internal workings of Documentum, James McGovern chimed into the conversation. He raised a few good points that I wanted to share and comment upon here.

First is security. I don’t always address security in the same way I don’t always address breathing when I tell people about my day. It is a part that I do and don’t always elaborate. James is correct on the need for maintaining security on the logs. This isn’t just limiting access to the logs, but is also in restricting the ability for users to change the log from those that can view the logs.

Documentum does a fairly good job at this. While the Audit Logs can only be stored in the same database as the rest of Documentum, it is locked down by default and super users do not have access by default, not can they grant themselves access. You can even divide your system administration in such a way that the Documentum administrators can’t access the logs. There does reach a point though where you have to trust your admins as someone will always have access on some level.

As it stands now, changing the audit trail is only available through direct SQL access using either a database system user or the schema owner account, which does not necessarily map to an actual Documentum user. Remember that database access does not equate to access to the content as that is stored elsewhere, unlike SharePoint.

Having the Audit Log stored in a second system as a feature, and not in a custom Data Shack, would be a nice extension that should be simple to implement.

Second on his list was the concern that not everything was in the log. He raised the excellent point regarding Web Services. Now, I know that in DFS a session has to be established by the calling system. In architectures that are direct integrations to systems, users usually map one-to-one. What about other systems?

Take the scenario where objects in the repository are being updated by users of a remote system that do not correspond to users in Documentum. How do you map these? We created custom audit events within Documentum and then, in our Data Shack, we transform them into one coherent trail of actions. We track the calling system and the user from that system. We also have users defined specifically to operate our Web Services so we can correlate all of the actions.

It is seems like a lot of work, but it is necessary and saved us a lot of work after we went live.

This, of course, can lead to a big licensing issue. Many clients have licenses based upon users. In theory, these remote users count against the total, even if they don’t exist within the system. There are many different licensing models out there, so when planning, be sure to check to make sure you aren’t in violation. This applies to any system, not just Documentum.

James and everyone needs to remember, DFS is still in version 1.0. 2.0 is being released as part of D6.5. I think the version that comes out with D7 is the one to keep our eyes on as it should incorporate feedback from the adopters.

So if I don’t answer your question, I didn’t ask it and I am sorry. If it is any consolation, I didn’t get all of my questions answered either. So to Robin, no idea about the future of Common Criteria certification. James, I neglected to ask about about Ounce Labs and static code testing as a whole (whenever I remembered the question, I was invariably talking to a marketing person and not one of the product managers).

I would like to thank all the product managers for patiently letting me ask my questions repeatedly until we were sure that we were talking about the same thing. I also want to thank Craig Randall for all the time that he spent with me during the conference, and later via email. He was very helpful and worked with me to more fully understand my business scenarios. He successfully directed me to the correct product managers to give the scenarios to directly. Now I am bothering them, leaving Craig to talk about more relaxing topics (at least until my next hard question).

SAML and Documentum

This was a confusing topic. Not because nobody knew what it was or why it was important. It was confusing because the people not involved in the development of SAML support had varying ideas of when it was coming-out. Luckily, the people that were supposed to know the answer all gave the same answer.

My favorite answer, and a WRONG answer, was that is would be part of D6.5. This was from some EMC Professional Services consultants that said that they had implemented it for some clients and it would be rolling-out in the next release. This was doomed, of course. Their custom implementation, built upon DFS, most likely handled authentication at the application level. Authentication needs to be handled at the server. DFS should accept the encrypted SAML authentication and then pass to the Content Server for evaluation.

Even if that wasn’t the problem, it is the rare component from Professional Services that makes it directly into the product. From the time frames that I heard, even assuming that it was 90% of the way to completion, it would have have been a rush job to get it into D6.5. One should not rush new security implementations

The official answer is in the D7 timeframe with the release of the full collection SaaS services. This was said to be, I believe, Q4 2009. That slide went by really fast. As it is over a year away, take that date with a grain of salt. I have heard from several people at EMC that the desire to get it out before that estimate is very strong.

Now, some may say, SAML has applications outside of SaaS and would solve problems now. I am one of those people. I am writing-up several more business cases to see if it can happen sooner. I suspect that officially it would have to be D7 based upon their release schedule. I am going to push anyway. If you have a need for SAML, chime in and help.

XACML, I Can Has Feature?

James asked a simple question. Is anyone noodling this. The simple answer is Yes! I suspect that James would like to know more, so I will oblige him now rather than wait for the explosion.

XACML had not gotten very much penetration among those I talked to about it. To be fair, I didn’t get to everyone. That said, I think some real progress was made. They all knew what it was already and, to various degrees, saw benefit to supporting it.

As with SAML, I was able to propose several scenarios to multiple product managers about the problem that my clients are about to face in the world of authorization and that their own solutions are facing now. I saw several light bulbs go off. That is progress.

They probably haven’t gone out to put it on the product roadmaps yet, but it is closer. As with SAML, I am putting together scenarios for submission to various product managers. Many will combine the two.

Driving Forces for Standards Support in Products

Speaking purely around Authentication and Authorization, I think that they are beginning to get it. I stressed, especially around authorization, that I didn’t care what standard, just one that is being adopted in the wild that I can use.

There are two drivers for adoption of these standards. One is the market. The more clients, existing and potential, that they hear giving them actual situations for their use, the more likely the standard will be supported in an upcoming release.

I was able to demonstrate how some of their own products would work much better if all the players used these standards. I am going to be getting as many clients as possible to submit these scenarios in the context of their business.

The second driver that I heard directly from EMC was the realization that in order for ECM to become a discipline, rules and best practices need to be defined. Design patterns need to be documented and flushed-out. Standards need to be developed and supported. Standards from disciplines that interact with your own, like ECM with Identity Management, need to be supported.

This is going to be a busy year. I spent the last year learning and raising some awareness in the community. This year I am going to start enlisting people to help me move things forward.

If you want to help now, write the scenarios and be prepared to share them with the community. I will find an organized way to share them with the ECM world, even if we have to start with just EMC for now. The more people that tell me something, the faster I will find a way.

The clock is ticking. Product managers are watching. What’s your move?

Shall we set sail…

The Rigging

Before setting sail, let’s take a very quick look at what we know of the the rigging. It is using DFS for all of its communications with the Content Server. By default, it is using a local instantiation of DFS and communicating intra-JVM. This is because DFC is still faster and more efficient. All APIs are faster than the services that they are built upon. It is configurable to use a remote DFS service though, so I wouldn’t consider it an issue.

In the front, we have Ext JS (The new rich media user interface is Flex). I’ve just taken a quick gander, but I liked what I saw. The phrase 508 compliant does tend to float across my mind though. Hopefully it is in the rigging somewhere.

All this means is that there is no WDK framework. This is okay. They have stated that the WDK is not going away, at least not in D7. Webtop is going to remain as an interface for the power user and for provided heavily customized interfaces.

I like Webtop these days, when you keep the above focus and purpose in mind. Magellan is being provided as a collaborative CEVA built to work with an ECM system through services.

I think I’ve heard that architecture before.

The Easy Course

Okay, now I am now leaving port and I couldn’t be more excited. Like everyone else I think Magellan is incredibly cool and sexy, especially for an ECM-based interface. It offers a simple interface for all of the basic library services with the addition of the Workspace paradigm and the pervasive use of discussions and comments.

The vision for Magellan is quite simple:

• A Web 2.0 Client: Check. Had that. Very pretty.
• Information Intelligence: Saw the introduction of a Folksonomy with tagging and a nice search filter. They may be getting that correct, given current technology.
• Anywhere Access: There are plans for a mobile version that will be location aware, I think in the D7 release cycle. Don’t hold them to that as that isn’t written down and my memory could be off. With it built on DFS, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be achievable in that timeframe.
• Web 2.0 Platform: Personally, I think this is just an excuse to say Web 2.0 twice. It is important, but the entire application is Web 2.0. Another reason for the split? A four part Vision seems more robust than a three part vision.

It is a good vision and EMC seems well on its way to delivering it. Once the Enterprise version of the client is delivered in Q1 of 2009, if not sooner, it is planned that Magellan will surface all of the Collaboration components that are currently in the Content Server and part of the Collaboration Edition (DCE). I can almost feel the eRoom vibe from here.

Once you get away from the coast, you enter the part of the map labeled “Here there be Dragons!” For EMC, it more likely reads, “Here there be SharePoint!”

SharePoint vs. Magellan

This isn’t a blow-by-blow comparison. After all, I don’t have Magellan to play with and it isn’t even out in Beta. Once it is in Beta, I hope to be in the program and sworn to secrecy. I’m not very good at Beta applications, so we’ll see if that happens.

Until then, I did note the following features not in the Magellan Essentials, the “free” version of Magellan, that is in SharePoint Services, the “free” version of SharePoint: wikis and lists/data tables. Now I understand the data table as that could be considered an advanced eRoom feature. The EMC data table is, in many ways, more flexible and easier to use than the SharePoint list. No problems there with leaving that out.

As for the wiki, I think that this is a potential missed opportunity. A simple, non-moderated, wiki would be a great asset in the Essentials client and would help increase the Web 2.0 feel of the interface. Provide an advanced moderated version of the wiki in the Enterprise client for differentiation. I think that if it properly packaged, it will drive adoption of both clients.

The goal shouldn’t be to stop people from switching to SharePoint. The goal should be to reverse the trend.

Paradise Found

Just past the dragons, we come to the South Pacific and see beautiful islands. This place is the stuff of dreams and why we started in the first place. Of highest interest to me is the fact that Magellan represents the first new User Interface for collaboration in many an age (DCE doesn’t count). We now see the next generation of collaboration with a roadmap that feels tangible and a destination that is in sight.

The goal is that by D7, all the features of eRoom will be in Magellan Enterprise. Not all of them are in the Content Server yet, so there is still a little more work on that end.

What makes everything feel tangible? How does this feel more real than last year’s eRoom 8, aka Phoenix, announcements?

• How about the announcement that they have engaged Crown Partners to build a migration tool to go from eRoom to the Content Server-based Magellan?
• How about their desire to take those on eRoom maintenance and just port their licenses and give them the tool?

That is money out of their pockets. A lot can change, but it sounds like they are committing to saving their comrades in the eRoom world.

Magellan is a priority for the CMA group. This is obvious from talking to multiple people on multiple levels. This isn’t just a side project or just a token attempt to stop losing market share to SharePoint. This is a strategic commitment to creating a versatile, mobile, and flexible user experience in the Enterprise. There is a sense of urgency to get it out there and let people see it, feel it, and experience it. This is their Enterprise 2.0 interface into their ECM 2.0 platform.

Will it come in time? Will the SharePoint dragon become so bloated that it can’t handle the potentially nimble Magellan ship? Time will tell.

• The vision
  • Web 2.0 Client
  • Information Intelligence
  • Anywhere Access
  • Web 2.0 Platform

• Web 2.0 Tools for collaboration
  • Author & Publish: Wikis, blogs, Collaboration, IRM, customized lists
  • Organize & Manage: Guided Navigation, Tagging, Classification, Personalized views
  • Network & Access: Enterprise Ready, Securde off-network, Access anywhere, retention
• Need to find the information and find related related information
• Magellan is Compliant, secure, intelligent Web 2.0
• Individual, Team, and Organizational Workspaces
• Trying to improve Ease of Use, hiding complexity of policies and content intelligence
• Ease of installation is a focus
• Future in 2009
  • Easy configuration
    • Partition deployments and configure features that are needed
    • Apply a common set of policies to all spaces in a site
  • Ease of Deployment (D7)
    • Package and license individual units of functionality
    • High Availability
  • Ease of Development
    • Tooling and RAD
    • Leverage the client side tech that best suits the business (Ajax, Flex)
• Magellan Essentials client: no cost client that works with Documentum, late August free beta
  • Team workspaces
  • Library services
  • Access control
  • Content templates
  • Guided navigation
  • Lifecycles
  • Desktop Integration
  • Event triggered collaboration through SOA support
  • Reecent Changes
• Advanced client has more (This is the one that would be worthwhile)
  • Wikis, Blogs, and RSS
  • Template and component base user interfaces
  • Personal spaces
  • Tagging
  • Data tables for managed collections of information
  • Federated search
  • Visualization
• Show the canned demo from the keynote (Essentials), slower pace
  • See recent documents and recent comments on start page
  • Comments and discussions are supported around documents
  • Includes thumbnails, assuming a thumbnail has been created
  • Everything can be directly accessed with an URL
  • Drag and drop in the UI
• Composed Pages in full client
  • Bring wikis, blogs, RSS Feeds, and other information into one page
  • Unify information into one Space
• Custom components in D7
• Data Tables from eRoom and Collaboration Edition will be surfaced
  • Will add validations down the road
• Q1 2009, Essentials and Magellan full will be released
• Magellan D7 in latter half of 2009
• Webtop D7 is in the works and future versions are planned
  • Showcases the full power of Documentum
  • Provides more specialized and flexible customizations
  • Client of choice for power users requiring advanced content management functionality (Virtual Documents)
• eRoom will be supported for many years to come
  • Maintenance releases will continue
  • All eRoom features in Magellan in D7 timeframe
  • Working with Crown Partners for free migration utility leveraging Bulldoser. Will be available for customers to migrate from eRoom to Magellan.

Time for dinner and the party. [Edit: Follow-up Article here.]

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change due to a large variety of factors.