This acquisition raises several questions, such as, does anyone care, that is, outside of the FatWire install base and those competing against FatWire? I think it matters. Not because of the actual purchase, but because of what Oracle does with FatWire. That will show us volumes about their long-term Content Management strategy.

Before proceeding into my world of hypotheticals, you should read Real Story Group’s collection of thoughts on the deal.

ECM or Expansion?

The first thought is trying to determine the purpose behind the acquisition. Well, there are two basic options. The first is the more boring option and the second seems too rational to be likely.

• We don’t have a good enough Web * Management option anymore, so we need to acquire a solution to claim a complete ECM story. This basically mean assimilation is the future of FatWire, which means an end to innovation.
• We need a Web Experience Management solution in order to more broadly serve all our customers information needs.  This means integration and a chance that it will be allowed to evolve independently.

Billy Cripe, formerly of Oracle, offered this observation in support of the first option. [He has since published his thoughts on the acquisition and commented below]

I see Hasan Rizvi quoted in the press release. He’s SVP of FMW (where ecm, webcenter & soa live) My guess: folded in

Meaning….FatWire is doomed. Regardless of the plan, how can you innovate in the web space when you release every 3 years? Want proof?

Remember Stellent?

A long time ago, about a decade ago, Stellent was one of the leading Web Content Management vendors. They slowly expanded their functionality for an Enterprise Content Management play. They did well enough to convince Oracle to buy them.

Over the years, Oracle has maintained its lead over the other ECM players in the WCM space, at least in people’s minds. Meanwhile, specialized W*M products arose and took the market lead.

The same thing will happen to FatWire. Why? Simple rules of the industry. 2-3 year product cycles cannot compete in the web marketplace. That was the foundation of my critique of EMC’s Web Publisher.

Speaking of EMC…

Looking Back on SDL

I wrote a short little article for CMSWire about why EMC partnered with SDL Tridion in addition to FatWire a few months ago. It basically said that it was about offering choice to the EMC community. I still think that is true.

That said, let’s speculate and deal with rumors for a  bit…

It is probably also true that EMC didn’t want to put all their eggs in one basket. When the Fatwire partnership was announced, their wasn’t much public speculation about an acquisition down the road, but there was some discussion. That acquisition didn’t happen, obviously. When it didn’t, EMC likely knew that FatWire likely wanted to be acquired. EMC then found a new partner that was bigger (less likely to need a buyer) and happy to just be themselves.

This knowing that the relationship was going to end with one side marrying another vendor probably stressed the partnership. That stress may have been part of the source of the multitude of rumors that I heard over the past 6 months.

Of course, Oracle could have bought FatWire to both improve their offering and damage EMC. Wild speculation, but entirely possible.

It is also entirely possible that EMC may want to acquire SDL one day, but part of me views that as unlikely. Of course, all it would take is a rumor that IBM was going to acquire a W*M vendor and things could change quickly.

In the meantime, if Oracle subsumes FatWire, how long until they need to buy a new vendor to purchase all the innovation that they won’t be able to build themselves? EMC has given-up trying to innovate in the web space (rightly so). It remains to be seen which strategy will win out.

Um…..

I’m a little torn here.  It is an important piece of research and of value and all that, but…

• Those in the Leaders quadrant frequently aren’t leading.
• Too many people look at the report and research the market no further.
• Enterprise Content Management cannot be bought.  It is a strategy.  I can buy a Content Management platform or suite that supports my ECM strategy, but I cannot buy ECM.

Of course, it is full of useful/interesting facts, so let’s dive into it…[download a copy from Hyland Software.]

First Impressions

The first thing I did, like a kid digging into their Christmas stocking, was look at the chart and compared it to the old chart.  Gartner tells you not to do that, but that just makes me want to do it more.  It is important to remember that how Gartner rates companies changes from year-to-year, so movement isn’t necessarily indicative of how a company is doing.

One last note, better positioning in the Quadrant does not mean that it is a better solution or that it is better for you.

• Hyland Software jumped into the leader quadrant. SaaS/CMIS.  Congratulations to Hyland.  Let’s see what they do with the recognition.
• Last year, the traditional leaders where separated by ability to execute, but not in vision.  Not so this year.  They are no longer grouped together.  Oracle has the best “vision” score, followed by, get this, Microsoft….
• That’s right, Microsoft and Oracle are arguably the best positioned in the report.  Microsoft, as an established company, will always score well in the ability to execute.  The vision for SharePoint, especially when you listen to the marketing.  To be honest, the other longer-term established vendors should be a little ashamed to be falling behind.
• SpringCM hasn’t moved much.  Not a good thing for a SaaS vendor.  They should be able to do a little better.  They have been focusing on delivering solutions and not a platform.  It is a nice revenue approach, but it doesn’t seem like it will lead to future leadership.
• There are a lot of companies scattered on the left, but that is the low-vision side of the quadrant.  This is actually important as the industry starts to transform for the future.  I feel that the difference between the Niche players and those on the right is going to widen if those companies don’t act soon.
• Along those lines, Perceptive Software is listed as the lone Challenger, though Laserfiche is pretty close.  Neither rated well in Vision and that is important.  In fact, once a company has a minimum level of execution capability, Vision is critical unless you are planning on changing vendors in three years.  Why would you plan on that?
• HP is gone, on purpose.  They are a Records Management vendor now.

Okay, going to read last year’s post on the 2009 Quadrant and this year’s report in detail before hitting the next section.

Pulling the Real Value

Okay, more notes on the report as I have dug deeper.

• Nuxeo and BOX.net both get a mention, but neither qualified to be included.  Having been tracking both for a while, I expect both of them to get out of the Niche quadrant faster than those already in it.  They have the Vision to get there.
• There are now “four worlds” of ECM.  They are Transactional CM (think CMS+BPM), Social CM (Collaboration),  Online Channel Optimization (evolution of WCM), and CM as Infrastructure (think Cloud and Services).  These are good divisions for the most part, though I think that to be good at the first two, you need to think about creating that solid platform.
• There are example vendors listed under each of those worlds, some listed twice.  The thing that grabs me, EMC wasn’t listed as an infrastructure example, and Microsoft was.  Really?  SharePoint is a development platform, but I wouldn’t call it an ECM platform.  There is some reference in the example of integration with enterprise information management practices, so maybe that is the factor, but it still seems off.
• There is a reference to Content Analytics as a key topic for the next year.  Let’s just chalk that done for the next several years until it is as common and reliable as checking content in and out of the repository.

That wraps it up for now.  To be honest, I could riff on many of these points for individual posts, but I think I’ve rattled on long enough.

For some other solid thoughts, checkout the initial article over on CMS Wire.

Or not…I have some disclaimers/notes:

• Going to try and use as much of Chistensen’s terminlogy as possible.  This isn’t to say that he has a perfect model, or even 80% model, of what is happening.  It just helps to keep the terminology consistent during this particular post.
• Every Content Management company is different and the observations will not apply universally.  Every company reacts differently.  That said, if I didn’t think that this applied to a large number of vendors, I would have targeted this post at particular vendors.

NOW we can get started.

Why Disruption Now?

There are several trains of thought out there that this dilemma doesn’t really apply to the Internet age because we are in a constant state of disruption.  This an important observation, so let me address this first.

The initial disruption was the Internet.  Since then, everything has mostly been a continuation of that disruption.  Much of the chaos has been sustaining technology for the original disruption.

Everyone agrees that the web impacted the Content Management industry strongly.  Stellant (now Oracle), Interwoven (now part of Open Text), and Vignette (now consumed by Autonomy)all came from the WCM space.  When you look at it though, it was just a new content problem.  Sustaining innovative technologies.  Unique needs, but no more so than Records Management, Imaging, or Digital Asset Management.

So what is qualifying as disruptive to Content Management these days?  Content Management itself has been disrupting the offsite paper record storage and microfiche industry, but what is actually disrupting the disruptor?  The Internet and the browser didn’t do it directly, but it became a sustaining technology for ECM.  The browser interfaces enhanced adoption over time for the existing vendors.  Definitely not disruptive.

Well, Content Management is being disrupted from a couple of directions:

• SharePoint: It isn’t SharePoint, but what it represents, basic Content Management for the masses.  It may not be the most functional, or scale to handle any situation, but it is easy to buy, install, and integrate into the most used productivity application suite, Office.
• The Cloud: Many SaaS Content Management offering cannot currently compete on functionality with the established ECM bigwigs, but that is just a matter of time.  They are established, have found a starting market, and are adding functionality.  As SharePoint demonstrated, they don’t need to match the established solutions to eat into the market share, they just need to hit the minimum requirement level, document sharing.

Open Source isn’t on the list because that is a model for solving problems, but not truly disruptive.   It is a just a different business model and not a sustaining technology.  For many, it boils down to appealing to people’s inner nature and a different pricing structure.  This is a gross over-generalization, but so is this entire post.

The Cloud could be called just a different pricing structure, but it is also a different delivery model. It is disruptive because no matter what the established vendors say, their software has not been architected for that environment, so it is not plug-and-play.

Those are the disruptions.  They are fundamental shifts in how Content Management is delivered.  They are shifts towards Content Management becoming more of a commodity (though we aren’t there yet).

Microsoft’s Attack

Okay, you can argue that they are disruptive at all or that they will just become a “sustaining technology” down the road.  If the latter is the case, most of the established vendors will survive. (Acquisitions and consolidation aside, we are talking about the actual software offerings).

When SharePoint arrived in the 2003 timeframe, it was nice, quaint, and not nearly functional enough to really have a significant impact on the Content Management market.  It wasn’t until the advent of the 2007 edition that it became an issue.

The initial response was pretty consistent, “Yeah, it does that, but it will fall apart under any real work.”  Well, the market didn’t care.  A large number of people didn’t, and still don’t, need the complicated solutions offered by the established vendors.

Over time, as SharePoint started to erode sales, the vendor strategy shifted to enhancing SharePoint.  This was fine and it started to drive sales, but SharePoint hasn’t stopped evolving.  In 2010 is has the ability to store content outside of the database, manages data better, scales better, and has better Records Management.  The need for SharePoint additional Content Management style capabilities is shifting towards archiving and governance.

When you look at this even more closely, it isn’t that SharePoint is a disruptive technology as much as it is a disruptive new vendor in the existing landscape.  So while SharePoint is very disruptive in its nature, it isn’t a “disruptive technology” as discussed by Christensen.

Still, ignore at your own risk.

The All-Encompassing Fog of the Cloud

Meanwhile, in the bushes, the cloud-based SaaS offering are lurking, ready to pounce.  They have realized a few important things:

• Not only do many people not need all of the functionality provided by the Content Management vendors, they don’t want to manage the data center either.
• Users are getting used to a rapid pace of innovation from their increased exposure to the ever-evolving Internet.  The three year “big release” has become a detriment  from an user expectation perspective, not to mention the nightmare for the IT and Change Management personnel.  Lots of incremental changes are easier to deal with than huge massive changes.
• The ability to share content outside of an organization is becoming more important, and not easier.  If I still have to email that 10 MB presentation to business partners (copying my colleagues), that really cuts into some of the important selling points of ECM.

The SaaS vendors don’t have all the answers, yet.  They are still working on security and many of the CYA features that your average CIO wants.  The thing is, those requirements are well defined, so it is just a matter of addressing them.  Research is only needed to prioritize, not define.

When those gaps are addressed by the SaaS solutions, who will win the market?  Those that are ready from day one, or those that try and create/market their solution after the questions are answered?  There is more to being a solid cloud offering than fancy marketing and a feature list.  The processes and the business value that they support is different than from a traditional software vendor.  Running a successful, secure, reliable, scalable online service is not the same as writing a COTS software package.

The Reaction

Some of the established vendors may tell you that their clients aren’t asking for the Cloud at this time.  They are asking for better business solutions, like Case Management.  Existing clients are asking for Case Management.  I’ve heard it.  The thing is that people that I talk to who are looking for new Content Management solutions are seriously considering cloud-based solutions.

How consistently are they asking? Well, in 2009 I was helping a large, 50K+ user, organization look at vendors, and they invited a SaaS provider to present their solution.  I knew going in that the vendors didn’t meet all the critical requirements, and I even told the client as much.  Didn’t matter.  They want to move in that direction as part of an overall strategy, so they were going to talk to the vendor about what the vendor offered and tell that vendor what was lacking for them to make a purchase.

Did the lack of a cloud-based solution get mentioned to the other Content Management vendors?  No.  The closest was when someone asked about external hosting and they mentioned that they had partners that can offer that service.  A savvy market research person would be able to see that question that as a potential need for cloud-based solutions, but a sales person, even if they are smart, don’t have the same channels.

But I digress and this post is already pretty long.

So the Content Management vendors, looking for double-digit growth, are pushing Case Management so they can land the multi-million dollar deals required for that growth.  Smaller cloud-based vendors don’t need to close deals of that magnitude to have double-digit growth in a quarter, much less a year.  The ECM vendors are chasing the large deals while the smaller deals get left to SaaS and SharePoint.

Christensen talks about this as companies moving up-market while the new vendors, based upon the disruptive technologies, tackle the lower market.  As the the firms innovate faster than the needs of the average customer, they can move up-market and take revenue from the established vendors.

So right now, SaaS vendors are doing this in the Content Management space.  They aren’t able to compete on functionality yet, but they are adding it faster than the market is demanding new features.  It is only a matter of time before they hit the minimum level needed for them to be a player.

There is Not Plenty of Time

As I discussed in the review, there are a ton of examples focused on the hard drive industry.  I think a more relevant example is the excavator industry.

In the first half of the 20th century, cable-actuated excavators ruled the construction world.  Each new model could scoop more thanks to larger buckets and deposit it further away.  The market drivers were bucket size and reach.

Then came the hydraulic excavators.  Made by new companies, these had smaller buckets and a smaller reach.  They couldn’t compete against the established cable-actuated vendors, but they worked well for people needing to dig precise trenches and other smaller tasks.

Over time, years and years, the bucket size and reach grew to the point that the larger construction project started to buy them.  While they could not in any way out-perform the cable-actuated excavators, they were more reliable, cost less per unit (though not less per cubic ft. bucket size), and were generally cheaper to operate.

By the end of the transition, which took decades, of the over 40 cable-actuated excavator vendors, only FOUR successfully transitioned to survive in the new market.  That is less than 10%.  Let me repeat a key fact here…

DECADES!!!

The technology was there and it was obvious.  Many established vendors entered the market once it was a viable solution for their clients, but by then it was too late.

Why didn’t they enter sooner?  Like many victims of disruptive technology, the margins were less on the new technology, which led to different processes within the makers of the disruptive tech.

Let me put it this way.  Let’s assume that I have historically made a 20% margin on my products.  I get two proposals.  One is for an innovative enhancement on an existing product that will increase sales 10-20% at the current margin.  The other is for a newly engineered solution that will increase sales around 5% at a 10% margin.  With finite resources hich do I approve?

It doesn’t matter if in 5-10 years that the second option will over-take the market, stockholders want results this year, and CEOs want their job next year.  The new markets for the disruptive tech are always fuzzy and ill defined.

This is why startups are the “source” of truly disruptive technology.  They can start with new business structures, values, and processes, that can take advantage of the different margins.  They also get more excited about that $50K deal.

Do you think EMC, Oracle, IBM, or Open Text get exited about $50K deals?

Where Does that Leave Implementers?

In reality, waiting for another post.  Let’s just say life can be good and move on to the wrap-up…

Is Pie Nuts?

While an in-depth study would be required to answer that question, not to mention my forced participation, I’m really talking about selling out to the concept.

Did I read the book, proclaim it as genius, and then seek to fit the world into the model proposed by Christensen?  Not at all.

I’ve been seeing this for a while.  Then this past Spring, I was talking about my observations about what I was seeing in the industry with some others and I was asked if I had read a couple of books.  One was Christensen’s book.  A month later, we were talking again and the book came up a second time, so I went and bought it to read.

What the book did was make me realize that what was happening was actually normal.  This happens in lots of different industries.  It is just harder to determine what qualifies as a disruptive technology in the IT field.  As computers disrupted microfiche in Content Management, the Internet is giving birth to the cloud, which is beginning to disrupt traditional data-center-based enterprise apps, like Content Management.

The best thing is that I realized that this isn’t happening because there are bad executives or managers at the established Content Management vendors, but because of the opposite.  Back to that hypothetical investment question.  What good manager would pick the investment that will increase sales by double digits?

In many ways, the established vendors are trapped by their own success.  There are ways out, but there is no set formula, I may not have the right answers, and I’ve rambled enough for now.  More later.

Flame on….

Think about it, why is a company in business?  Yes, to make money, but that goal will only get you so far, just ask the gnomes.  You have to have something to offer and the ability to convince your customers that you can deliver and still be around in the future.

So in order to inspire your employees and your customers, you create a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).  For example, maybe you want to create the market leading ECM solution.  Ten years ago, that was a challenge.  No one company had all the capabilities in house and the leadership of the market was in flux.  Now, to hit the same goal, you just take aim at the big boys and go forward.

But what does that really get you?  Are you leading or just following the trail already blazed?

What Do You Give the Person that Have Everything?

Out there in the greater US, there was a newspaper organization that set an impressive BHAG in the 90s.  They wanted to own advertising in their market.  For a large market, that is a heck of a goal, especially with the advent of more national sources moving into the region.

Well, a funny thing happened, they achieved their goal.  It was a most impressive achievement.  The question then became, “What now?”

That is a dilemma that companies face when they become successful, how do you define the next step?  Trying to maintain leadership for the sake of maintaining leadership will only leave you reacting to the competition.  That very process cedes the leadership position to other companies.

If you don’t have a destination, how can you lead anyone anywhere?

What is Next for the ECM Guys?

So the question is, what is next for the large ECM vendors?  They have big honking platforms that can do everything (if you know where to look) and are constantly comparing themselves to each other.

At the same time, they are flirting with Microsoft because they see a product and a company that may not have a vision for the future, but does have a vision for the knowledge worker’s desktop of today.  They are flirting because they are hoping to buy time for SharePoint to become the next Lotus Notes and collapse under its own weight, or become inspired to be the next big thing.

The future is closer than you think.  The industry needs a vision, something to aim for collectively.  This is a call to the vendors to articulate a vision that we can identify with and see progress against.

This is a question for all of the vendors and the industry as a whole.  If you think that any company in the industry is immune from what I am saying here, then share.

People need to know.

After all, if you don’t know what you want to be in 5-10 years that is more than what you are now, are you a company in which I want to invest my company’s future?

Not a rhetorical question.

A Starting Point

We have talked to death about what ECM means.  We are pretty much working on the nitty-gritty details now.  We all know the WHAT.  It is time to look at the HOW.

How should people be interacting with their content in 5-10 years?  We know there will be more content, so let the engineers keep working.  The key is how will workers interact?

I’m telling you that we’ll be using our smart phones and tablets more.  We’ll be wireless and not always on our network.  That is obvious.

Forget the “cloud” and all the hype.  If a vision depends upon a cloud, that is pandering.  The cloud is a tool, a platform.  A vision may leverage the cloud, but it shouldn’t be central.

I wrote about Omnipresent Content Management (OCM) a while back.  The term is a little pretentious, but it had the virtue of being new, unclaimed, and applicable.  We might not be there in 10 years, but pick a point along the way.

The ECM vendors need to think about how to achieve that vision, or create their own vision that has power and evokes a new way of solving problems.  I listed three things, Storage, Identity Management, and Tagging as things needed for that future.  The middle item will not go away, the others will change as the future and visions evolve.

Pick a vision.

Define the vision clearly.

Map a path towards achieving that vision.

Share the vision.

After all of that, start work.  Don’t worry if we are following you.  If it is a good vision, and we believe you can get us there, we’ll follow.

Just lead for a change.

[Note: I said it in the post, this applies to all the vendors.  I'm not just saying that.  Right now, the grass doesn't look greener on the other side.]

Well not in Forrester’s world.  Only one new vendor (HP) was added and a few were cut, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The 2009 Wave

Thanks to Oracle (again), you can look at the Q4 2009Forrester Wave for ECM Suites in detail. For those with less patience, here is a copy of the wave…

Before we talk about the individual vendors, let’s talk about the low number of vendors.  If you look at the 2007 report, many vendors are gone. A couple were acquired (Interwoven and Vignette) and some aren’t what I would call ECM (SAP and Xerox) vendors anyway.

The question is, where is Autonomy?  They bought Interwoven and weren’t new to the content space.  They aren’t mentioned anywhere.  Nuxeo got a mention as one of the two open-source vendors in the “reduced footprint” category.  The SaaS focused SpringCM (under “reduced footprint”) and emerging Laserfiche (under “process-focused” and “SMB”) both got a nod as well.

All of those got placed on the Quadrant, as did SAP and Xerox.  I wouldn’t be upset, except I like how Forrester structures the wave more than Gartner’s MQ.  I want to see more vendors in here.

Breaking it Down

Let’s look at some of the vendors…

• Alfresco: Forrester thinks they are losing ground.  They didn’t say as much, but last time they were on the verge of making the Strong Contender  classification.  Now they are just strongly a Contender.  I understand raising the bar as the market evolves, but Alfresco hasn’t been sitting on its laurels.  They lost a lot ground in Strategy according to Forrester. As for the Current Offering, looks like the increased focus on integration in this Wave hurt Alfresco.
• HP: Welcome to the Wave.  Still the only major vendor that I haven’t heard connected to CMIS in any way.  I’ve even heard that Hyland is working on it.  Forrester has noticed and made note.
• Microsoft: Love the realism.  There are gaps, but less this time around than two years ago.  Microsoft  has a vision.  When 2010 comes out, they should push their way into the Leaders.
• Open Text: Getting hit on their Strategy.  Constant acquisition of the competition can do that.  Getting things integrated, as always, remains their biggest hurdle.
• EMC: Not much to say, except they got dinged for their poor WCM.  This is a growing trend.
• IBM/Oracle: Feel the love, especially with IBM.

To be honest, nothing surprising, just reinforcing.  I like how Forrester has the Leaders spread a little and how getting closer to the upper-right corner is rewarded.  You need a strong Strategy and solid Offering to get rated well.  Market Presence is measured by the size of the dot.  It just makes a lot more sense to me.

You know what is missing this year?  The score weighting.  Smart move as I trashed it last year and it gives people something extra when they pay for the full details.

Overall, the scoring had nothing massively off, though I’m not sure why Alfresco took so many hits.  The next couple of years is going to be critical for Alfresco as they start to hit middle-age and strive to be more.

Well, Microsoft appears to be doing things right so far.  In addition to showing a desire to participate in the AIIM effort (along with EMC, Alfresco, IBM, and Nuxeo), they hosted the first OASIS CMIS Technical Committee meeting out in Redmond, WA.  More important than either of those actions is the implications of this MSDN article, Integrating External Document Repositories with SharePoint Server 2007.

What Did Microsoft Do?

From all appearances, they created a way to consume some CMIS services within a specialized Document Library, called an External Library.  They used a Microsoft Silverlight application for the custom Web Part interface.  Why Silverlight?  I suspect it was to promote two technologies at the same time.

For the external repository, they created a custom repository consisting of just a simple directory structure with XML files to store document metadata and repository specific information.  In front of that, they implemented four of the CMIS services: repository, navigation, object, and versioning.  This is in no way a CMIS compliant implementation, lacking all the services and the REST implementation, but it is sufficient enough to demonstrate the capabilities, and benefits, of SharePoint working with an external repository.

Does this answer the question of how best to integrate Documentum and SharePoint?  No. It does show how SharePoint can act as a Federated front-end and expose existing content into SharePoint.  This approach allows for a single SharePoint integration point, supported by Microsoft, that will allow users to interact with content from multiple external repositories.  That is all I ask from Microsoft at this point as that is the one of the strongest use cases for SharePoint and CMIS.

There is still a long way to go though.  Getting the authentication and authorization mapped properly is not addressed, but is recognized as a weakness.  They mention a few ways to address this as well.  I don’t consider it an oversight as this is more of a practical proof-of-concept than a finished product.  With CMIS only at version 0.5, I’m not overly concerned at this time.

If you want to play with the project, you can grab the code from Microsoft.  As Shawn Shell at CMS Watch indicates in his post, Making it Real, there is a lot to dive into here, and even more to watch for down the road.  This implementation may not be how things are done when the final implementation is released, but it does show some of the current thinking.

Meanwhile, In Redmond

As mentioned above, the OASIS CMIS Technical Committee met in Redmond in the latter part of January, and Microsoft hosted.  According to John Newton, who gives a nice write-up of the 3-day event, this is not the first CMIS event that they have hosted.  The event was well attended.  Attending companies/organizations include:

• AIIM (by phone)
• Alfesco
• Day Software
• EMC…David Choy is the chair of the committee
• Exalead
• Greenbytes
• IBM…Al Brown is the secretary for the bindings
• Microsoft…Ethan Gur-esh is the secretary for the data model
• Nuxeo
• Open Text
• Oracle
• SAP…Presented the security proposal

From John’s account, which you should read, this was a very productive event and I am enthused by the progress.  I look forward to hearing more about the future meetings.  It looks like the standard is about a year away from finalization, but that is more determined by the process for comment than any real hurdles at this point.  I just hope I didn’t just jinx it.

One sentence that caught my eye, in a non-CMIS way, was, OpenText presented hierarchical properties.  I think that comes from the old Docs Open product that they acquired from Hummingbird.  It was a great feature and one that I wish I could implement effectively in other systems.  DOCS Open is the first Document Management system I ever implemented.  I even worked as a consultant for Hummingbird back in the day.

Ah, memories.

Here’s to Microsoft, EMC, Alfresco, and the rest of the committee giving us some good ones.

[Edit: The meeting notes are online in PDF format.]

Reshaping Your Business with Web 2.0

Vince Casarez, Billy Cripe, Jean Sini, and Philipp Weckerle

I have to say that I was pretty excited when Billy Cripe asked me to review his new book.  I’ve been a big fan of his blog for a while now and I have enjoyed his writing on the topic of Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0.  I haven’t always agreed with him, but the dialog has always been engaging and enlightening.  I had very high expectations for the book.

I want to start by saying that I did find the book quite useful and informative.  I’m not sure it could be called definitive on the topic, but it was an enjoyable read and provides a solid insight into both the why and how of implementing Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.  If you are looking to implement Enterprise 2.0 initiatives, this book will help you understand the various challenges and provide ideas on how to overcome them.

The Sum of its Parts

The book is well organized.  Each author wrote, or collaborated on, individual chapters.  This is where my largest complaint with this book centers.  It almost feels more like a collection of articles and not a truly cohesive book.  Each author brings a distinct style.  So while the chapters that Billy, and for the most part Jean, wrote met my expectations, the others varied to some degree.

The largest variations fall in the middle section on Technologies.  Vince and Philipp each wrote two chapters talking about the various technologies in the Web 2.0 space.  All four chapters were fairly technical and in sharp contrast to the rest of the book.  There is even sample code in three of the chapters.  It feels as if the middle section is targeted at implementers while the rest of the book is targeted at the strategists.  It threw me off me stride a bit.

The larger shift was Vince’s chapters.  While only one had code, both felt like advertisements for Oracle products.  Okay, I understand that Vince is an Oracle VP that focuses on Web 2.0 technology development, Enterprise 2.0, and portal products.  It is his job to sell Oracle products.  My problem is that it feels out of step with the rest of the authors, and there isn’t a big Oracle stamp on the book which would prepare you.

To be fair to the book, the other authors seem to go out of their way to show products from other companies, like Google, Facebook,  OpenSocial, and Yahoo!.  Also, Vince did introduce me to Yahoo! Pipes in his Mashups chapter.  Walking Oracle advertisement or not, Vince gained credibility there.  Of course, I didn’t need the course on how to use Pipes complete with screen shots, but it is a cool application.

What Did I Learn?

Quite a bit.  It is a little hard to quantify as much of it has merged into my general knowledge.  Billy had a nice final chapter on the Semantic Web and how we need our systems to start building links for us.  Right now, I can link places and search engines can derive some meaning from those links.  There are other places to which I do not link, because I don’t know about them, I’m lazy, or they don’t exist yet.  If I understand correctly, in the Semantic Web, those links would be created for me.

You can see an example of this on my blog.  WordPress has a feature called Possibly related posts.  If you are reading this post in the full page, as opposed to my front page, you can see the automatically generated links right above the Comment area.  The features has a while to go until the links are precise, but this is what the Semantic Web will try to achieve.  Call it Web 3.0, Knowledge Management, or just solid search algorithms finally delivering, it doesn’t matter.  The Semantic Web is a target that we have been striving towards for years.  Right now, we still need people to create solid links, but when we don’t need people anymore, the world will change.

I learned a lot more about tagging, keywords, and otherwise categorizing content and information.  I can’t really pull it out, but I think that Chapter 3 on the Varieties of Collaboration broadened my horizons on some of the possibilities.

The book also made me realize how fast things change and how easy it is to fall behind.  This book will give you a solid foundation for Web 2.0, but be sure to hit the web when you are done to see the latest thinking and to read about actual experiences out there.

Overall, definitely a worthwhile read.  If I knew more about the differing styles before I read the book, I would have enjoyed it more, but the information inside is no-less insightful.

This was prompted by a reading OpenText’s Enterprise 2.0 Content Management strategy. Note the placement of the 2.0. We’ll be getting back to that.

ECM 2.0, Coming Soon to an Enterprise Near You!

Well, if you look at my definition of the next generation of ECM, ECM 2.0 for fun, you’ll quickly see that we aren’t there yet. Even Bex chimes in on the Identity Management support in Oracle ECM and says that it isn’t there, yet. It is a great post and all concerns and issues there are true for Documentum as well.

Let’s take it as fact that all ECM systems are currently lacking in open support for Identity Management systems. Most can leverage external authentication, but fall short for external authorization.

Documentum can handle external groups, but not security policies. Those have to be created inside of Documentum using the external, or internally managed, groups. Documentum, like many systems, cache the external information for various performance reasons. That is fine, except that if something changes, you are out-of-date until the next synch job runs.

As if my critical eye wasn’t enough, EMC themselves aren’t at ECM 2.0 yet by their own reckoning. Way back at EMC World 2007, they defined their vision of ECM 2.0. They stated that D6 was just laying the foundation for ECM 2.0 and that it wouldn’t be realized until at least D6.5. That is this summer, so we can’t even evaluate it until then.

D6.5 will either be the Beta 2 release of ECM 2.0 or the “gold” release. It depends on who you ask and what is delivered.

ECM 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, Not Even Related

Aside from the flashy 2.0 attached at the end, there is little relation as far as I am concerned. ECM as it currently stands can support Web 2.0 artifacts. Some user interfaces may need some updating, but the back-ends of almost all Content Management systems, Enterprise or not, can store any type of content. Being able to store a wiki isn’t that impressive. Sounds more like a new feature for either a Collaborative CEVA or a Web Content Management CEVA.

ECM systems can support Enterprise 2.0. It is the interfaces that need to be updated. Clearspace, from Jive, supports Enterprise 2.0 activities. Infovark, once released, will support Enterprise 2.0 activities. Neither are ECM systems or based upon them. I bet that I could take Documentum 5.2.5 and use it as a back-end for content for Clearspace. It may take a little development, but it could be done and nobody will EVER confuse that old version of Documentum with ECM 2.0.

OpenText is updating their user interface. That’s it! Big deal. If they have to make a lot of changes to their back-end to make this work, then they are in worse shape than I ever imagined.

Everyone, Look Outside the Traditional 2.0 Box! (Traditional 2.0? Funny.) ECM 2.0 is the next generation of Enterprise Content Management. It is not a slave to any other technology. It is a servant for the emerging Enterprise Architectures in the SOA world. It isn’t dependent on Web Services or REST. It is dependent on an undefined SOA Standard.

Look, databases have ODBC and JDBC. ECM needs an equivalent. CEVA providers shouldn’t have to write different interfaces to interact to different systems. They need one interface and ECM system will then only need one interface. Then we can get back to features and not pick a vendor because they are at least average in everything that we need.

Jed Cawthorne gets it. Billy Cripe gets it. Lee Dallas is getting it. Do YOU get it? If not, tell me why and I’ll see what I can do to help you along. Please chime in and share your thoughts. I’d love to hear from someone at EMC like Cornelia, Craig, Mark, Chuck, or someone new.

I have come back to this topic through multiple avenues. One is the concept of Invisible ECM from Billy and crew over at Oracle. It resonated very strongly with my previous discussions on Transparent ECM. We can debate terminology later, but what is important now is the shared concept.

A second avenue comes from my need to explain where ECM is going, ECM 2.0, in a simple and concise way. I can explain it and speak passionately on the topic. The need to get the concept out there in one breath has become more important as I talk to more people.

I have developed a proposed definition for your consideration. I would love feedback. I will approve all constructive comments for sharing, though I may not respond until a subsequent post. I’ll throw it out there and then discuss it briefly. Remember, I want this definition to have a soul.

Enterprise Content Management is the empowerment of all content within an organization. This is accomplished through the centralized management of content, allowing for people and systems to access and manage content from within any business context using platform agnostic standards.

Enterprise Means Everything Managed Together

The Enterprise in ECM started as being able to support various Content Applications throughout the organization with the same tool. This led to WCM, RM, DAM, and Collaboration applications all being developed or acquired by each major vendor.

The growing problem now is using content in applications not provided by the ECM vendors. These are applications that I have previously referred to as Content Enabled Applications, but Gartner and others refer to as Content-Enabled Vertical Applications, or CEVAs. (Gartner’s term pre-dates mine so they win the terminology battle.)

For example, documents in a case management system (a solid example of a CEVA) should be retained in a central repository. From here, records management policies and archival rules can be systematically applied.

Traveling the Road to ECM 2.0

When ECM was first coined, you would have been hard pressed to find a vendor that could actually deliver on the definition. The biggest hurdle these days is finding a proper project manager and plan that leads to a successful ECM implementation. People often blame the vendor, but usually it is the integrator, or lack thereof, that dooms an ECM project.

ECM 2.0 tries to make that easier. It’s very nature is to support other applications. Using supported standards, the ECM system is plugged into the back of a CEVA. If needed, a WCM or collaboration solution (RedDot and SharePoint respectively) can be plugged in as well. Organizations shouldn’t have to use the Content Applications from their ECM platform vendor. There are advantages to doing so, but it shouldn’t be required of the organizations.

Delivering an ECM 2.0 platform is a tall order. It isn’t just about scaling for volume or handling all types of content. Those things are important, but not what separates old ECM from new ECM. What is different is the way the ECM platform acts as a platform supporting the Enterprise. To get there, at least two things need to happen.

1. A standard for the ECM world needs to be set and implemented: Like ODBC and JDBC with databases, ECM systems need a standard interface. In today’s world, a SOA standard makes the most sense as it would loosely couple the systems together. If I had to pick a technology, I would go with something built on Web Services, but mostly because so many ECM vendors allow communications in that manner.
2. ECM Platforms need to leverage external user stores for authentication and security: A classic example of this is as follows…I have a Word document in SharePoint. It has a set of access rights assigned to it which is mirrored in the ECM system. When the security is changed in one place, it needs to automatically change in the other. All the users and groups that exist in one system should exist in all systems. Ideally, there is only one instance of the access control lists and users that both systems leverage.

This isn’t going to happen over night. I know several organizations, in different verticals, that are facing the problems that ECM 2.0 addresses now. Their solutions are functional, but far from ideal. They are locking themselves into a set of technology and putting themselves into a position where they cannot upgrade one piece without upgrading the whole.

The requirements are forming in the heads of the users. The first vendors that get there with a robust solution will flourish. I suspect that at least one of IBM, Oracle, or EMC will fail to deliver in time and will drop from the top three. The question is, who will rise up to take the vacated spot?

X-Hive, the Product

I learned all about X-Hive. I learned that it is fast and can handle all sorts of large XML documents. I learned the the target customers are those looking for Dynamic Content. I learned that they support lots of XML standards. I learned more about the S1000D standard than I ever wanted to know.

Favorite relevant example: A car manual. The manual is my car is generic and has information on really cool options that I don’t have. With this solution, I go online, enter my VIN and/or my options, and from there I get sent, or can download, a personalized copy of the manual. It covers all of my features and ONLY my features. If I have the UK version of a vehicle, it notes that the steering wheel is on the wrong side.

I learned that the enemy is Mark Logic. This wasn’t just a casual observation. Pretty much every time the need to state how X-Hive beat, was beating, was countering, or any other competitive action was mentioned, it was aimed at Mark Logic. If half of what I heard was true, I’d never buy Mark Logic and buy X-Hive instead.

Of course, those Mark Logic guys will say that EMC will destroy X-Hive over time. They may also be cheaper. However, aside from one project that is debating moving from an open source solution, Berkeley DB, I’m more concerned about the future in the Documentum product suite.

You Will be Assimilated

I must say that it is nice to see an acquired architect excited about the future of his product. I took that as a positive sign. Their goal, I think by D6.5, is to have all XML content pulled out of the current store and placed in the new EMC Documentum XML Store (the X-Hive Database renamed). This will be embedded in the Content Server and viewed as a fourth storage component, adding to the existing database, index, and disk storage (for actual files).

Then the cool part was revealed. They are introducing a new product called Dynamic Publishing Services. Going beta this month and live later this quarter, assuming all goes well, this will deliver personalized content to users on the web. It is a nice enhancement that has been sorely missing. I know Vignette has this, and your average portal vendor, like BEA(now Oracle), does this all the time now. I’ve also wanted to do it in Documentum, but couldn’t.

Happy, Happy! Joy, Joy!

Now, it isn’t delivered and things can change. However, I can’t help but think that this was all pretty good news. Love for all you Web Content Management people out there.

Now they just have to execute.

“Nothing to See Here”

So Bex posted earlier today on this and said that from a Content Management perspective, it doesn’t mean much. I tend to agree with him. Though, to be fair, my first reaction when I heard was Oh f**k! After all, WebLogic has always been my favorite Application Server. It was easy to maintain, upgrade, use, and scaled well. Now I’m concerned about what may happen to it in the future.

Bex also didn’t see much synergy. Aside from the minor annoyance with the patents, Bex saw Oracle acquiring a competitor more than expanding their offerings. Luckily for me, I had another perspective hammer at me.

“The Sky is Falling”

So I had a little debate earlier about what this meant with a colleague. He thought that this was a problem for EMC. His view was that this was putting EMC behind both Oracle and IBM in the space due to a lack of middleware and personalization capabilities. I conceded that this did give the SOA story for both companies a greater edge.

He kept focusing on the Portal piece. Apparently, there is a lot of grabbing in the market for a more personalized, portal-like, solution. I think that this more of the SharePoint vision. That isn’t a bad vision if you can get all the pieces to work together and scale. Let’s not forget the ability to scale.

Life is more than good stories though. This deal also isn’t executed yet. We don’t have any good ECM SOA standard yet. Without that, nobody wins. It looks like Bex may be starting to see that as well.

Supporting Components

There are two components that act in a supporting role that should be taken out of the equation. They are the database and the full-text index engine. Why? Those items shouldn’t be provided by the content management vendor. In most products, they aren’t. Exceptions include SharePoint and Oracle’s Stellent. However, as they are separate products and licensed independently, it doesn’t count.

Of course there is technically the possibility of an exception. A company could create their own database and/or indexing engine for their repository. In that situation, you have to take it into account the database speed. However, I doubt that that they could match those vendors that utilize 3rd party databases like SQL Server and Oracle, except maybe in price/performance equation.

There is a need to eliminate the variable performance that can be introduced by the databases. There are two basic approaches:

• Use the recommended database vendor. This had the benefit of using the database for which the system is best designed.
• Average the results. Using the same database for each one isn’t fair as one may be optimized for Oracle while another may be optimized against SQL Server. I would take the performance measured against each and average it out. In theory, that will give you a comparative measure between different systems.

Index engines are trickier. Most only support one so you have to use them. Tests can’t be designed to minimize the full-text search when judging performance. That is one of the key features. So I think one should try and separate the search capabilities into a separate set of tests to try and isolate the performance. One day all index engines will be plug-and-play and we will be able to truly be able to measure the system.

The User Interface

Here is another problem. Are we measuring the performance of an ECM platform or a suite? If a suite, you need to test the standard User Interface. If platforms, then try backing them onto a custom UI hosted on Liferay or some other common platform.

Some people can design most impressive engines, it is the web interface that they fall apart upon.

So What is Left?

Well, first, load it with content. I’m thinking at least 100,000 different pieces of content. Half stored throughout a layered, deep, hierarchy and half in a small number of folders. Don’t forget to add several pieces of metadata. This will set things up for the tests.

What do you measure? Well, several things:

• Move large folder hierarchies around.
• Mass meta-data updates.
• Process query result sets.
• Anything else define in the system requirements (if a system does it, test it)

When all is said and done, add at least 50% more content (or remove half of it) and repeat. Performance can suffer as a repository grows, so it is important to test it large. When doing this, be sure to size all the systems as recommended for the amount of content. If a system tells you that it needs X and you give it X/2, of course it isn’t going to work well. If you through everything on the same size box, you are beginning to compare efficiency, not just performance.

Remember Our Purpose

Lopartu is designing a new system, so telling him how to compare existing systems doesn’t help him much. Contrary to the above indications, databases and index engines are critical in the design. A poor database design can cripple a system. Comparing two systems running on SQL 2005 will reveal those design flaws.

Performance also isn’t everything. If you can’t protect content, track it, or manage it through its lifecycle, it doesn’t matter how fast it is. That is another consideration. When designing a system for high-performance, it is critical to design it to handle all of the functionality that any target organization would need. In addition, don’t forget to design for all the feature that you don’t know.

That is the real trick. The older ECM platforms are burdened by legacy design concepts that are either dated or that never panned-out. The ease of upgrade from one version to another limits the ability to remove these design characteristics. Alfresco has the benefit of not being limited by its own history. However, if they are successful, they will be burdened by their own design when new ideas and features come forth.

Now, hit me with your best shot. I know you want to do so.

Then things changed. People started to notice that if you actually used the system on an large scale, search performance degraded. There were many reasons for this. One was that vendors weren’t upgrading their bundled Verity engine. Another was that the engine was sitting on the same machine as the primary ECM server, so resources were being consumed at an increasing rate.

To solve this, EMC switched to using FAST with 5.3. On paper, this was a good idea. It was Java based and could be scaled. However, to tune it to work with Documentum effectively, and with minimal end-user interaction required, several things had to be locked in the configuration. It took a few service packs, but it now works fairly well when done correctly.

However, once you get over a certain threshold of objects and/or index size, you have to switch to a multi-node environment. This isn’t as easy as anyone would like.

So EMC looked at alternatives. As I’ve mentioned in the past, they had planned on allowing clients to use Lucene as their Search Engine with the upcoming 6.5. They were also going to upgrade the FAST engine to a more efficient version. Then 2008 hit.

Enter Autonomy

This wasn’t the item that hit the news wire in a big fashion yesterday, but it is the more revealing into the future of search in Documentum. EMC now has an OEM agreement with Autonomy. Looks to me that FAST is going to be out at EMC in the next year. I can’t see EMC paying 2 OEM licenses. Hopefully Lucene will stay in the picture, but you have to think FAST is out.

Now, some of you more astute readers may remember that Autonomy bought Verity back in the tale-end of 2005. So how is this a step forward? Has EMC completely thrown in the towel? Not necessarily. One of the biggest problems with the old Verity search was that it was OLD. The engine wasn’t upgraded. Now, I assume, we will get the latest engine. After the issues with FAST, EMC may even be willing to upgrade the core engine in the future, keeping pace with their partner’s innovations.

The question remains, why now?

Don’t Blame Microsoft

Making a much bigger splash yesterday in the blogshere was Microsoft putting in a bid for FAST. From what I can tell, the two are coincidental, if not fortuitous for EMC. The previous news release appeared to be driven by Autonomy. They also announced an OEM license agreement with Oracle yesterday. Now, they already had one in place, but that may have been more limited in scope than the new one. Also, I doubt EMC had any say into the timing of the Microsoft announcement.

Microsoft is paying a hefty premium for FAST. Most reports are saying in the 40-45% range. When you look at the end of 2007 price, before the drop the first few days this year, it isn’t quite as dramatic. Still it is a lot of money for a Java-based technology. They must really have thought that SharePoint needed some search help.

This deal isn’t going to close until Q2 according to Microsoft. It will be quite some time before they start killing the core product, if they do so. It is a strange acquisition as FAST is Java based and SharePoint, to put it bluntly, isn’t. FAST was probably the only option that was the right size for their acquisition strategy and had working tech.

The Net Result?

I think that from a Documentum perspective, it doesn’t matter. It looks like a few months ago EMC decided to part ways with FAST and started down that road. If anything, the two announcements hurt Microsoft the most as FAST is probably going to lose a revenue stream.

Life is good. EMC is working on making search better in the Documentum product, and they are doing it by turning to experts, or at least other vendors that we hope know more than EMC about search. I just hope that the effort to switch from FAST to Autonomy doesn’t push back the Lucene option.

The Basic Problem

In my wonderful dream world for ECM, I have all my content stored in my ECM platform. It is accessed by a combination of Content Applications and other Enterprise Applications. All of these applications have data of their own about the context of the document.

In the insurance industry, a picture of a diamond earring is nice, but without the policy, and any potential claim, it loses its meaning. In fact, if one is eliminated, then the other is either incomplete or meaningless. So the same retention policy(s) needs to be defined for both the content and the data residing in the other system.

The problem…Where do I define the policy? Do I trust the Application to track it and just have it apply the proper controls through “standard” (bear with me on this) ECM approaches? When the Application purges a record, it cascades it down to the content. Do I have the policies implemented in the ECM system? What if the content has different retention policies from the base account?

Enter Compliance Oriented Architecture?

Welcome to marketing hell. This is a problem, but we don’t necessarily need a new fancy name for it. It should be quite simple. You define your policies in one place. These policies are then enforced in the different systems. Doing this within ECM systems is well defined and understood. How about everywhere else?

Well, Bex Huff (one of my favorite bloggers out there), posted on how Oracle, through the acquisition of Stellent, already had this capability a couple of years ago. Using the Oracle Records Management Agents, you can manage records where they are, all from Oracle’s Universal Records Management. Now I couldn’t find information on their Records Agents, but the description seems to fit the Federated Records Management approach.

There are other approaches to managing some of that application data as a record, which the legal guys might like. However, I’m with Bex that it is not the target solution. I am sure that there are cases though where that is the best approach, for now. After all, people need RM now and can’t always wait for the technology to catch up.

Mark Lewis and CMA

As I previously noted, Mark Lewis was placed in charge of the Content Management and Archiving business unit (Documentum+) at EMC recently. Well, Chuck Hollis recently posted on the change and began talking about how Mark is the perfect person to lead CMA into the future. What is of interest is how Chuck defined that future.

Enterprise Content Management: From Application to Service is the heading that describes this future vision. Sounds familiar. If you read deeper, you find this paragraph:

Looking forward, it’s clear that content management services will join the SOA stack. Most people can see how transactional services (e.g. databases) will play, but I don’t know if everyone has made the same leap for content services.

This is great stuff. EMC is speaking to a future that I talked about this summer. This thought process isn’t restricted to EMC, but it is nice to know that maybe, just maybe, the Documentum platform will continue to evolve into the open ECM Platform that we need. I’m sure that Chuck wrote his post with Mark’s assistance, so hopefully it will trickle down.

Going Too Far

My fear, as a Documentum practitioner, is simple. What if Documentum becomes all about the platform and neglects the client components? James might get something useful for his Enterprise Architecture, but a lot of end-users will be left out in the cold. As the aforementioned post by Oracle indicates, there is a need for Content Applications.

Oracle’s Billy Stripe writes that many users would be perfectly happy having their ECM platform supporting their other applications. However, sometimes that takes work. An ECM SOA standard may help with that, but right now, there is still benefit to be had by having Content Applications that are business problem focused.

Records Management, Collaboration, Web Content Management, and others center around content, and it makes sense to have versions of those applications that can tightly integrate with an ECM platform. These applications should still be designed to implement an ECM SOA standard that allows them to be connected into other ECM platforms. However, the benefits of a tight integration with an ECM platform is not to be denied.

This is where my concerns surface. EMC’s Documentum message has been subtly changing. Less focus on application-like modules, more focus on toolsets, integration, methodologies, SOA concepts and the like. It hasn’t just shown in the marketing. Several of the Content Applications have been slow to evolve in the last few years. There have been improvements, but many of those coincided with the unification of the product stack. (TaskSpace will be quite nice though, once it is released)

Here is the Catch-22. We need an ECM platform that can easily be plugged into an Enterprise Architecture. On the other hand, we like having good, solid Content Applications from the same vendor. Oh, there are times we want/need to mix and match, but many organizations want to at least be able to consider the applications provided by the ECM vendor. It also shows an understanding of the problems that the ECM Platform needs to support.

This will be a delicate balance and I hope that EMC and others can walk it.