This year, Nuxeo has been working pretty hard to increase awareness of their offering in the ECM marketplace.  They have taken a prominent role in the Apache Chemistry implementation for CMIS and were one of three vendors, Alfresco and EMC being the other two, that were able to get a CMIS-ready repository up in time to support the AIIM CMIS demo for the conference this year.

Then came September when they hired Cheryl McKinnon to be their Chief Marketing Officer. Cheryl and I had both come from the world of PC DOCS and had worked for the same boss back in 1999 (she was in training and I was a consultant).  Cheryl, knowing my love for all things ECM, offered to give my team and I a briefing on Nuxeo, complete with a demo by CEO Eric Barroca.  I accepted the offer and was glad that I did…

Reading My Mind

Okay, let’s be fair…Cheryl knows my ECM opinions from reading this blog and knows which vertical markets I’ve been working in recently.  I briefed her on some topics that I would like to see covered during our discussion, but she revealed to me a product plan that seemed designed to make me happy.

Keep in mind that all future product releases mentioned are subject to change. As a former product manager, I know that until the code is checked-in and tested, nothing is set in stone.

• Records Management: Nuxeo does not have the capabilities now, but they are targeting a DoD certifiable version in Q2 2010.  That is less than 1 year from Cheryl coming on board at Nuxeo, which is impressive. They still have to get it certified, but getting it ready is a large step.
• Hosted Cloud Offering: Nothing too sexy here given that many other vendors are taking this route. What I did like was that even before I had to ask, they explained how the model would support those that needed a temporary hosting solution until they could setup an internal deployment.  Translation, they already thought about organizations migrating off of the cloud platform and onto another platform. That is cloud computing with a foundation of reality.
• Digital Asset Management: This is due in the next month or so. How did she know that I have clients (non-profits mostly) that need this functionality without the cost of an EMC or Open Text?
• Correspondence Management: My first content application was a Correspondence Management system.  I have a little soft spot in my heart for that business solution. Nuxeo is hoping for a release of that solution in the first quarter of next year. Once I start playing with it, they may regret telling me.  This was equivalent to suggesting we eat at my favorite restaurant without knowing that it was my favorite restaurant.
• Structured Documentation Server: XML is coming to Nuxeo in 2010.  We didn’t get into this in detail, but Cheryl had no way of knowing that my group is doing more and more XML work these days.

To put it simply, just about every product offering coming in the next several months is of interest to me.

Taking a Deep Breath

A lot of this is “In 2010 we will introduce…”.  That means it isn’t out and the actual functionality is may not measure-up to what I am looking for in that particular solution.  The meeting with Nuxeo really was just a first date.  There are no guarantees.

That all being said, I haven’t had a first date like that in a long time and I am looking forward to seeing where things go from here.