EMC and Web Content Management

11 Comments

I made a few observations the other week about the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management that came out recently.  I, and others, criticized what it was measuring (though one blogger defended the MQ). I made the following comment in my dissection:

Personally, I think EMC (Documentum) and IBM (FileNet) are Niche Players in the WCM world at best.  Why?  Their WCM products sell into a very specific niche, those companies that already have, or are making, investments in their EMC or IBM platforms. If you know of either product winning a pure WCM bid, let me know.

Well, no comments on them winning a bid.  Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just means that people that know of such wins didn’t read the post or care to comment. My point still is that EMC’s, and IBM’s, WCM offering is not the “Challenger” as the MQ seems to suggest.

Let’s dig in a little.

Continue reading →

Three Fundamental CMIS Use Cases

11 Comments

I’ve been meaning to get this done for a while.  Over the last year, I’ve run into people that saw a need for CMIS as a whole, but didn’t think that it mattered for them.  Usually, the reason was that they only saw one use case for CMIS.  Well, there are three fundamental use cases for CMIS, with multiple examples for each.

To facilitate understanding of the use cases, I have created a presentation which I have placed up on SlideShare.  You can go directly to The Point Of The Content Interoperability Services (CMIS) Standard, or view the embedded version here and read the elaboration of the use cases below.

Continue reading →

What ECM Needs to be Today

5 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I threw my vision of where I described the future of Content Management.  I took it beyond ECM to Omnipresent Content Management (OCM for now).  Lee Dallas then build upon that future by changing the very content that we generate and manage.  The question still remaining is, what is ECM going to be today and over the next couple of years?

Last year, I threw out a new definition for ECM.  I still think it applies, but the story around it has evolved.  Here is that working definition of ECM.

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.

Let’s look at this definition in today’s light.

Continue reading →

Am I Buying a WCM Solution or Stock?

2 Comments

The Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management came out for the first time this month.  I say the first time because it was always a Market Scope before the 2009 report.  If you look at it, you can learn many things.  The one thing you won’t learn is if any of the products are right for you, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Jon Marks did a good job of comparing Gartner’s and Forrester’s latest rankings and highlights how a “Niche Player” may be worth considering. CMS Watch has stronger words on the topic, talking about some of the differences between their methodology and Gartner’s.

I have a few of my own thoughts to add into the fray…

Continue reading →

The Future of Content Management

22 Comments

About a week ago, Julian Wraith asked the ECM world what they thought the future of Content Management was.  He then said that he was going on vacation and would check back in a week.  So like all good techies, I waited until the end of the week before even starting on the task.  I did want to answer because I felt my ECM Definition needs a vision to where I see ECM taking us.image

Before I dive into the topic, I wanted to frame my answer.  I am backing off the term ECM 2.0.  As I think on it, the “2.0” is over-used, and doesn’t really apply directly to ECM.  ECM may support and be an important part of an Enterprise 2.0 system, but that can be achieved with old tech.  I am still ECM focused and see it changing, but slapping a version number is not the way to indicate the evolution of ECM.

The last thing about this future state is that it will not be here tomorrow. It is a future that is years away.  Some organizations may be there soon on a small scale, but the full-scale vision is a world where we are all there. So without further ado…

Continue reading →

Stage 1 Complete, Documentum Helps Developers

18 Comments

I’ve been meaning to talk about the new Documentum Developer Edition for a while now.  I’ve referred to it in previous posts and twittered about it.  More recently, Marko over at Big Men on Content has talked about the benefits of freely available ECM platforms for development and proof-of-concepts.  I thought some spare vacation time, and the release of the 6.5 sp2 version, was a perfect time to write-up my thoughts.

To start with, ABOUT TIME!!! Okay, that may be a little strong, but in the age of open source and when Microsoft and Oracle have been offering developer editions of their core products for years this was way overdue.  If you want the developer pool to grow, which is one of the major costs of a large-scale deployment, you need to allow them to use the tools.  There are lots of independent consultants out there that have trouble keeping-up with the technology because they can’t afford to become partners for the requisite fee.  The Developer Edition makes it easier on them (and harder on me, but that is another post) to deliver into the market.

Continue reading →

EMC Opens Their Eyes and Has a Vision

Went to the EMC Federal Forum yesterday here in Washington, DC.  I enjoy this event, if for no other reason than it is one of the few times a year that EMC people actually come to my town.  They’ve realized that it is easier to just talk to me than to try and avoid me, so it is now a truly fun and informative event.

The value of the breakouts were a mixed bag.  Many were similar to sessions from EMC World, which is perfect for this event as many users in the Federal Government could not make the trip to Orlando.  I did attend EMC World, so a lot of things weren’t exactly new.  I did Tweet some updates, and you can search #emcff for more tweets.  I decided to blog the keynote as it was focused on the EMC Strategy and Vision.

As you may recall, Vision was a problem at EMC World this year.  No Vision was really presented.  It was a nice description of things now, but Vision was lacking.  Rick Devenuti, the Sr. VP and COO of the CMA Division, has been tasked with sharing the “Vision” at this event.

I’m typed some notes as Rick talked and I have provided those at the bottom of the post.  Due to the content of the keynote, I’m providing a summary as well.  Keep in mind that this was a U.S. Federal Forum, so that market was the focus.

Continue reading →

Email, Part of this Nutritious Breakfast

10 Comments

Last week I got into a discussion with a few people on Twitter about email as a collaboration system.  It started when I sent a foolish tweet:

RT @lehawes: Email is not a collaboration system!! It is a communication system.

People started getting riled up. Some solid points were made about people using it for collaboration, but my point was that people using email for collaboration doesn’t make it a collaboration system.  I collaborate using the phone, but it isn’t a collaboration system.

I decided that a post was needed to fully explain the difference as 140 characters is just too limiting.

Remember Sugar Cereals?

Continue reading →

The Evolving Enterprise 2.0 Revolution

2 Comments

I’ve been observing and getting into a lot of discussions recently regarding Enterprise 2.0. This is probably because I was following the Twitter feed for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference last week. I have always liked the concept, 2.0 moniker aside, because I have always viewed it as the next step to realizing the goals in Knowledge Management.

One of the discussions is whether Enterprise 2.0 is evolutionary or revolutionary.  The simplest answer is yes. How others answer this question is most likely directly related to their belief in the importance of the technology in the equation of building Enterprise 2.0 success.

The Evolving Technology…

Continue reading →

ECM and Enterprise 2.0 – AIIM Throws Numbers on the Wall

2 Comments

Enterprise 2.0 is a growing theme out there in the wild of the Internet. This is especially true in the world of ECM where vendors are looking to add all those “Web 2.0” features to their platforms. EMC, Open Text, and IBM are all releasing new “Enterprise 2.0” products. It is a smart play because people with ECM and collaboration tools are looking to their vendors to provide the newest Enterprise 2.0 features in the “next upgrade”.

AIIM saw this trend a while ago and did some research.  In May, AIIM updated their research. I was “lucky” enough (lucky being defined as someone who follows AIIM leaders on Twitter and clicks on links) to get an early copy of the results, AIIM Industry Watch: Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0, on Friday before the general announcement of availability. I thought I would share what I found.

Numbers, Numbers, Everywhere…

Continue reading →