Last year I succumbed to the pressure of being one of the only bloggers to NOT have predictions for 2010. So on the last day of the year, I threw together a post with some predictions.
As a side effect, I have to evaluate them now. I am going to score them as either correct, incorrect, or partial (50%). The partial is for predictions that were correct in the causes, but the effects were off.
So, let’s dive into the juicy goodness.
So Gartner released the new Magic Quadrant last week.
Um…..
I’m a little torn here. It is an important piece of research and of value and all that, but…
Of course, it is full of useful/interesting facts, so let’s dive into it…[download a copy from Hyland Software.]
This post has been a long time in coming. I’m not talking about the news that has triggered the actual writing of the post, just the themes of the post overall. They should be pretty clear shortly….
That said, let’s hit the headline, Mark Lewis is no longer the President of EMC’s IIG business unit, which is effectively Documentum. Rick Devenuti, formerly the COO, is effectively taking over the position.
Wow. I’m happy, but you need to read on to understand that oversimplification of my mood.
So in case you’ve missed it, I’ve been talking about how fixation on license fees can have a negative impact on on both the customer relationships and on product development. There has been a reason for this conversation, the need to transform Content Management into a commodity.
This was discussed at the EMC Writer’s Summit event earlier this month. Led by Andrew Chapman, we tried to identify what we could accomplish if Content Management was commoditized and was just there to be used. Johnny Gee followed up this discussion with a post about ECM as a Commodity, sharing some of his thoughts in more detail.
Before talking about the license fee impediment Content Management Commodization, I’m going to touch on the Commodity issue a bit.
So I promised an ECM specific follow-up to my book review on Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma. There is a lot to talk about, so I’m not going to blather on with a long intro (though this sentence seems to be compounding the issue) and get right to it.
Or not…I have some disclaimers/notes:
NOW we can get started.
Before I went to EMC World and marveled at how the management was missing the boat on the cloud and was diving wholesale into Case Management, I was told that I had to read this book. After EMC World, I broke down, purchased it, and then fought to find time for it. The book is over a decade old, so what was the rush? Let me tell you, I am glad I found the time.
I was told before I read the book that it was going to make me a little sad and despair for the future of Documentum. It did in a way, but it also helped explain everything that was happening. It actually increased my opinion of some people at EMC. I am going to talk about the specifics to EMC, and other legacy Content Management vendors, in a subsequent post. For now, let’s dive into the book itself.
SharePoint has the traditional ECM Generation CMS vendors trying to figure out what they can do to maintain their “leadership” in Content Management. 
A lot are looking to Case Management, a long-time need, to provide a differentiating factor for growth.
Meanwhile, other, newer CMS vendors are working to build solutions in the cloud. What they lack in functionality/scalability, they make up for in drive, vision, and price. They also have a plan to match, and surpass in some cases, the capabilities of SharePoint and the big boys.
These two new challengers to the CMS throne are making basic Content Management available to the masses. The traditional vendors don’t see profit in the commodity game. We’ll explain why this is a problem for them in a bit…
I’ve been talking about a lack of leadership and vision in the ECM industry. This is evident when you attend keynotes at various conferences. Most keynotes at industry conferences are focused on what has been happening and what is happening now. John Mancini’s keynote at the AIIM conference was as close as it gets these days.
Of course, AIIM can’t deliver the future, they can only point to it, so what do we do? We wait. What are we waiting for? Well, I’m not waiting right now. For your consideration, I present to you a keynote on the future of ECM…..
I came to EMC World with a few goals, foremost of which was to see if EMC had a vision for Content Management. Ten years ago, the vision was ECM. That vision drove the industry for a decade. Now people are looking around and asking what is next. They are looking to the leaders in the industry for answers.
EMC had no answers to give, at least publicly.
I talked to a LOT of people all week. I talked to customers, partners, and employees of EMC. I bounced ideas, I listened to impressions, and I sought to make sure that what I saw, or thought I saw, wasn’t just me…
…and it wasn’t. Not by a long-shot.
Skipping Documentum Search Services (coming in Q3) in order to hear what EMC is planning around the cloud for content management. Not sure how much slide content v discussion there will be, but we will see.
Word of Pie 