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AIIM’s iECM Committee, Validating CMIS

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As you may have heard, I’ve been a member of AIIM’s iECM committee for over a year.  I’ve been more of a lurker as I was a little nonplused at the efforts of the committee, but I stayed with it to learn more about their efforts in detail and hoping to one day be able to help in a substantive way.

Well, that day has arrived.  We are taking on the creation of a prototype, CMIS-based, system to store the presentation from the 2009 AIIM Expo.  The basic premise is to have one or more CMIS back-end systems storing content with a central interface that would provide content, seamlessly, to users.  Rather than explain the details, I’m publishing the “official” write-up.

Before you dive in, if you are a vendor with a CMIS implementation, we want to speak to you.  You can contact me or the people listed below.

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Vignette is Losing at Musical Chairs

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So I was just casually heading over to look at an older Big Men on Content post when I saw their latest.  It seems that Interwoven was purchased today by Autonomy.  Uh, WOW!  Okay, maybe a bit of an over-reaction, but with Vignette in a death spiral, what is next for them?

Before we get to Vignette, lets look at the news itself.

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Tony Byrne Visits the Web Content Mavens

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Happy New Year Everyone!  It has been a while since my last post.  Things have been returning to normal and I took some time off during the holiday season to hang out with my wife and boys.  Upon returning to work, there was the normal small post-holiday backlog accompanied by the chaos that is the Presidential Inauguration.  I understand that it is an important event in American history, but the loss in productivity for what is essentially Obama’s first day of work is staggering.

Maybe I should request a parade on my first day of work the next time I decide to start interviewing for a job.

In the midst of all this, on Wednesday evening I had quite an enjoyable evening at the monthly Web Content Mavens event here in DC.  It was, as always, a fun time talking to various people about their challenges implementing WCM and ECM systems.  I even ran into a few Documentum people.  The highlight of the night was listening to, and talking with, Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch.

I like Tony, and not just because he has bought me a beverage or two in the past.  Tony doesn’t mince words.  He tells his honest opinion in his drive to educate people on the world of ECM.  Previously, he had spoken to the Mavens on Social Media, but tonight was focused on the Web Content Management (WCM) marketplace as it stands right now.

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The Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2008

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[Updated 11/10/2008 in order to make Gartner, Inc. happier, or at least less angry.]

One thing about writing entries on public transportation, no Internet.  This make is tough to refer to web sites that haven’t been opened and cached.  As a result, today (I’m optimistic, so I’m not saying “this week”) brings you Gartner, Inc.’s 2008 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management review.  Released on September 23, 2008, the biggest surprise was the number of vendors that didn’t hype it.

An important note from Gartner, Inc., Gartner advises readers not to compare the placement of vendors from last year to this year.  With that in mind, since I’m human, here is a link to my post about last year’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management titled, The ECM Magic Quadrant, for reference.

Enter Open Source

Before we get to the chart, there are two big developments to take note of this year.  The biggest is the inclusion of Alfresco.  That’s right, an open source vendor has arrived.  They are listed categorized as a niche player so far in this report.  Considering limited, but growing, adoption and their evolving product, that is understandable.  I think that their vision got dinged because they have been taking a stronger collaboration (read Enterprise 2.0) tack as of late, but that is just conjecture.

I think they may be selling Alfresco short, but marketplace adoption and confidence is a factor in this study.  It will be interesting to see how the perception, and reality, evolves over the next year.

Other open source vendors will be slow in appearing here as Records Management is considered a core requirement to be in the chart report.  I agree with this, but I may set the bar lower for compliance than Gartner, Inc. does as I think basic retention policies are all that is required.

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EMC and the CMIS Standard

I talked a few weeks ago about the proposed CMIS standard.  I then went on to explain that vendor support is one of the two critical keys, the other the technical details, for the standard to succeed.  I went on to stress that the leaders for successful adoption of CMIS need to be the ECM Platform vendors.

I then promised some more posts on the topic and promptly vanished.  I’ve been busy at work and trying to enjoy the college football season.  I have vowed to get some posts out in the next week addressing the vendor support for CMIS.  As I know most familiar with EMC’s efforts, I’m starting with them.

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Vendor Support for CMIS

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As I discussed yesterday, I’ve been waiting a long time for the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard.  There is still a fair amount of excitement out there as more people join the conversation.  I’m still excited, but the excitement is beginning to be tempered by reality.

There are two primary factors to standard adoption:

  • Is the standard technically sound?  It has to actually solve the stated problem.  It is okay if a standard is limited in functionality in initial drafts as long as it evolves to accomplish everything required.  At the same time, it must be easy enough to use.  These are not small technical challenges.
  • Is there vendor support?  Let’s face it, if the vendors don’t support it, then it will fail.  The JSR-170 and JSR-283 standards are perfect examples.  They aren’t supported by a critical mass of vendors.  The reasons range from the technical (we work in Java), to the philosophical (it is a bad standard, let’s focus elsewhere), and to the lazy (nobody cares so let’s ignore it).

Customers are important, but it takes a large mass of them to force the vendors to act.  I would qualify them as a secondary factor.  While I digest the technical aspects, take a look at the Vendor Support factor.

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Enter CMIS, a Proposed ECM-SOA Standard

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I am almost too excited for words.  Every thought I have is leading down ten different paths.  You may ask why.  Simple, they finally announced an ECM-SOA standard.  This new standard, Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS), has been submitted to OASIS for approval.  This is the same standard that I initially learned about at EMC World.

Emails streamed to me all day alerting me to this announcement, and I was blissfully offline.  Now I wish some people (you know who you are) had told me to pay attention this morning.  As it is, I’ve decided to let everyone of you know about it and give some thoughts to the effort.  I still have to review the actual specification and find out what this means to each of the key vendors.

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CenterStage Beta has Begun!!!

Too important to not post this in addition to the big CMIS news.  If you signed up for the CenterStage (formerly Magellan) Beta, you can download the software on the CenterStage Beta site hosted by EDN Labs.  They plan to start taking feedback the week of the 22nd, so get to it.

Where Do You Store the Content Metadata?

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Recently, Sumanth Molakala sent me a comment regarding the best place to store metadata.

Here is the relevant portion of his comment:

…one of the key items I am trying to address in it is managing meta-data. I am sure you are aware of the two schools of thought – One – save content in content server and meta-data outside of the content server in a “custom” meta-data repository (assuming that the world doesn’t revolve around Documentum). Two – the traditional approach to save content and meta-data in the content server…

My quick answer…It depends! Before you shoot me, read on…

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The CMS Watch Vendor Map

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A while back, CMS Watch came out with an updated vendor map, which is designed as a subway map.  While it does serve as a quick checklist of a vendors capabilities, it is just more fun to look at it.  Here is a copy of the 2008 version, but you can download it on their site and get some options.

This year they are offering swag in their store with images of the map as the pretty graphic.  No interest for me there, at first.  I then saw this line:

Regarding the latter, perhaps you already own your fill of mugs and mousepads, but can you ever have enough beer steins? Bring it to the next event where we’re speaking and we’ll fill it up with the closest available brew. 😉

Alas, none of the events are coming to any events I plan on attending.  I would buy the beer stein for a chance to get it filled up.  After all, that is makes it a beer stein and not just another piece of swag.  Plus Tony is always fun and interesting to talk to, with or without a frosty beverage.