Now that I’ve reviewed Forrester’s Wave report on ECM, let’s tune into some specific criticism. Specifically Jeff Potts spoke up and took them to task on how they weight what they measure. Being a fan of Alfresco, his post is a little on the defensive side, but that doesn’t eliminate his points.
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The Forrester Wave Report, ECM Suites Q4 2007
A few months ago, the Gartner report on ECM came out and I shared a few comments. Well, Forrester put their version out and I thought I comment on it as well. This is the first of two likely posts, focusing on the overall report this time around.
The Report
In general, no real news in the rankings as compared to Gartner. No surprise there. Why rock the boat?
There are a few key things to note.
Defending Enterprise Content Management
So the other evening, I was out at a Web Content Mavens gathering, and someone asked me what I meant when I talked about ECM. This person had years of experience in Web Content Management and a few years working with a leading ECM provider before returning to their roots in WCM. His basic premise was that ECM was a marketing ploy cooked up by the vendors, analysts, and consultants out there and that there is no rational reason to force them all into one system.
This was, at the same time, one of the best, and most painful, conversations I have had in quite a while. On the one hand, it is good to have to occasional defend your convictions in order to make sure that they are still on solid ground. On the other hand, sometimes you want to hit your head into a wall when someone doesn’t get it. However, I can see why that opinion exists. The vendors and analysts are to blame.
Co-Existence of SharePoint and ECM
A few weeks ago, I attended the AIIM seminar SharePoint meets ECM. When I registered, I received Doculabs’ White Paper, The Co-existence of Microsoft SharePoint and Advanced ECM Platforms: What You Need to Know. I hinted in my post about the event that I would write another post specifically addressed to this White Paper and I have finally gotten around to it.
Before I dive into the nitty-gritty details, I wanted to share an interesting observation. I started this blog to talk about things that were of interest to the EMC/Documentum crowd. That has expanded to encompass broader ECM issues such as standards. I think these topics are of interest to Documentum Architects, so it isn’t a reach. However, I’ve noticed a trend. Whenever I post on SharePoint, my hits jump way up. If I was just after hits, I’d just switch to SharePoint all the time. However, I expect this to be one of my last posts on the topic for a while as I have bigger fish to fry and I think I’ll have covered most of what I feel I need to cover for the short term.
It does make one think. I wonder how far my hit rate would jump if I included the name of a celebrity who is named after a French city? I’m not shameless enough to find out. Now on to the meat of the post…
Standards at cmf2007
Apoorv Durga is presenting on Standards at cmf2007 (The 3rd International Web Conference) in Aarhus, Denmark this week. In his blog, Random Thoughts on Portals and Content Management, he made a request for questions on multiple occasions to ask of the experts at the conference. To put my questions in perspective, I am going to reply to his earlier post on Standards and Content Lifecycle.
Provoking Jed on ECM 2.0
I am worried. Worried that Jed will want to stop sharing pints with me. In a previous post, I said that the ECM community, users and organizations, need to define what makes up ECM 2.0. The definition should not be dependent on the definition of Web 2.0. Jed thinks I was calling him cynical. Not quite. I think Jed is too optimistic.
We Define ECM 2.0, Not the Clock
While I was taking some time off for Son 2.0, my friend Jed Cawthorne over the the UK wrote an interesting post on Enterprise 2.0 and ECM 2.0. He refers to a post by Billy Cripe at Oracle talking about what it will all be. Jed then sums up ECM 2.0 as:
Just making stuff look like the ‘consumer’ Web 2.0 apps workers are using at home. What ECM 2.0 will not be is the highly componentized, SOA and standards based dream of Laurence.
Jed sounds more resigned to that definition than excited. Personally, I think we only have to live with that definition if we choose to do so. This isn’t only my dream for ECM, this is one that has been shared by EMC multiple times, and other vendors are prepping, or have prepped, their platforms for ECM 2.0. So why do we have to settle?
ECM Standards for SOA
The current gap that I see in the ECM standards is in the world of SOA. I’ve tried to make a case for having such a standard in the past. However, Bex Huff said that we don’t need another ECM standard. Let’s look at the existing standards and see if one of them can fill the void.
The Web Content Mavens
At last weeks AIIM seminar, I was invited to attend a meetings of Web Content professionals in the DC area. I decided to attend, figuring that the worst case scenario would be a couple of pints and listening to someone ramble on about WCM. This was far from worst case.
Word of Pie 