Momentum

EMC World Orlando, 2009 Edition

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Well, I finally broke down and registered for EMC World.  This year it is May 18-22 in Orlando. I got my hotel reservations months ago and wasn’t in a rush for the actual registration as the price has yet to change. I don’t need a free gift for registering early. In this economy, it is all about the Benjamins and the impact on the balance sheet, so no discount, no early registration push.

I was thinking about talking about my plans for EMC World, which looks pretty good, but the I realized something…This will be my 10th Documentum User Conference!  So I have decided to flash back a bit to the previous conferences.

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EMC World and Momentum

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Love YouTube sometimes.  I cached videos in the browser yesterday so I could watch it while I sit in a Starbucks getting my morning kick of caffeine (and watching the falling snow).  The caching does tend to limit my desire to actually shutdown my laptop.  Silly Windows Update keeps pinging me to restart (as if on cue, I click on Restart Later and typing continues).

Which videos am I looking at???  The keynotes from Momentum 2008 in Prague. I have been making plans to attend EMC World in May and I was looking back to see any changes from the last EMC World to that Momentum.  More on EMC World later, but if you aren’t already making plans to attend, you need to get on the ball.

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SharePoint and Documentum, The Need for Therapy

A while back, I talked about how Patience is a Virtue while waiting for the proper integration of SharePoint and Documentum.  Andrew Chapman and the team at EMC have been working hard, and we will have what we need, at least the first step, before too much longer.  In the meantime, we have choices to make, and consequences to deal with, on a daily basis.

The biggest problem right now isn’t that EMC’s solution is behind the curve.  The current solution from EMC is comparable to their competitor’s offerings.  The problem is that the solution is inherently inadequate.  EMC knows this (which is a good thing), but until they, or anyone, gives us a better option, what do we do?

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Gleanings from Momentum 2008 Europe

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I didn’t attend Momentum 2008 Europe, which makes the umpteenth time in row that I haven’t attended, the inverse of my streak in the States.  There were several people that did attend and I thought I would provide some basic thoughts and links for people.  I will be asking questions, so if you know the answers, please leave a comment.

[Edit 19 Nov. 2008: Be sure to read the comments for more links and commentary.]

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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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Thoughts on EMC World 2008 and the ECM Professional

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I’m sitting next to Marko and thinking about EMC World this year and trying to get my thoughts down as to how this year rated. I’m not going to be talking about what I learned in this post, but more on the conference itself. Marko had a couple of posts and I think they are a great starting point for the discussion. After you have read them, read on.

Sense of Perspective

I’ve been to every US Documentum user conference since 2000 and I’ve seen a lot of changes over time. I remember the exhibition being setup for the whole conference with almost no traffic (better now). I remember motorcycles zooming in to the stage at the keynote (fun, energetic, suffocating). I remember walking down Bourbon Street and having a great time as if it was just an extension of the conference (a great sense of community).

Some things have improved. One thing that hasn’t is that sense of fun and community. It was easier to find Documentum folks on Bourbon Street in 2003 than it is at time at EMC World. In 2006, there were over 2000 attendees at the last Momentum in Anaheim (thrown together on the quick) and more than 2500 the year before in Vegas. This year, the number given was 1500+ out of 9300+ attendees. It makes it hard to find people that have similar interest unless you already know them. You can find those people at sessions, but the sessions aren’t that well grouped together. The decrease in CMA attendance speaks volumes.

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Defending Enterprise Content Management

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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.

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First Thoughts on Momentum (aka EMC World) 2007

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So, as I sit here awaiting one of the many over-priced rides back to the airport, I thought I would write-up my notes from the conference this year. Then I decided, why not blog it? Thus it begins…

Not going to rant on the obvious this year. If you went, you know. If you didn’t go, don’t worry about it. For all of its new-found flaws, Momentum is still the best place to go to find out what is going on and to get access to the Documentum product staff. This year proved no different.

The focus this year was on Documentum 6.0, or as it is affectionately known – D6, which is coming this summer. This was good and bad. I wanted to know more about it, but D6 was the focus at the last Momentum, so some of it was a repeat. D6 holds a lot of promise for the future of Documentum. Two of the largest changes coming are the complete replacement of the underlying binary libraries into Java and the introduction of a new level of abstraction on top of the DFC, the Documentum Foundation Services (DFS).

Of the two, the changing of the libraries is worrisome. My initial concern was performance, but they are now going to use an embedded version of BEA WebLogic 9.2 instead of Tomcat. This has apparently given them a 15-25% performance improvement over the current architecture. No problems. However, I worry about the replacement of the binaries from a quality perspective. Balagi, during his keynote stressed the importance of quality going forward. He admitted, implicitly, that they had rushed 5.3 out and that it had been a mistake. I have my doubts. Even if the statement on quality is 100% sincere, that is a lot of functionality to test in a lot of environments. We’ll know soon enough.

So why would I even begin looking at D6 before SP1? Check in soon and I’ll go into the highlights that make the changes worth while.