OpenText

Acquisition Fever

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image There is a lot of acquisition talk these days, both anticipated and real.  When you think on it, it isn’t really news.  Acquisitions are a constant in this industry, but there are two of late that indicate how things may be getting ready to change.  People keep asking me my thoughts, so I thought I would jot them down.

Keep in mind that I’m not an analyst or expert and I don’t play one on TV.  I can write a mean Haiku though.

Adobe Buys Day

If you don’t follow the CMS open source world and/or the CMS industry at large, this announcement may leave you scratching your head wondering “So what?”  Day Software has been one of the leading open source companies in the Content Management world.  They are headquartered in Europe and have been working to build a footprint here in the states.

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ECM Industry Goals: Move the ECM Industry Forward

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I started this on Monday discussing the importance of goals in general, using the setting of goals for yourself as a starting point.  The same logic applies to a company, and its industry, as well.

Think about it, why is a company in business?  Yes, to make money, but that goal will only get you so far, just ask the gnomes.  You have to have something to offer and the ability to convince your customers that you can deliver and still be around in the future.

So in order to inspire your employees and your customers, you create a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).  For example, maybe you want to create the market leading ECM solution.  Ten years ago, that was a challenge.  No one company had all the capabilities in house and the leadership of the market was in flux.  Now, to hit the same goal, you just take aim at the big boys and go forward.

But what does that really get you?  Are you leading or just following the trail already blazed?

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EMC and Mark Lewis’ Focus on Return on Information

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In my previous post, I shared a copy of Mark Lewis’ CMA keynote presentation from EMC World 2009. It made me realize that I needed to crank out this post on EMC’s vision and Mark Lewis’ delivery of that vision. This is going to be a little devoid of facts for a couple of reasons.  One is that the raw facts are captured in the presentation, SlideShare and YouTube, and in my notes. The second is that no vision was delivered at EMC World!!!

The Missing Vision

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My Day at AIIM Expo 2009 with CMIS

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Okay, let’s be clear.  I didn’t travel around with CMIS all day. On the other hand, CMIS got me to the AIIM Expo this year, opened a few doors, and started many a conversation. It is amazing what standing on a soapbox for a year and a half can accomplish. It was an interesting day that was well spent and I wish I had two days at the conference.  I was always rushing trying to get to see everyone and talk to everyone, and I failed. I did accomplish my primary objective, and that was a success.

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CMIS and SharePoint

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This is a critical subject.  As I said when the CMIS standard was released, the key to its success will be vendor adoption.  This means more than just signing off on the standard.  The vendors have to incorporate it into their message and start to show clients, partners, and analysts how they plan to support and implement CMIS.  Based on how the ECM marketplace has begun to revolve around SharePoint, I consider Microsoft’s support a major component for success.  CMIS can succeed without them at first, but it will be a much steeper hill to climb without Microsoft.

Well, Microsoft appears to be doing things right so far.  In addition to showing a desire to participate in the AIIM effort (along with EMC, Alfresco, IBM, and Nuxeo), they hosted the first OASIS CMIS Technical Committee meeting out in Redmond, WA.  More important than either of those actions is the implications of this MSDN article, Integrating External Document Repositories with SharePoint Server 2007.

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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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Enterprise Content Management 2.0, Still in Beta

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The Big Men on Content, Lee to be precise, recently joined the ECM 2.0 discussion, stating that they are going to wait for EMC’s sp2 before they jump on-board. That could be a long wait. After all, we are still in Beta as far as I am concerned.

This was prompted by a reading OpenText’s Enterprise 2.0 Content Management strategy. Note the placement of the 2.0. We’ll be getting back to that.

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Tower Falls to HP

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A couple of weeks ago, the Big Men were speculating on potential buyers for OpenText. I opined that maybe HP would be looking to enter the market to compete with EMC. It was a brilliant piece of insight for all the wrong reasons. Right buyer, wrong target.

Turns out that HP has decided to buy their way into the market, but only with a single product, Tower Software. Like EMC, HP is looking to broaden their Information Management offering by adding Records Management and eDiscovery. If that is all they were looking to add, then buy Tower was a great move. I have always heard good things about their software for those purposes, though I always had doubts as to their complete ECM capability.

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The Forrester Wave Report, ECM Suites Q4 2007

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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?

2007.Q4-ECM Forrester Wave

There are a few key things to note.

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