The Enterprise Content Management Blog

Too Many Vendors Or Not Enough Innovation?

One of our contacts in the PR world sent over some thoughts after reading our continuing discussion about why content management companies fail. His remarks might not be terribly surprising for those of you that live and breathe content management, but they warrant a re-visit.

He got me thinking about an often-overlooked characteristic of the content management sector: the sheer saturation of vendors and solutions.

As he put it, "I think, from even just a pure economic perspective, the No. 1 reason a content management company will go out of business is because there's not enough room for all of them."

And why is that? Is it because of our propensity to view any company that touches content or manages data as a content management vendor? Or is it a classic case of the vendors' desires to be all things to all people? It's really a combination of both. It's just too easy to pass up a sales opportunity for companies that he says are "just trying to stay afloat."

That brings up the notion of innovation. If content management companies are just keeping their heads up above water, how can they think freely about what the next customer needs? And throw in the fact that the space has several publicly traded pure-plays along with what he described as the big dogs (Microsoft, IBM, EMC) and you have a sector on a quest for real differentiation.

The publicist to the CM stars also mentioned how tough it is to predict a long-term view of the industry, citing things like open source, SharePoint, and consolidation as potential speed bumps to growth and innovation. Open source has to be the one that looms the largest. As Alfresco's co-founder told me this week, "Open source is the only distribution model that can compete with Microsoft's distribution model."

Perhaps some of the CM vendors should take a page from the less-entrenched software companies building the knowledge worker apps of tomorrow. It's not just R&D tunnel vision and loads of cash that allow companies like Alfresco, Jive, and MindTouch to do what they do. It has more to do with taking a fresh look at your market and how you need to serve your customers. You see, Jen in Finance doesn't want another big repository that she has to search. She doesn't want to cut and paste content from different applications. She wants to mashup up her own content and she wants it to live and breathe in her own workspace.

I liked the way Jive's Sam Lawrence attacked the innovation thread earlier this week. He sent me his take on how enterprise software's heavyweights could eventually be overtaken by social software's up-and-comers.

This has obviously been debated ad nauseam, but the perfect storm of open source, cloud computing, and Web 2.0 certainly makes for interesting speculation.

The disruption he mentions already is being felt by CM vendors everywhere. When will it drive the innovation needed?

Technorati Tags: content+management,WCM,web+2.0,enterprise+2.0,mindtouch,jive+software,alfresco

MindTouch Puts The Enterprise In 2.0

It's not often you hear terms like application integration and IT governance from companies building their businesses on Web 2.0 underpinnings such as blogs, wikis, and RSS. So I was somewhat surprised to be smacked in the face with just that from Aaron Fulkerson, the tech-talking co-founder and CEO of MindTouch, a company that wants to be the "tissue" that helps enterprises connect all those disparate systems.

I spoke with Fulkerson about MindTouch's platform (Deki Wiki) and how it's managing to penetrate the hallowed firewalls of corporate America, making friends with both IT and business users along the way.

My first thought was why isn't everybody doing this stuff? For starters, it's because creating scalable Web architectures isn't for the faint of heart. Fulkerson says the founders' backgrounds in distributed systems helps it deliver on the promise of easy-to-use interfaces and IT-friendly integration.

And it appears their sweat is paying off. According to him, Deki Wiki downloads on Sourceforge.net number more than 3,000 a day; something he says plays a big part in driving the "mad adoption" rates. But don't discount MindTouch as a fluffy Web 2.0 open source play. Companies like FedEx (NYSE: FDX), Siemens, Gannett, and other Fortune 500 clients have adopted its platform to deliver mashups, tie together applications, and deploy new collaborative capabilities across broad user bases.

So how is MindTouch making friends with both business and IT? For IT, the pitch is simple; make their lives easier by empowering them to add governance not just over the wiki, but over all of their applications. In that sense, Deki Wiki, says Fulkerson, becomes not only an integration layer but a common user interface across different applications. The heavy emphasis on integration is a calculated move by MindTouch, one it knows will not only pique the interest of CTOs across the land, but put it head-to-head with middleware heavyweights such as BEA Systems and IBM (NYSE: IBM).

"We're working with a major life sciences organization with more than 700K Web pages. They were going with BEA, but instead chose Deki Wiki. They're now writing all their custom code on top of our platform," said Fulkerson. As far as Big Blue, Fulkerson is confident that MindTouch has some breathing room as it continues to build out its social enterprise platform.

"IBM has a proof of concept similar to what we're doing, but we think we're at least 2 years ahead of anybody else in the space," added Fulkerson.

The other side of the social enterprise equation involves the user experience. I asked Fulkerson how MindTouch manages to appease business users.

"We're allowing customers to add this 2.0 social layer to existing enterprise applications. That adds a tremendous amount of value to the organization because users can interact with applications much easier through common interfaces and processes," he said.

Fulkerson compared its Web-friendly approach to integrating applications and mashups to more common ways Web users access services like Flickr and YouTube.

"Our architecture is made up of heterogeneous Web services with a PHP presentation layer," he explained. What Fulkerson describes is a theme I'm seeing related to how Web strategies are shifting these days. Service-oriented architecture is moving to Web-oriented architecture and SOAP and other Web protocols are being supplanted by the fast-appearing REST approach.

MindTouch's savvy in both of those areas, Web-oriented architecture and REST, enable it to help enterprise clients see external systems and internal data stores like you or I view our images stored on Flickr.

"The problem we're solving goes way past a wiki," said Fulkerson.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Cross-posted on InformationWeek's Content Management Blog.

Technorati tags: mindtouch, WOA, wikis, enterprise+2.0, social+enterprise+platforms, enterprise+social+computing, enterprise+social+media, enterprise+content, aaron+fulkerson, information+week

I'm Blogging at Information Week

Just in case you think The ECM Blog has become just a glorified link site, I wanted to let you know I've also started blogging for Information Week. So if you're inclined, I'd love to welcome you over there for content management (and information management) news and commentary.

Now, if you're a vendor, make your PR pros earn their money by sending along story ideas and vendor news. If you're a client and want to get some pub on your company and your team, you can also drop me a line.

Here's some of my latest posts..and as always, thanks for reading.

• Top 5 Content Management Trends For 2008
  
• Oracle’s BEA Acquisition Makes Things Interesting
  
• Oracle Captures A Key Component To Its ECM Strategy
  
• Clickability Clicks On All Cylinders
  
• How Web 2.0 Affects Content Management
  
• IBM Hints At FileNet 2.0
  
• Open Source Funding Signals CMS Shakeup
  
• Engineering Content Management For A Web 2.0 World
  
• Are Enterprises Finally Waking Up To RSS?
  
• SaaS Trendwatching With Clickability
  

Technorati tags: information+week, content+management, information+management, cmp+media, information+week+blogs, dearing+group

 
Explore The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Network (a FeedBurner Network)

Are Microsoft and IBM Your Future Social Media Vendors?

2008 will no doubt be a telling year in the corporate social media and Web 2.0 space. And if this CIO Insight story is any indication, the race will again pit David v. Goliath. But what's different this time around? Will the Web 2.0 shakeout be any different than all the other enterprise software battles?

What happens in 2008?

Here's some thoughts:

• The incumbent enterprise software vendors have the edge in total dollars spent in 2008 as they give away what Web 2.0 functionality they have.
  
• Pure-play social media and Web 2.0 vendors get out of the gate faster because their platforms are easier to stitch together -- the gap shortens in late 2008 as acquisitions are made.
  
• Bigger vendors will provide the underlying architecture and deep integration to existing apps.
  
• Enterprises will learn that mixing and matching Web 2.0 technologies with existing apps provides real value - advantage upstarts.
  
• Pure-play social media vendors will quickly evolve their alliance strategies -- the lines of coexistence or competition will be blurred.
  
• Enterprise software vendors will go wide while smaller vendors go deep. In other words, the small guys will do one or two things really well and the big boys will do a lot of stuff kind of well.
  
• Vertical expertise will take precedence very soon. Advantage: enterprise software vendors.
  
• Bigger vendors will sneak web 2.0 inside the enterprise. You'll get the content repository from IBM -- and it'll include publishing and subscription capabilities, AKA blog and RSS.
  
• Pure-plays will rely more heavily on 3rd-party services..similar to the early enterprise portal days and all those clunky content gadgets.

But don't count out the current crop of social media upstarts so fast, though. They can still can put their best enterprise foot forward when they have to. Below is Awareness Networks' (formerly iUpload) passage marketing to the deer-in-the-headlight IT decision-maker.

..if a corporation deploys separate tools for each form of social media (e.g., blogs, wikis, discussion groups, etc.) they will create disparate islands of information that later will have to be somehow integrated. A common approach to all forms of social media allows an organization to employ the most appropriate form of social media for each business need with the assurance of knowing that the content is re-purposable to any other form. In this mode, a user can generate content in one participation style (e.g., a blog) that later appears in another participation style (e.g., a wiki or a discussion group) . This maximizes the value of the user-generated content and avoids any silos of information.

What else do you see in the coming months?

Technorati Tags: enterprise+social+media, social+computing, awareness+networks, microsoft, web+2.0, enterprise+2.0, IBM

A Little Enterprise 2.0 Help From My Friends

Leading up to next month's big enterprise 2.0 (e2.0) conference, I thought I'd tap the collective wisdom of The ECM Blog community. You guys are in the trenches and have a first hand look at how the enterprise is being transformed by on-demand software, open source, social media, and web whatever dot "o".

So please take a moment and leave some comments or send me an email with your thoughts. Most likely I'll comment on your comments and post over at the Fastforward blog.

• How should we define Enterprise 2.0?
  
• What will an Enterprise 2.0 company look like? What will be its defining characteristics?
  
• What things will be instrumental in driving the next-generation enterprise?
  
• Are we starting to get the pieces in place for Enterprise 2.0 -- things like SOA, SaaS, web services, AJAX, open source?
  
• What are the inhibitors? Culture? Technology? What else?
  
• Who'll be the winners in the enterprise 2.0 race? Users? Software companies?

See you at Fastforward '07.

Technorati tags: enterprise+2.0, web+2.0, open+source, SaaS, fast+forward+07, FAST+forward+blog, enterprise+software

Will ECM Be Ready for Enterprise 2.0?

Enterprise 2.0 (e2.0). Think about that description for a few seconds. What comes to to your mind? Hosted enterprise apps? AJAX? Open Source? Social media? If you're reading this, probably all of the above. But I'll argue that e2.0 is about way more than just technology and social computing. It's really about an attitude, or a way of doing business.

Every time I hear e2.0, I think of people. Preparing, planning, pitching, creating, whatever the hell it takes to get ready for the profound effects e2.0 will have on the way they'll do business in the not so distant future.

So it got me thinking. With such a growing number of Enterprise 2.0-ish developments, what will happen to our 'ol  friend enterprise content management (ECM)?

The above was a longer segue than I anticipated for telling you that I asked some of those questions over on the FASTforward blog.

I was asked to contribute some Enterprise 2.0 thoughts over the next few months leading up to the big Enterprise 2.0 conference in February. I hope you'll join in. You'll recognize all the other contributors -- they're a talented bunch.

Technorati tags: fast+forward+blog, FAST+search, FAST, enterprise+2.0, e2.0, ECM+vendors, ECM, ajax, open+source, social+computing, social+media, web+2.0, FASTforward+07

The ECM Waves Are Starting to Ripple

Informa was profiled yesterday in a DataMation article discussing their decision to move to open source. And up again is Alfresco. I think Alan Pelz-Sharpe is right,they need a salty competitor -- if for nothing else than to give traditional ECM clients more to think about. Open source ECM'ers need some peers I say.

I was talking about the same thing yesterday with a potential EMC customer in Dallas. We we're discussing mid-tier options for content and records management and toward the end of our discussion I mentioned the viability of open source. And for what seems like the hundredth time over the last few months, his eyes lit up and eagerly agreed his company is avidly seeking out open source options. (I wonder if Alfresco has an affiliate model) ;)

Without going into some of his rationale, I thought I'd just point to the Informa quote below from Bob Hecht.

"I was a Documentum person before I came into this company. That’s straight Windows stuff, very powerful – the No. 1 management solution on the market, depending on who you talk to – but nobody in Informa wanted anything to do with it, because they couldn’t envision repurposing it across the company without breaking the bank.”

Tough. But absolutely true.

And did anyone else notice the announcement from Alfresco and Kofax? That's a game changer for a lot of FileNET (IBM) and Captiva (EMC) clients over next 12 to 18 months if Alfresco and Kofax start closing some deals. They'll certainly need more integrators to make it happen. If I was an ECM solution provider, I'd be all over Alfresco and Kofax.

tags: ibm, filenet, emc, emc+documentum, kofax, alfresco, records+management, content+management

Thoughts On Open Source Content Management

Is it me or is open source software (OSS) everywhere now? Question is, are the OSS vendors taking market share from traditional players? I think it's a soft yes for now, but you can bet over the next 2-3 years it'll be a resounding, harsh to the ears, YES. Why? Here's what Alan Pelz Sharpe says.

For starters, more and more software is being introduced into the enterprise via end-users. How many times have you heard someone say, "Hey, I can download a widget that plugs into our _______ application and provide the same functionality." Fact is, the pervasiveness and maturity of web services and service-orientation is driving much of the OSS push. With SOA platforms in place, it's a heck of a lot easier to introduce content services into the enterprise. The leanness of the code base and deployment speed alone are luring many companies to open source infrastructure. The other concurrent effect shifting users to open source CMS are the blog platforms now being integrated into much of the enterprsie fabric. Knowledge management blogs, collaborative blogs, project blogs, you name it and it's probably been done. Blog platforms like Movable Type and Word Press are compelling enough today to justify using them to manage all of your website content. And I still believe there's an opportunity for one of the traditional ECM vendors to start slowly breaking away from the rest if they can just capitalize on some of the best of web 2.0 and its user-driven approach. Of course, some say the Oracles, Microsofts, and IBMs will just bake ECM into everything and acquire what's left. Game over. I like the romanticism of the Web 2.0 / ECM combo better.