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Glossary

Document Management

The purpose of Document Management (DM) is to help companies better manage the creation and flow of documents -- in particular structured documents -- through the help of databases and workflow engines that encapsulate metadata and business rules. Much of what we know about automated editorial workflow comes from the DM world.

A critical drawback to DM products, however, is their limited traditional understanding of content as files, as opposed to discrete chunks of information.

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Workflow

Workflow as it applies to content describes the process of breaking down a high-level task into a series of orderly, pre-defined steps that answer these questions:

• What needs to be done?
• Who needs to do it?
• Who needs to approve it?
• When must it be completed?

There are two general types of workflow: Approval and task.

A task-oriented workflow centers on the tasks that must be done by different resources, or people, to complete the task. For example, the graphic designer completes graphics production, the HTML producer creates the template using those graphics, and the editor produces pages based on that template.

An approval-centered workflow tracks the approval chain of command on a piece of content, no matter what the form – from a press release to a video clip of a speech. For example, the PR Director, the Legal Department and the President must approve all press releases. These people are all "approvers" in this context.

These two types of workflow can mingle at some point, creating the need for a more complex workflow and some additional cost for product customization.

Find out more about workflow as it applies to more than just content. The Workflow Management Coalition (http://www.wfmc.org/) works closely with the Workflow and Reengineering International Association (http://www.waria.com/) to set standards in workflow and its automation.

"e-workflow, the workflow portal" (http://www.e-workflow.org/) is sponsored by the above organizations and provides information about the evolution of workflow, the product arena, news about the industry, white papers and handy definitions of workflow terminology.

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ECM Acquisitions: What's Going On?

by Tony Byrne
10-Aug-2006 --

For the past 6 years, major analysts have been predicting imminent consolidation in the content management marketplace. It never really happened. Sure, some niche vendors were acquired, particularly as vendors built up ECM "suites," but for the most part, few if any products actually disappeared.

Now comes 2 major acquisitions: Open Text of Hummingbird, and today, IBM of FileNet. (Both have to clear shareholder and regulatory approval.) This may be the beginning of a rationalization of the ECM marketplace, but for customers, the near-term impact may seem quite less than rational.

A little history

There were several reasons for the lack of true consolidation to date:

1. All the major independent vendors continued to do reasonably well in the marketplace, eking out profits and accumulating customers; that makes them tougher to acquire
2. Major infrastructure vendors have been willing to bide their time (Oracle) or develop their own capabilities (Microsoft) as the market matures
3. The larger independent vendors developed or accumulated multi-dimensional suites that made them more difficult to digest or merge

The dam breaks

So what's changed? We think there is a sense among non-infrastructure players (i.e. not Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, EMC) that, while they are growing adequately, they are running short of strategic options. And the large acquirers have been looking at content management as increasingly strategic. Also, Alan Pelz-Sharpe reminded me today that, in taking out FileNet, IBM essentially absorbs its biggest competitor in the lucrative imaging market. That deals with the first hurdle above.

Both IBM and Open Text have been on an acquisition binge, despite a poor history in both cases of integrating acquired companies. (Our colleague Steve Arnold has chronicled IBM's contortions in the search and discovery space.) Perhaps they think it will go better this time. We doubt it, but that addresses the 2nd hurdle above.

Plus ça change...

But what about the difficulty in digestion? That problem has not gone away. Acquiring vendors try to put a nice face on it, talking about "product synergies" (unlikely to pan out) and "operational efficiencies" (possible after merger costs are swallowed). But the reality is that Hummingbird's main product line overlaps substantially with Open Text's. FileNet has some interesting business process management capabilities, but so does IBM, and both companies have invested heavily in imaging, document management, records management, and to a lesser degree, web content management. The 2 companies compete head to head more often than not.

The bottom line is that neither Open Text nor IBM is going to just kill any significant products that they acquired, and instead will try to promote competing products for some time. As Janus pointed out today, even BEA has decided they can make more money selling two portals instead of one. And as a practical matter, both Hummingbird and FileNet have significant maintenance revenue streams that Open Text and IBM will need to sustain.

Buyer Beware

What does this mean for you, the technology buyer? Well, if you are already a FileNet or Hummingbird customer, there is obviously some risk, but again, it seems unlikely that major products will be jettisoned in the near-term.

If you are a prospective buyer, don't expect this sort of consolidation to make your choices easier. You'll still have the same number of products to consider, but you'll need to dig a bit deeper to understand the differences among them. Today, Hummingbird and Open Text salespeople will happily describe the differences between the two company's suites. Same for FileNet and IBM. Going forward, those companies will use more subtle messaging to distinguish their different offerings. Behind the scenes, they will have plans for merging code-bases or separating products for different vertical and horizontal markets, but those plans are often fluid and typically opaque to the prospective buyer in any case.

Perhaps these mergers are a sign of a maturing ECM marketplace. If so, it will still be some years before it becomes a truly understandable marketplace.

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About the Author

Tony is Founder of CMS Watch, a vendor-neutral analyst firm that evaluates content technologies and publishes reports evaluating different solutions head-to-head. CMS Watch also provides online education in various aspects of selecting and deploying content technologies.

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