CM vs DM vs KM vs DAM vs SCM vs DRM -- Which One is Right for You?

By Tony Byrne at 2001-11-17 00:00:00 |

The "IM" Product Universe

Technology solutions to business problems that are associated with the production, storage, and distribution of information have historically gelled around different types of software.

But today, the lines among these product segments have become increasingly blurry, and there is consequently broad confusion around what I call the Information Management, or "IM" product segments.

Snap quiz: can you distinguish each of the following in one sentence or less?

• DAM: Digital Asset Management
• DM: Document Management
• KM: Knowledge Management
• SCM: Software Configuration Management
• DRM: Digital Rights Management
• CM: Content Management

Feeling tongue-tied? Well, you're not alone. Let's take a deeper look at the various categories. (A chart you can download at the end of this article also offers a simple overview of the different product categories, their origins, differences, and their likely prospects).

Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Also known as simply Asset Management (AM) or Media Asset Management (MAM), the business case for DAM argues that companies whose life blood revolves around their digital assets -- such as entertainment firms -- should organize and repurpose those assets to streamline costs and enhance revenues.

These systems are especially suited to managing multimedia content and tend to offer hooks into specialized desktop media authoring systems. If streaming video is your main web content, you may want a DAM instead of a CMS. If multimedia content serves as your company's products itself -- rather than supporting other products -- then you almost surely want a DAM system. Some companies need both, which is why CM/DAM partnerships are common.

Document Management (DM)

Document Management products function to help companies better manage the creation and flow of documents through the help of databases and workflow engines that encapsulate metadata and business rules.

DM systems have grabbed a significant toehold in heavily regulated or document-centric industries such as insurance. In their more advanced versions, they take advantage of much of the power behind SGML, and have been relatively quick to migrate to XML. DM is an important precursor to Web Content Management. 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. CM products that took a more granular and flexible approach to content emerged as better suited to web-based publishing, and traditional DM vendors have been playing catch-up (the relative strengths and weakness of this class of products as web CM packages are outlined in The CMS Report).

Knowledge Management (KM)

The purpose of KM is to capture and distribute the knowledge held among individuals within a corporation to other co-workers and partners, according to set rules. Not surprisingly, this class of products is especially well suited to the internal needs of organizations in knowledge-oriented industries, such as tech-intensive manufacturing and professional services firms.

The KM marketplace has evolved into class of products known as "Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs)," that apply a standard web interface overlay above corporate content, often via an application server that centrifuges other corporate functions. From the user perspective, perhaps the most important feature of an EIP is its search engine, and indeed, several search-engine vendors have also recently recast themselves as EIP products.

By redefining themselves as "portals,"KM products have sustained themselves in a turbulent marketplace, but EIPs have not displaced groupware vendors (Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange) as the central corporate collaboration space.

Enterprise portals have really found their niche as the end-user prism into complex corporate content. As such, an intersection with CM becomes readily apparent. At the end of the day, content remains at the heart of any portal, and thus, the management of that content, including versioning, workflow, and presentation control -- all typical CM features -- is required.

Therefore, many companies are beginning to realize they need both a CM and KM system: the former to input, validate, and archive content, and the latter as a retrieval overlay to allow for different end-user views and personalization.

Portals can provide consistent contributor and end-user interfaces to CM Systems

Major KM and CM vendors have smartened up to this duet and offered prepackaged integration modules to plug major CM packages into enterprise portals (see The CMS Report for more details).

Software Configuration Management (SCM)

Also known as "Software Change Management," or "Source Code Management," SCM tools help technical teams manage the development and roll-out of software engineering projects through a coordinated, documented system of platform builds and enhancements. These tools have broadened their footprint in the market as IT projects have become more complex and as web development operations -- perhaps belatedly -- have begun to incorporate formal methodologies.

The SCM feature set mirrors some of the facets of content management, including workflow, versioning, and version control. And SCM vendors have argued that as websites become increasingly like applications and less like than brochures, there is a natural parallel with content management.

As a practical matter, moreover, IT departments are typically responsible for managing the health of a CM system at some level, and are usually involved in any software selection process. Thus, already having the ears of important back-office stakeholders, SCM vendors have moved aggressively to find CM tools that they can integrate and sell with their legacy products. The CMS Report provides a chart of this acquisitions activity and further commentary on the SCM-CM combined approach.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM tools enable content owners to regulate and control information distribution by applying granular access rights and downstream privileges to specific pieces of content.

Some solutions work on the server side, others control distributed materials at the desktop level, and some employ a combination of both approaches. On the server, these technologies are sometimes labeled "privileges management."

If CM is entering its adolescence, then DRM remains in its infancy. DRM is a product space awaiting true definition in terms of competitive rungs, product and service definitions, and a common problem domain. DRM may be approaching lift-off, though, as companies increasingly sense the true value of their content.

Therefore, although DRM vendors presently focus intently on vendors of content, as well distributors of value-added content, you can expect them to broaden their target markets over the next year.

Content Management (CM)

CM resides at the center of the digital information management universe, at least for now. As the image above shows, a CM System is essentially a collection of your business rules and editorial processes around content.

Product offerings vary by vendor, but most CM packages have adopted key features from KM, DM, DAM, SCM, and DRM segments.

Content Management tools also add other critical functions including:

• templating,
• separation of content and presentation,
• web publishing, and
• syndication

CM vendors have been particularly aggressive about adopting DAM features as customers' graphical assets become more sophisticated. They have been slower to recognize key infrastructural considerations around code and asset promotion and thus left the door open for SCM vendors to provide a more reassuring story to internal IT managers.

But what about swallowing up KM products? Here, CM vendors have been partnering rather than absorbing. After all, some of the biggest players in the business (IBM, Netscape, Oracle, to name a few) have made big investments in enterprise portal technologies. CM vendors are joining along for the ride.

Download our one-page IM chart here. (PDF, 34K)