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The SaaS ECM dilemma

aps@cmswatch.com(Alan Pelz-Sharpe) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:27:00 -0400

At every talk or seminar I give on buying ECM technology, I stress to attendees that they have many different options -- including software as a service (SaaS). It's still early days for SaaS ECM, but the approach is now joining open source as a viable alternative to traditional software licensing models. So I have no problem telling buyers that SaaS may be worth considering, but actually going as far as recommending they pursue a SaaS option is still something of a stretch for me.

There are some very strong selling points for SaaS, including the relative ease of deployment, potentially much lower operating costs, not to mention the obvious appeal of obviating IT burdens such as patch management. Although ECM SaaS providers remain few in number, the scope of their offerings is widening. For example Xythos sells a dedicated SaaS option that seems to be building out a decent customer base for its basic but proven document collaboration services. SaaS market leader Spring CM has a quite full offering -- the equivalent of many traditional ECM vendors -- with a wide range of productized applications, ranging from mortgage processing to hospital bill reconciliation.

My reluctance to recommend SaaS outright, then, is rather that vague buyers' requirements or short-term thinking can conceal whether SaaS limitations will ultimately cancel out the obvious benefits. Let's look at two seemingly cut-and-dried examples. If you are looking for a departmental solution to deal with documents related to Real Estate Deals or Lease Management for example, a pre-configured SasS package may well make good sense. If on the other hand you are looking for a development platform that is content centric -- or to build a content layer into a Service Oriented Architecture -- then SaaS options are unlikely to fit the bill. These clearly represent two very different sets of requirements, but in fact most enterprises fall somewhere in-between: they want applications, but they want those applications to become unified at the back end.

The decision regarding SaaS can then get quite complex quite fast. To what degree to you need to integrate into legacy content stores? How much development work to you intend to undertake for ECM? If standalone applications suffice for now, with they still make sense when you have 5 or 15 of them? How would you / could you consolidate them?

The appeal of SaaS options comes in giving you 80% of what a traditional ECM vendor will provide, but at a lower upfront cost, with less hassle. But realistically SasS approaches demand that you project your requirements farther out in the future before making a snap decision that you could later come to regret. In short, I like SaaS. I think it's the right choice for many buyers, but it's not for everyone.

Thoughts on ECM as a service

aps@cmswatch.com(Alan Pelz-Sharpe) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:54:00 -0400

Are SaaS (Software as a Service) options viable for ECM? I seem to hear that question with increasing frequency, and frankly, it's a difficult one to answer. There are plenty of vendor options out there - from pure plays like Spring CM, to hybrids like Xythos and Treno. But just because there are plenty of options doesn't means it's a particularly good idea. Though I can see the logic to BCS (Basic Content Services) being delivered through the SaaS model, full blown ECM deployments seem much more of a stretch. In the world of ECM we are typically looking at complex processes with integration into legacy systems -- it's hard to see the match up with SaaS.

However, most people just want BCS options -- and the vendors need some way to compete against Microsoft's SharePoint. Moreover, with the entry of Salesforce.com later in the year, and strong indications that EMC|Documentum will also deliver a dedicated SaaS option, then clearly SaaS ECM will become a more prominent option to consider. But it's an option I think buyers need to consider cautiously and examine the providers' true motives: is it a best means of delivering ECM more effectively or a simply means of survival in a turbulent market?

Considering smaller ECM vendors

aps@cmswatch.com(Alan Pelz-Sharpe) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:16:00 -0400

Currently on Intelligent Enterprise you can read my recent review of Xythos Document Manager Version 6. Though I have a short fuse with those who say that "basic content services" (BCS) are all that any enterprise needs for their ECM requirements, I remain nonetheless supportive of "lite" offerings. ECM is such an overblown and overused term (but it's the only one we have) that encompasses everything from huge imaging and case management deployments to simple document collaboration projects. There is room for all the vendors who want to deliver value; the problem comes for the buyer to make sense of apparently similar, but actually widely divergent ECM products in this confused market. Many niche vendors such as as Xythos, Saperion, FormTek or Cimage can tend to be overlooked as a result, and that's a shame, because under the right circumstances they may offer a better fit for your needs than the likes of IBM, Interwoven or Open Text...