Witnessing the Birth of a CEVA Ecosystem December 2, 2009
Posted by Marko Sillanpää in Content Management, Documentum, ECM, EMC, SharePoint.Tags: CCA, ceva, Documentum, ECM, EMC, firstdoc, FirstPoint, Microsoft, NextDocs, SharePoint
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Those of you that have read my articles before know I’m big on CEVA’s. I think Content Enabled Vertical Applications (or if you now prefer Composite Content Applications) are the future for enterprise content management. I believe that ECM would gain stronger visibility and penetration in the enterprise by allowing and supporting the development of out-of-the box end solution. Yesterday’s CSC Trends Conference was a showing of just what can happen.
If Buying Cars Were Like Buying ECM December 1, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management, ECM.3 comments
There was an infamous email years ago titled “If Microsoft Made Cars” – Very funny – it takes the mundane act of driving and highlights the ridiculous problems with computers we just learn to live with. Working with the buying, selling,installing and using of ECM I am frustrated that I have fallen into the trap of just accepting the insanity. If buying cars were like buying ECM shopping for a new ride might be like this…. (more…)
BMOC Turns Two November 30, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management, Documentum, ECM, EMC.add a comment
This month Big Men On Content celebrated its second birthday. There are a great many things I could highlight but I’ll just point out a few.
I wrote an post in February of 2008 wondering if my opinion of Sharepoint would change if it were on Oracle. This has proven to be the most viewed article on the site by almost two to one. Every day (and I mean EVERY DAY) some combination of the search terms “oracle + sharepoint” appear in the logs despite the fact we are heavily bent toward EMC related technology. This says far more about the ECM landscape than most of us are willing to admit.
Working with Marko on this blog was a experiment that on a personal level has been very successful. In case you hadn’t noticed we have opinions on just about everything. Consequently we have had many differences of opinion both in and out of the blogosphere but that’s exactly why we started this. There is one critical point that we agree on. Simply put content management is important. It is important to every business whether they realize it or not and we want to help those businesses be more successful with it.
We believe in honest opinions and don’t participate in marketing unless we really believe it. Hype and flag waving are everywhere but whatever messages you get here are our own take on things. This is sometimes a challenge considering where we work but I can honestly say that our employer encourages blogging and I have never felt pressured to go against this principle.
Thank you for reading and contributing to the discussions. It has been great fun but the most rewarding part is meeting other ECM afficianados from around the globe both virtually and IRL. We are looking forward to keeping this up for the foreseeable future and we welcome your suggestions so long as they are anatomically possible.
8 Dimensions for CMS Technical Evaluation November 3, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management, Documentum, ECM, EMC.Tags: CMS, ECM, WCM
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There are many places you can go to find information on the racking and stacking of CMS systems. Everyone has their preference and there is no shortage of experts who will evaluate your situation and conclude their favorite is the best for the job. Over the years I have developed a serious disdain for a common behavior among CMS buyers. All too often selections are made solely on the recommendations of the hired guns or by procurement weasels without genuine ownership of the technology. The end result is almost always a battered account manager, a frustrated implementation team and an exasperated user community running to the internet looking for a panacea they can buy without IT approval. The built in plausible deniability may save the career of a mediocre manager or two but the interests of the users are better served by taking the time to understand technological dimensions of content management. (more…)
Endeca Strengthens Position with SAP and Informatica October 30, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management.Tags: BI, Endeca, Informatica, SAP
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This week, privately held search application company Endeca announced they were taking the next step in their relationship with SAP by integrating their dashboard technology with SAP Business Objects. This will further promote use of their data visualtion technology within the Business Intelligence space. In February, 2008 the VC arm of SAP invested $15 m USD into Endeca and I wonder if this is one of the results. Endeca also announced an OEM arrangement with Infomatica to include that company’s data exchange technology in the Endeca offering. Clearly Endeca is making headway against similar search competitors like Autonomy who more recently have bought their way into the CM space by acquiring Interwoven. With strong aliances in the both the content and structured data integration and BI world Endeca is a company to watch for acquisition or further expansion into various areas of the content management market.
Kapow and StrikeIron – Affordable SOA October 28, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in SaaS, Technology.Tags: Kapow, Kapow Technologies, SaaS, StrikeIron, Web Data Services
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A couple of weeks ago Kapow Technologies and StrikeIron announced a new partnership to deliver web data services in a pay-as-you-go model. The promises of service oriented architecture are well known and broadly adopted, especially among large enterprise and government IT departments. I was able to sit in on a demo on the offering and thought it worthy of further discussion. An enormous amount of data remains locked behind legacy applications and retrofitting them to support RSS or other web services is often complicated , expensive and difficult to cost justify in these challenging economic times. Kapow’s solution offers a way to rapidly service enable applications that otherwise might never be accessible to modern tooling. (more…)
Is eDiscovery Creating a Pandora’s Box? October 13, 2009
Posted by Marko Sillanpää in Content Management, Records Management.Tags: compliance, eDiscovery, email archiving
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Strange things happen when you put an attorney together with a self proclaimed computer nerd, especially when that computer nerd finds himself working in eDiscovery. I’m not sure when this scenario started formulating in my head. I was expecting those around me in the legal field to punch holes in this but instead I got possible validation with case law. Even stranger still, I heard there may already be an existing case pending.
My scenario stems from the general corporate monitoring of email and ends in a lawsuit worth $100 of millions. The case has nothing to do with product liability and everything to do with wrongful death. It’s simply a case of murder. And again, this is a work of fiction.
Rumors of Autonomy and Microsoft. Say What? September 30, 2009
Posted by Marko Sillanpää in Content Management, ECM.Tags: Autonomy, dell, Google, HP, Microsoft, Open Text
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A friend sent me a link to a Reuters article speculating the acquisition of Autonomy by Microsoft. At first glance one says, “Not so fast, what about FAST!” But hey, “not so fast?”
Autonomy is an interesting combination of survivors of the internet boom. Not following the Computer Associates model like Open Text appears to be doing by buying competing companies. This year both acquired WCM vendors, Autonomy acquired Interwoven and Open Text acquired Vignette, but Open Text already had one in Red Dot. That’s why I’m a little confused with the Microsoft rumor.
Are You Surprised By OpenText? September 23, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management, ECM.Tags: acquisition, EMC, Open Text, RedDot, vignette
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There is a great post on CMSWire that summarizes Open Text’s (OTEX) approach to integrating RedDot and Vignette. I especially liked Jon Marks descriptions of the various paths they may take. We weighed in on this topic after the acquisition but as I read over the recent announcements I see OT’s integration strategy is simple – do nothing. I wonder – does this surprise anybody? The strategy makes complete sense when you consider the core reasons for acquistions and how they drive the roadmap.
With Omniture Adobe Can See You Now September 16, 2009
Posted by Lee Dallas in Content Management.Tags: acquisition, adobe, ECM, Omniture
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A random thought – Out the blue it seems Adobe acquires web analytics firm Omniture. Lots of speculation on CMSWatch on why it may be. Some have speculated they really want to get their hands on a SaaS platform but the company itself claims that it wants to bring the art of design together with the science of analytics. I like the concept but here is another idea out of left field. (more…)
