doingITbetter

ECM In India - Again

2011-09-30T22:30:00.002+01:00

I am recently back from a pretty remarkable week working out of our Delhi office with my colleagues Apoorv and Sanjeev. Remarkable in that though I have been to India many times before, there is clearly a groundswell of change underway, and its major change at that. Hence I am excited that we are investing in our business there, and am looking forward to working more directly with buyers of technology in the future.

So what is this change? Well it comes in a number of different ways, firstly India is in and of itself an emerging market for content technologies, and one that in some regards is jumping ahead of western countries, by passing the PC and Laptop world and leaping straight to the mobile handset. The mobile consumer market is frankly years ahead of anything one sees in the US. In the enterprise the change is equally revolutionary but maybe less sexy and obvious. India is, if nothing else a huge bureaucracy on a scale and complexity that would have stumped Kafka. It's not just Government and the public sector, but it spreads to corporate organizations and is in large part a result of both embedded cultural and historical factors, important to note is that much if not most of this huge bureaucracy is paper based.

Yet a strengthening middle class, and an influx of former ex-pats from the UK and US are driving change. You can see it in the US style shopping malls that seem to be popping up on every corner, and the impatience of folk of doing things the 'traditional' way. To highlight all this, during the past week I was privileged to watch and experience the Anna Hazare led protest against corruption, a protest that though focused on rampant and often blatant corruption, goes deeper. It is not for me to take sides (though hopefully we are all against corruption) but I can be a casual observer. It goes to the heart of the problem in India, that old institutions and ways of working, simply don't work any longer, and people are impatient for change.

In my own remit of research (Document Management) it was confirmed to me that imaging and capture along with associated business process management (including Case Management) are hot topics and look certain to grow substantially. This is a trend that is not limited to India, but the potential for growth is more likely more extreme there. Furthermore I have little doubt that in such a rich media savvy nation that the demand for DAM (Digital Asset Management) will also grow substantially there over the next couple of years.

However, tied to all this potential is the very real problem of immature and overly burdensome procurement practices for IT. Though India is surging ahead in some areas of technology and there is surely an appetite to do so more in future. Plus there is the dominance of Indian system integrators such as TCS, Sapient, and Infosys in the world of IT,there can be no doubt that India has a surfeit of tech skills and knowledge. But in terms of thorough product selection and buyer driven procurement processes I don't think India is there yet, nor it should be said in many cases are firms in the US or Europe. Yet my hope is that Real Story Group can in some small way help contribute to this situation in the coming years.

To the visitor India seems to change slowly, you see visuals from the car and street that look unchanged in millennia, yet at the same time India seldom does things by halves and I think buyers there are going to take content technologies in some new, dramatic and exciting directions over the next few years, going from laggard to cutting edge in the blink of an eye.

Sybase acquired by SAP

2010-05-13T14:54:00.004+01:00

Another blast from my past as SAP announced that it is acquiring Sybase. I remember Sybase as much for their lavish AR (Analyst Relations) than anything else. I attended quite a few of their events, most memorable of which was held at the NYSE - with lunch in the Boardroom, and this not that long after 9/11. How they pulled it off I have no idea, but it was an amazing and quite surreal experience.

Long dismissed as has beens Sybase (though I never truly understood their business), recognized that they had lost the database battle long back, and very smartly and quietly consolidated their business in high finance, and in Asia - whilst making serious investments in the mobile world. From a skunkworks set up in Canada its the mobile infrastructure piece of the pie that has added to their spectacular price paid by SAP - $5.8 Billion - a lot of money for a company written off by most everyone.

I chose the image above, as I still have sitting on my desk a rather lovely brass Kaleidoscope given to me as a gift by Sybase AR in 2002 - that has Mardi Gras (AR event clashed with the start of Lent) beads in it.....

Best Practices

2010-04-09T22:24:00.003+01:00

Every consulting client asks if I can provide them with best practices as part of the advisory engagement. I don't object to these requests, in fact I can fully understand why they ask, but my advice to any one out there looking for such things, is beware of the person who offers them to you.

Best practices scare me a bit, they remind me of the nonsense of the late 90's when everyone was benchmarking, trying to mimic best practices and getting enthusiastic about Business Process Re-Engineering. What we learned, or at least should have learned from all that is that what works well in one place does not necessarily work well anywhere else. For sure there are wrong ways to work, there are inefficient ways to work and there are downright stupid ways to work - but once you eliminate the plain bad options, there are a multitude of possibilities left.

You need to match your needs, goals, organizational psychology (culture/dynamics) and resources with elements of what has worked well elsewhere and make up your own patchwork quilt of what works best for you, from what has worked for others....

Server sales rise dramatically in 2010

2010-04-08T13:27:00.002+01:00

This morning whilst reading the FT and sipping my coffee I started reading about the dramatic increase in server sales that the market is currently experiencing. Everyone from IBM and HP through to AMD and Intel have seen sales rise dramatically.

It is as they say "a perfect storm", as budgets are loosened after a year of belt tightening, old hardware and software is reaching a point where it has to be upgraded, and the new server technologies pretty much guarantee they pay for themselves in a matter of months. They pay for themselves due the spectacular rise in computing power they deliver over previous generations, and simultaneously a spectacular drop in power consumption.

This all took me back to project I was involved in whilst at Wipro. To this day I have no idea why but I somehow became the link man between Wipro and Sun Microsystems, to partner on a Solaris 10 initiative. It was slam dunk financially, as Solaris 10 was open source, as even if one only got service revenue and ran Solaris 10 on non Sun hardware (HP for example) the cost savings were so huge compared to say Solaris 8 or pretty much any other flavor of Unix, we were doing well.

The problem was we did not do well - the Sun brand at that time was so tarnished, so connected with failure that it was like climbing a mountain even to get a meeting with some clients to discuss the potential. Sun had great people, and some awesome technology, we had a clear cut business case - but no means to spark a conversation, due to perceptions around the brand and the potential future of Sun.

It's likely (or at least it should be) that Oracle is now reaping the benefits of all Suns hard work and expertise. Not just because of an improved economy, but because people feel secure with Oracle. Its the same with IBM and Microsoft and that is to some extent why they dominate the IT world, sentiment and perception carrying more weight in buying decisions than we realize.

Something of a ramble as always, but that's the point of a personal blog - but reading the FT really did bring back some memories.

ECM does not equal Green IT

2010-03-25T19:52:00.005Z

There are two things that instantly get my back up these days. ROI/ Pseudo scientific IT calculations and the claims of the Green IT movement. To be clear upfront, I am the resident Tree Hugger at The Real Story Group and take the environment and our stewardship of it seriously, I also believe that information management initiatives can and do deliver clear and measurable results. But maths that only tackle one side of the equation, and Green claims based on hot air really do not resonate with me.

So imagine my apoplexy when I read an article today that claimed that you could radically reduce your carbon footprint by utilizing ECM software. Again, to be clear - my blood pressure is not rising because I don't believe its possible, rather it is because of the wacky math that is used to support such a claim. In this article (including graphs) the measure of success was the fact that this University 'saved' 347,000 paper pages in the admissions process this year. Instead of the paper documents, they used electronic documents. The carbon footprint reduction came through saving lots of trees (43 trees to be precise based on their calculation of 16 reams of paper from a single tree). This all seems like laudable stuff until one stops think about what is missing in this lopsided calculation.

First, and fairly obvious is that the University has not apparently heard of recycled paper, secondly and probably more importantly there seems to be an assumption here that electronic documents do not have a carbon footprint. No apparently, the toxic time bomb that constitutes a computer these days counts for nothing, nor does the power to run the computers, servers, data centers etc. No discussion either at the ease of proliferating multiple and redundant copies electronic documents. I have no idea what the actual carbon footprint tally for running a document management system is, but I know its not zero.

Nonsensical calculations, and spurious eco-claims are totally unnecessary in the world of information management - just a look around at the information chaos we call normality is enough to tell us there is business value in doing the job properly. You can build real business cases, and use real numbers - you can measure information management success properly and accurately, there is no need to wander into fantasy.

New ECM Report out soon

2009-08-04T20:38:00.002+01:00

The headline says it all really, Jarrod and I have been working hard on a major update to our ECM research. Has been fascinating and I think we have uncovered many trends - and even added a bunch of vendors to our evaluation process.

This will be the biggest update to the report in almost a year - so expect me to go crazy in the next week or two via the CMS Watch Blog and the press on all the interesting things we have to chat about!

If one thing has been reinforced above everything is that ECM is moving into the mainstream - some might think it is already there (courtesy of MOSS) but no - it still has a ways to go, and its impact will be huge.

Bottom line (as they like to say at Gartner) this is far from a mature market, and some interesting stuff bubbling away beneath the surface.

Vendor Demo Hell

2009-06-28T23:18:00.001+01:00

A link to the finished article (see posting below):

http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1624-ECM-Demo-Advice

What is an industry analyst?

2009-06-28T23:16:00.003+01:00

Industry analysts are for all intents and purposes technology critics...

I read this and thought it touched a spot:-

“The reason so much average or absolutely awful art gets promoted is that no one seems to understand what criticism is; if nothing is properly criticised, mediocrity triumphs. A critic is basically an arrogant bastard who says “this is good, this is bad” without necessarily being able to explain why. At least, not instantly. The truth is, we feel this stuff in our bones. And we’re innately convinced we’re right.”

-Jonathan Jones writing in the Guardian

ECM Vendor Selection Day 2

2009-04-15T23:26:00.003+01:00

Day two, and vendor number two - this one got off to a flying start, then went downhill in the second half. So some more tips to vendors coming up:

1: If you list a product/module on your RFP price quote - be sure you know why its there and what it does

2: If the client makes a request in precalls for a certain chart/description to be included in your presentation, be sure its there on the day - and don't look like a deer in the headlights when it isn't

Overall, a better day - some great insights into this particular product suite that I will capture in the relevant CMS Watch evaluation. But vendor three tomorrow at least has the opportunity to close the deal on the spot.

Reflecting on yesterdays debacle, I thought it interesting that even today they could have come back, cap in hand and said "Wow did we screw up - let us try and fix this", it would have at least been worth a try, and done correctly it might have worked. Vendor sales people tend to fall into two categories, those who just can't accept they lost, and chase a deal long after it is clear they have no hope, and those that give up too easily and walk away. I guess that's just people in general....

Vendor demo implosion

2009-04-14T23:26:00.005+01:00

What a day! I shall marshall my thoughts and write something more considered for CMS Watch later in the week. But sufice it to say that I witnessed the worst vendor demo to a prospective buyer I have ever seen. It was a disaster, and yet it should not have been....

The vendor (who shall remain nameless) has the tools and the skills to set a very high bar in this particular product selection process. Yet they missed the boat by a mile. For some reason they arrived with 7 people (why?) and one or two of them clearly were not as briefed as the others. Unfortunately the weakest link in the team, was also the most important part of the demo puzzle today.

Just a tip or two to any vendors out there

Firstly, never ever under any circumstances (ever) display scripting during a demo. That is suicide, the only time the buyer should ever see it is when they ask to.

Second tip, listen to your audience - if they pep up and show interest build on it - don't drag them back to the stuff that glazed their eyes.

Third tip, people want to see real demonstrations that at least approximate their working environment and the issues they detailed in the RFP

Fourth tip, it is ok to show examples you made earlier. Yes we want a real live demo, but we understand you cannot build the empire state building in a day - its ok to show us a few examples of outstanding interfaces, processes whatever - alongside the real demo which by definition will always be limiting and limited

Not a good day - two more demo's to come, they left in a huff - we all felt bad. But with two days to go, they can't be any worse - can they?

The problem with Google

2009-04-06T12:31:00.003+01:00

I came across this excellent article originally published in The Guardian - one of the UK's higher quality newspapers - it is well worth a read:

http://www.kijo.co.uk/technology/google-is-just-an-amoral-menace/comment-page-1#comment-6810

Interestingly The Guardian, is also a high profile customer of, and indeed cheerleader for Google applications........odd

My other recommendation of the day is for all those who read George Orwell's 1984, to read the follow up penned by Anthony Burgess - 1985. Written almost contemporaneously (1978) by Burgess, 1985 is chilling indeed, and paints a picture of a nation awash with useless information, and suggests a future that is in many respects our current reality.

Back from AIIM Expo 2009

2009-04-02T20:19:00.005+01:00

Yesterday was a long one (if fun) for me, and I am relieved to be home and back at my desk. I did 3 sessions at AIIM and they were all demanding. I did a point/counterpoint argument/debate with Dan Elam that the crowd loved (as did I). I then did Stump the Consultant in the afternoon - another full house - drawn I suspect to see the 'experts' humiliated on stage - a session made somewhat complex when two of the randomly selected questions from the audience happened to be from CMS Watch customers! I Finished the day off with a co-presentation on SharePoint with Tony.

What of the Expo? Foot traffic was clearly down on last year, the On Demand portion of the show continues to dominate, our new booth looked awesome. But......not at all bad, was my conclusion. A bit quieter than we would have liked at times, but we met with a lot of our customers, and met (hopefully) many new ones. Lots of good sessions (though maybe a few too many scheduled side by side) providing a solid education track.

Attendance at the pre-conference tutorials and Tony's SharePoint workshop today have been surprisingly high, and the 3 sessions I mentioned above (along with the Analyst panel we hosted the previous day) were all in large rooms, and were full or nearly full. Considering the state of the economy and the associated difficult in getting budget to attend such events, it was a success.

I will be thinking more about the information, gossip and observations I got at the show - and writing more about the for CMS Watch once things have filtered through, but I was struck with two things in particular at the show.

1: Microsoft, Oracle and SpringCM (big suprise) acting as virtual hubs on the show floor
2: The notable reduction in Java offerings for ECM outside of the very high end - something that was glaringly obvious but unoticed by me till Kas pointed it out

Much to ponder - a good week overall - much better than I expected.

2009-03-29T19:37:00.002+01:00

I read a very interesting article last week in the Financial Times regarding India's struggling outsourcing business. At least that was the tenor of the article, but I am not so sure that it is struggling quite to the degree that the FT claims.
It was apparent a few years back when I worked for Wipro that things would mature and change, recession or no. And natural change is occurring there, albeit at an accelerated rate now.
For where India has been smart, is in spreading its bets - in the last few years more an more work has been coming in from Japan (for example) and the smart executives recognized long ago that the US and Europe were already reaching a point where growth could not continue at the same unrelenting pace. What India has, is a huge amount of highly educated technical folk - and India has continued to invest heavily in education whilst the West has not.
You can't take this huge educational advantage away from India quickly, and insourcing work once it has been outsourced a few years is not a lightweight task. I believe that just like China, India will survive and do well.
Where India may be hit I think is in the call center area - many firms are slowly and at times reluctantly coming to the conclusion in the US and Europe that local support just can't be beaten - and probably never can be. IMHO a lot of outsourced call center work was done simply to cut costs - often to meet a quarterly reporting demand. But it was done at the expense of quality and the value of a local touch. There is a good reason to move call centers back to the right time zone.
And in the US it is pretty likely that the new administration will impose even tougher H1B restrictions, but the outcome of that will be more outsourcing not less - as near-sourcing becomes increasingly difficult to enable and support (see comment on lack of skills above).
So though call centers might be hit, IT outsourcing in general will do ok, its too late now to turn back - and too many things still remain favourable for India. The access to a highly educated technical (and growing) skills base, the cost of change - and the short termism of most Western organizations.
The only thing that could really hurt India, is India itself (witness the horrific events at the Taj in Mumbai, and the implications around the IPL moving to South Africa) - sadly self destruction remains a possibility.

Why did I leave Facebook?

2009-03-26T21:23:00.004Z

This week I deleted my Facebook account, and so far have suffered no withdrawal symptoms if anything I am annoyed that I did not do it earlier. I left because:

I felt it was invasive - I was finding out too much about other people, and visa versa.
The attempt to change the contract with Facebook users and gain ownership of data a while back was a trigger.

And frankly it seems time to move on from such things - and gain some control back over privacy and private data. We are moving very quickly into an Orwellian world, the UK is already way ahead of us in the States, with CCTV's on every street, face and license plate recognition software everywhere. It has happened so remarkably quickly, and probably as a result of the speed of change we behave as if we have no say in the matter. We do have a say, and currently we do still have some controls and safeguards. We do still live in something similar to a democracy, with legal safeguards and a press that still (though only just) represents a balance of sorts..

I am not against electronic information - heavens that is how I earn my living! But...there are huge implications when it comes to the misuse of data, and the lines between valid, less valid and downright invalid uses is being blurred by the day. And that is not something I am personally comfortable with. For me its way too late, everything from my Marital status to my DNA is held online, but its not too late for most, and its certainly not too late to make a stand and say enough is enough..

Recession? What recession?

2009-03-26T21:12:00.005Z

I can't believe its been over a year since my last post......

Anyway I am getting fed up with the doom and gloom regarding the 'recession' as I think as some commentators suggest "this is different to past recessions". It is, and without a doubt many people are being hurt by it and much fall out is yet to come. But its starting to feel like people understand now that there will be no quick fix, and its time to get on with life.

In my industry (ECM) there are more than a few shoots of optimism out there. Job postings are still strong, many vendors are telling me that the market remains not only steady, but in many instances growing.

On a side note, the ECM Maturity model that we (CMS Watch) along with Apoorv at Wipro, Erik Hartman and Dave Smigiel jointly developed was released into open commons a month ago. To my (if not our) amazement it really seems to have taken off with a lot of downloads, and so far some very complimentary feedback. Check it out here: http://ecm3.org/

8 things you didn't know about me!

2008-01-18T20:52:00.000Z

I have been tagged by Jesse Wilkins - this is my second time to be tagged - hence I shan't tag anyone else at the close of this one, and shall attempt to avoid repetition of the tags...(enough tags in one sentence?)

So here goes:-

1: I am a collector of vintage photography - and would also collect contemporary photography if it were more affordable. My collection hinges around two key things - the work of Angus Mcbean and a broader collection of the portraitists of the Hollywood era - Clarence Bull, Eugene Richee, Ernest Bachrach, Hurrell etc

2: I am a qualified Clinical Hypnotherapist (DCH LCCH) - and began training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in London - one day I hope to return to this study.

3: I have read every book in the Bible (all 66) back to front - literally in my case as I started with the New Testament :-) It took me 2 years....

4: My favorite place in all the world is/are the Western Islands of Scotland (Mull, Iona and Gigha)

5: I once sang lead vocals in a post punk band called the Blue Movies, I currently sing as a bass in our Church choir

6: I saw some success as an artist/photographer in the late 80's - my work was shown across the UK - and I became C list famous in Russia and The Netherlands ( I have the posters to prove it! )

7: I am crazy about Rugby League (Leeds Rhinos) and will be traveling to Jacksonville, Florida in a couple of weekends to watch their World Club Championship warm up match against the South Sydney Rabitoes (Russell Crowe is the owner)

8: I love cooking and am (like Jesse) a pretty serious foodie - I can cook pretty good Indian and Italian - my all time favorite food dish is Mutter Paneer -with warm puri's

With this - my rants on the CMS Watch blog and my entries on Facebook I am in danger of having no more secrets - the mystery will have evaporated.....

Blog Pause

2007-11-29T02:50:00.001Z

There is just so much going on at the moment - finishing report updates - travel - speaking - new reports and research.....etc etc

I just thought it worth a post to say that this blog (obviously) is becoming less and less regular.

I do blog on the cmswatch blog regularly, so please check that out - but personal blogs just don't seem to be forthcoming at the moment - my apologies....

Boom time again in Silicon Valley?

2007-11-12T14:49:00.000Z

Just back from a week in San Jose, where I was running a conference track at KM World, and a workshop for Enterprise Search West. It was a good week personally and for CMS Watch - with a lot of work done, some great new contacts and conversations - but I left with most was the strong impression that things are reaching simmering point again in the Valley.
It was noticeable, and commented on by others that though not near dot.com boom levels, the energy and enthusiasm levels in the Valley were higher than they have been in a very long time. That traffic is getting back to boom level congestion and that local businesses are thriving.

Lunch at the Googleplex was also something I have returned with (not the lunch itself) but rather a thousand conflicting thoughts regarding Google and where it is going. Long term readers of this blog will know that I have at best mixed views on Google. And this visit hosted by a friend of a friend left me with more lingering doubts than I could have imagined. I was deeply uncomfortable there, not sure what it was - but there was something cultish, and elitist that left me wondering what it was all about - I am sure I am not brilliant enough for the likes of Google, but even if I were, I doubt this is a place I would want to work.....

Anyhow enough musings - I am trying to finish off the delayed ECM Suites Report V2 - and prep for a return trip to California in the morning to attend Oracle OpenWorld...

Meridio & Northern Ireland Software

2007-10-24T13:10:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I wrote a piece on CMS Watch regarding the acquisition of Meridio by Autonomy. This brought back a bunch of memories from the time that I consulted to Meridio (then Kainos) for Ovum. Traveling out to Belfast was always something to remember - the staggering (and unexpected) beauty of the countryside, the deeply oppressive feeling in the city, the sight of Loyalist and Republican wall murals yards from each other....things are getting better there, and if you live there then of course you see more depth and community than any visitor can imagine. However to the visitor it is a stark place to spend time in - a city that truly carries the weight of its violent past.

Kainos, as they were known then were a funded subsidiary of Fujitsu out of Queens University in Belfast, and when I first consulted they were looking for a strategic direction prior to spinning the EDM (Electronic Document Management) capabilities out to what would become Meridio. At the time they were looking to become a Documentum & FileNet rival competing in the Imaging area, my advice to them was to go more for a niche that they could own - Records Management and Compliancy. Though they took that advice and built on it considerably, I take no credit for their success, other than pointing them in a particular direction, they worked hard and built up a solid business with a global reputation, good people whom I have always liked and respected.
Yet like so many before them they hooked their wagon to Microsoft. This was never a move I feel comfortable with, except in the short term. Microsoft is the best of partners to vendors, until they are not. Then you are out in the cold - Microsoft has a well established and well earned reputation for stringing small vendors along with the carrot of a lucrative acquisition - the acquisition of course seldom ever occurs, and once Microsoft knows all they need to build their own solution you are dropped like a hot potato.
So to see Meridio acquired was bitter sweet news - good to see them find a long term home and make some money in the process ($40 Million US), but I can't help but wonder if they couldn't have gotten to a stage where they themselves were the acquirer.
Finally I will never forget looking out at the Swan and Hunter Shipyard from my Suite at the Belfast Hilton ( I had been upgraded after a previous huge row with the hotel!) - a magnificent contemporary suite that symbolized all the future hopes of Belfast, with a view of an infamous industrial workplace that had been the scene of way too many disturbing news reports on TV whilst I was growing up.
It's good to see something positive coming out of such a traumatized place, Northern Ireland has lost out to a large degree on the growth in Eire - hopefully successes like Meridio will become and inspiration for others to follow.

Documation - London 2007

2007-10-23T15:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I was in London to host a couple of panels at the Documation event at Olympia that is hosted alongside Storage Expo.
As the phrase goes it was a 'Curates Egg' - good in parts. The open source panel that pitted Alfresco against Nuxeo was really good - we had a full house and a really good debate. John Newton of Alfresco did a great job as always, but this was my first chance to see Nuxeo in action and I thought they did really well - between the two I think everybody left the room with the impression that open source for ECM was a very viable option.
Much smaller turnout for my other panel that featured The National Archives (UK Gov) and The Scottish Government - yet a really good set of presentations and discussion also.
Where I left the event a little low was in the overall feel of the Documation event - no criticism due of the organizers Reed - just that this felt like every other ECM related event I had been to in the last couple of years - a bit dated.
What a contrast that just through the archway in the much larger exhibition hall was Storage Expo - vibrant, buzzing, busy and happening...all in all it left me with much to ponder.
Doing my expenses today also left me with much to ponder - ouchy! When you convert UK or Euro to Dollar - no matter how many times you have done it, it is a painful experience.....

Deep down in the ECM Suites Report now for the next couple of weeks then KM World, Enterprise Search West and OracleWorld.....

Oracle to acquire BEA?

2007-10-12T19:09:00.000+01:00

I just saw that Oracle has made an unsolicited bid to acquire BEA - it's a smart move, though far from unexpected. At Ovum I was the RD (Research Director) covering Oracle and remember when in open court Oracle's acquisition targets were revealed - top of the list BEA..

What makes this interesting is that SAP moved to acquire Business Objects just a few days back for almost exactly the same amount of money $6.7 Billion. SAP has no history of managing large acquisitions and market observers were deeply critical of the move, questioning SAP's ability to manage such a deal.

By moving for BEA, Oracle place SAP in a tough situation - do they counter bid - or watch Oracle move in to a clear lead ahead of them? If they counter bid they will be in a bidding war with Oracle who's pockets are deep, and its ability to absorb acquired assets legendary. If they get into a bidding war, what if Oracle simply walks away when the price get's too high (as they always do) and leave SAP to deal with two highly complex and very expensive acquisitions, that they may stuggle to manage?

If Oracle wins, they become the leading Middleware provider ahead of IBM and Microsoft and leave SAP in it's wake. If others come into the fray and bid against Oracle it could look like a desperate attempt to block Oracle.

Oracle vs SAP is fun and made for spectators....This latest move by Mr Ellison made me smile the second I saw it - they must be cursing him (again) in Germany. It's not the fact that Oracle is moving to acquire BEA it's the precision timing that brings about the smile.

WCM in Roma

2007-10-12T18:47:00.001+01:00

I am writing this on a flight back from Rome where I have just led a 2 day seminar on Web Content Management. I had to step in at the last minute to cover for Tony Byrne, so its been a crazy few days.

Crazy but interesting (and Rome is not the worst place to suddenly find yourself!) - the real stress for me was working through 165 slides that I had never seen before, on a topic that I haven't covered closely in quite some time.

Hence it was a relief to find out how little things in the WCM world had changed over the past few years. Not all that surprising I guess - WCM hit the market and exploded around 2000. Seven years on seems about the right time for it to be looking for new horizons - and from what I observed over those few days in Rome, change may be just around the corner.
The major WCM tools are looking dated, and in need of not just a revamp, but a major overhaul in some cases. Though I am not the real expert on this topic (Tony is) my 2 cents is that they (the vendors) are already behind the curve and have a a different set of priorities in mind to their customer base.

Frankly I don't think high value, high end WCM buyers and users care less about ECM - but WCM vendors have been bitten hard by the ECM virus - a virus that can result in a potentially deadly condition that leaves you with delusions of grandeur.

Btw: First time I have changed planes at Madrid Airport - impressive place! Though I do not recommend the potato omelet sandwiches - a little on the heavy side I found.....

EMC vs FileNet Marketing

2007-10-04T19:47:00.000+01:00

I just saw this advert from EMC - how bizzare!

I won't take sides between IBM and EMC - but this advert is surely an error - it seems to have been created a long time ago, yet is running an being promoted on the web today. Doesn't seem to be aware that FileNet were acquired - or that P8 is now well established...

Wonder if it's just something out of the archives, or its a sign of a very slow marketing process!

Is ECM a big fat failure?

2007-10-04T15:22:00.000+01:00

It seems like it's time for a rant - everything I post on CMS Watch regarding my work and research into ECM has recently been negative. For some reason - maybe it's the long summer - the solitude - who know's, but I just took a few mins out to analyse what's wrong. Specifically what is wrong with me - why am I so negative about ECM - and frankly what's is going wrong with this industry?

At the end of the day - I think it is simply that the ECM industry has lost it's sense of purpose - we/I can spend all our time plotting the moves and tribulations of the vendors - but ECM is not about vendors - it's about resolving serious business problems - problems that affect nearly every organization. The technology is important yes - but you don't do ECM for ECM's sake, you do it because you are facing a freaking information management nightmare. You can't find anything, your out of compliance, people are accessing incorrect information, you are duplicating tasks and efforts etc etc

Sure, the vendor industry is changing - we have the emergence of true Enterprise ready ECM on the horizon - we have a myriad of niche specialists - blah blah blah - the trouble is (and it's not the vendors fault) businesses and those that advise them just don't have a passion for this stuff.

The idea of bringing order to electronic filing, or routing the right document to the right person every time - is dull. So much more exciting to re-architect your IT system, or debate the need to go the SaaS route - or dream of infinite combinations of web services that can magically construct themselves into business services dynamically.

I am a passionate foodie - I love to cook, eat and even read about food (despite my svelte figure!) - and sure every cook loves to watch the souffle rise, the golden crusts form etc - but if your kitchen is filthy, and your fridge and cuboards unusable - you ain't cooking nothing..

Information management is no different - the dull stuff is vital to success.

But ECM is not just dull stuff - it is a toolset for business change - Information Management in conjunction with BPM and Web Services may well constitute the most powerful set of technologies for business change since the emergence of ERP. For companies looking to move to the next stage of efficiency and move ahead of their competitors no more powerful combination of tools is available.

Yet here is the rub of it - the tools and technologies are very advanced and most work well (though there is always progress to be made) - but very few organizations or consultant's have the skills to use them. They are though exactly the same consulting skills we used in the BPR revolution of the late 80's & 90's - the people who wielded those skills are now the Senior Partners at the consulting firms - where is there passion - why are they not driving the momentum for change?

In a world that is struggling to deal with globalization, outsourcing, impending recession, weaker skill set's, IT bloat and increased apathy in general - many firms are in dire need of organizational change. New models need to emerge quickly - skills need to be honed, experiments undertaken. When that happens, ECM should be in the forefront of the technologies supporting that change.

The ECM industry cannot bring about that change, but it can certainly make an effort to help.....
I promise to do my little bit - through the ECM Suites Report - and by presenting and writing publicly with passion - not resignation.

I will be at Documation in London in a couple of weeks time - be sure to come and kick my butt if I fail to deliver

Steam vented - normal level of frustration and anger resumed.

Gartners EMC Magic Quadrant 2007

2007-09-28T18:51:00.000+01:00

Lazy end of the week post :-) Just a link in fact to my post today on CMS Watch regarding the MQ...

http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1023-De-mystifying-the-Gartner-ECM-Magic-Quadrant