ECM Tools

Do SharePoint right before SharePoint does you wrong

I recently advised a global consumer goods firm about how to integrate their various Social Software implementations and where to place SharePoint in that mix. This was that rare company who had not yet implemented SharePoint hardly at all, beyond a few WSS pilots. In other words, that mythical "greenfield" environment that consultants can dream about, but rarely exist in real life. The firm is considering expanding their investment, including licensing MOSS. We discussed how they have a tremendous opportunity to do SharePoint "right" from the beginning, and avoid some common critical mistakes. ***

Enterprise CMS Vendors Start to Embrace Mobile World

A new CMS Watch eport shows the growing importance of Enterprise Content Management in an increasingly mobile world. Blame the BlackBerry or the iPhone, but a generation of users are expecting all the data they are used to seeing on the desktop to be available on their mobile devices as well. This evolution in working style frames part of the 2009 ECM report from CMS Watch that highlights the move to mobile. If you want to understand the ECM market, then CMS Watch's 436 report is a very good place to start. Featuring 10-20 page reports on each of the major ECM vendors, it is designed to help readers save money on contracts, save time when shortlisting and choosing vendors, and prevent purchasing mistakes. ***

Updated ECM vendor evaluations available today

Today we released a major update to our Enterprise Content Management technology evaluations. Our release highlights some important trends, most notably some new mobile interfaces coming down the pike. Our team will share some more details about those trends in the coming weeks. Meantime, if you're a subscriber, you'll receive your updated edition shortly. If not, and you want the inside story on ECM vendor pros and cons, you can purchase the report here, and you can always check out a free sample first. ***

Using SharePoint as a social network platform

With titles such as Madden NFL 10, Rock Band and Sims in its portfolio, video game developer Electronic Arts has to stay on cool's edge -- inside the company as much as out. "When people come in the door here these days, they say, 'Hey, how do I connect with people? Do you have a social network?' " said Bert Sandie, director of technical excellence in the University Group at Electronic Arts (EA) in Vancouver. "The reality is, having a social network , search and a knowledge portal, especially in larger corporations, is essentially becoming the cost of doing business, like email was 20 years ago. ***

Report: ECM Could Save You Billions

A report from TowerGroup titled "Beyond the Paper Scourge: Unleashing the Business Value of Electronic Content Management" was recently released on MarketResearch.com. The report covers topics such as: How ECM Works, Unleashing the Business Value of ECM, Innovation in ECM, Supporting Technologies for ECM, and Outlook for ECM Vendors.Some of the claims include:ECM enhances business value by improving operational efficiency, customer experience, compliance, and risk management.ECM spans diverse technology categories that fit together strategically under an umbrella of business process transformation.Many FSIs use some form of ECM solutions, but these solutions often do not connect with other supporting technologies and fall short of the mark in delivering full business value.Innovation in ECM lies in preserving information in its original digital form and in its ability to move information through a process, be stored, and be accessed digitally. ***

PaperVision Capture: Efficient Document Management With Improved OCR

Digitech Systems, a provider of on-demand ECM, recently announced that they have significantly pumped up their PaperVision Capture. PaperVision Capture allows businesses to design processes for capturing paper documents and converting them to an electronic format. Users can index them for secure storage, management and retrieval within an ECM system. The fresh squeezed features include OCR processing, which automatically processes image files, including paper documents converted to electronic format from a scanner or MFP, into searchable indexed files. ***

Can You Justify Cloud Based Compliance, Collaboration or CMS?

In theory, these things strike many as a good idea. And, most notably, they might actually be. But they also strike fear in the hearts of CIOs world-wide. Is the cloud secure? Is the cloud compliant? Is the cloud performant enough not to frustrate the entire company?And then beyond these questions, there are the economic realities.SaaS vendors argue that their approach saves you money. Start-up costs are certainly lower, but long term TCO may be another story. The scenario needs to be modeled for your specific organization, if you want to decide with confidence. ***

Alfresco Set To Double Number Of System Integrator Partners In 2009

Alfresco Software, the leader in open source enterprise content management (ECM), recently announced the expansion of its North and South American partner program for system integrators (SI) in response to increasing demand. As open source economics continue to create new opportunities for SIs, the lack of upfront license fees for Alfresco ECM also enables enterprise customers to fund more projects and allocate more budget and resources to project delivery. ***

The Economics of SaaS Enterprise CMS, Making ROI Sense

Everybody is talking about how to use cloud computing to do more, spend less and bring more zenful moments to your IT department. But how do the economics of Software as a Service (SaaS) work when compared to traditional deployed software?Yes, there are the obvious points (no servers, wee!). But there are also more subtle bits to the equation.If this is your cup-o-tea, join in this Thursday at 1pm Eastern time for a complimentary one-hour live webinar. The host will be Dan Carmel, a respected content management authority. ***

SharePoint 2007 Content Migration, A Case Study

Migrating existing content into a SharePoint system, and specifically into a SharePoint Page Library — the foundation of a SharePoint Publishing website — is neither simple nor straightforward.To migrate content into SharePoint we took a look at a number of tools, both commercial tools and custom-built ones paired with a data aggregation framework. Here is a review of our experience, a summary of our final approach and some postmortem thoughts. ***