TrendWatch: CMS Watch Blog
DAM in 2009: enterprise, workgroup, and nothing in between....
05-Jan-2009 | Permalink
Today we release our Digital & Media Asset Management Report 2009. In this new edition, we've greatly expanded our coverage of Minnesota, USA-based MediaBeacon, a pioneer in XMP, and a small but savvy company that's frequently competing with the larger corporate muscle of Open Text's Artesia and Interwoven's MediaBin.
There are quite a few new trends in DAM for 2009, which we'll explore in this blog over the next few weeks, and which we cover in-depth in the report. As we point out in today's press release, the most significant one we've seen is what we're calling "the disappearance of the middle class." Small team/workgroup-style DAM tools typically sell for US$2,000-5,000, while the enterprise-class DAM & MAM tools are rarely acquirable for less than US$150,000-$200,000. This situation is serious a problem for buyers who need more from their DAM system than a simple digital archive, but don't have six-figure budgets.
In these tough economic times, enterprises are looking to buy only the features they really need, at a predictable price point. Because the costs involved in a full-feature, licensed solution may be prohibitive, some buyers are turning to fixed-price hosted DAM, or stretching their workgroup-level solution -- perhaps from the likes of Adobe, Apple, or Microsoft -- beyond its capabilities.
Submitted by Theresa Regli, Analyst | All DAM Channel Trends
J. Boye in Philadelphia: Call for WCM case studies
04-Jan-2009 | Permalink
After 4 years of growing and energetic conferences in Denmark, the next stop for the J. Boye Conferences is in Philadelphia from May 5 - 7. There are already about 20 confirmed speakers from around the world, including the CMS Watch team, but to make it a practitioner event, I am still searcing for a few more case studies for the track on web content management.
In these changing times, I find it partcularly interesting to listen to honest presentations from practitioners that share lessons learned and perhaps even some unsolved challenges. In case you are interested, please contact me directly at jb@jboye.dk.
In any case, hope to see you there...
Submitted by Janus Boye, Contributing Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
Pondering the future of .NET 2.0 solutions like DNN and Telligent
02-Jan-2009 | Permalink
Recently I've been thinking about two packages we cover -- DotNetNuke (DNN) in The Web CMS Report, and Telligent Community Server in the Enterprise Social Software Report -- in the wake of the rise of SharePoint.
Leaders of both platforms go to great pains to point out that they don't compete head-to-head with SharePoint. There's some truth to that. DNN and Community Server are fundamentally pre-MOSS efforts, developed at a time when Redmond was not putting much attention to developing packaged applications off its once cutting-edge .NET 2.0 platform. These were tools where developers could go to town with the latest frameworks and approaches. In the case of Telligent, many of those developers reside at Microsoft itself, which continues to use Community Server for some public forums (e.g., www.asp.net) and blogs, especially in the Windows and Office Communications Server groups.
But SharePoint 2007 has of course really surged. As we point out in the SharePoint Report 2009, one of the more notable (if not frequently noted) dimensions of MOSS is that it represents a .NET 3.0 development platform, taking advantage of newer .NET services such as master pages and the Windows Workflow Foundation, among others.
Now you get the sense that developers in the DNN and Community Server communities are feeling a bit left behind. Still, .NET 2.0 remains a kind of refuge for those module developers who don't want to learn 3.0 or are suspicious of some of its constructs (in particular master pages for templating or skinning).
As a customer, you don't need to be a snob about this. DNN and Community Server should not be immediately dinged for lacking .NET 3.0-based services. And I think Redmond was wise in its approach to .NET where the later versions are functionally additive (rather than reconstructive). That said, I can't help but wonder about the future of both products. Migrating them to .NET 3.x won't be simple, which means potential turbulence for you the customer.
[Update: 04 January 2008 -- several kind people have corrected me with respect to master pages, that they actually started with .NET 2.0. However, the point still stands that they are new to MOSS, and not used at all in Community Server or DNN.]
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All SharePoint Channel Trends
Social Software in Europe
30-Dec-2008 | Permalink
After spending a good amount of time talking to technology customers in Europe during the last quarter, I've concluded that attitudes towards enterprise social computing tend to be quite different on the eastern side of the Atlantic, which seems doubly significant since most (though not all) social software vendors hail from North America.
Of course, it's dangerous to make continent-wide generalizations, and to be sure, customer adoption and approach does appear to differ from southern Europe (e.g., Italy) versus the Nordics and UK. Nevertheless, here are some of the qualms I picked up in Europe that simply don't get voiced as frequently in North America:
- There is greater concern about social software such as blogs introducing new silos of information and compounding information overload at a time when findability and compliance represent greater IT challenges than participation
- More pervasive union regulations circumscribe what employees and enterprises can do, and what employees can share
- The broader issue of personal and professional privacy -- which is hardly unique to Europe -- looms larger and carries more legal weight
- There feels like less inclination to meld personal and professional topics and personae (as so many social networking tools do), which has come up when global companies have experimented with using Facebook and the like for intra-enterprise networking
None of this has stopped European enterprises from experimenting with social computing as their peers elsewhere have done. But there is greater skepticism, and we are already seeing that European customers sometimes find North American suppliers overly zealous and insufficiently sensitive to different legal and cultural barriers.
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All Social Channel Trends
Even Google discontinues products
19-Dec-2008 | Permalink
November brought bad news for all Livelyzens. In a brief blog post, Google officially announced that they would shut down Lively.com in order to "prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business"
Lively was one of many services that came from the Google Labs environment. The service was released in July 2008 and introduced an innovative, 3-D social platform, where users could build their own interactive rooms and embed them into web pages. But only 4 months later Lively was discontinued, leaving the active user community in a sad state.
As a response to the sudden lock-down, the community has created an online petition, which many have signed, adding comments like "Lively has given me so much - please don't shut it down" and "Lively is more than a chat in 3D. [...] it is a world of feelings." All a little sad really, in so many ways...
Yet while the shut-down is indeed sad for the many users, it is also a timely reminder that
- You need to be careful with any beta release.
- Vendors -- including big vendors more often than not -- sometimes discontinue offerings
The case with Lively illustrates that Google is a business just like any other and that businesses need to make money. As they themselves write on their blog: "[...] we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off. That's why [...] we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year."
In a future Google in the Enterprise Report, we will take a close look at Google based on our many on-going conversations with customers about their experiences. Thanks go to my colleague Peter Sejersen for his eagled eyed analysis of the Lively situation. And If you would like to contribute and share your thoughts, we would both still like to hear from you. Please contact us directly at jb@jboye.dk. I look forward to hearing from you!
Submitted by Janus Boye, Contributing Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
South Africa, land of things that ring in the pocket
18-Dec-2008 | Permalink
I recently had the great fortune of taking a holiday trip around the diverse and beautiful country of South Africa. For a stage of the trip, in a remote area of northern Kwa-Zulu Natal, my husband and I had a Zulu guide and translator, which allowed us to explore the communities more in-depth and converse more freely the locals.
Most of the schools and homes in this area (including our translator's) had no electricity or plumbing; in these parts, it costs approximately 300 ZAR (about US$30) to send a child to school for the year (including textbooks). Most people don't own cars, so oftentimes groups of people stand along the side of the road waiting for a ride.
And while they wait, they tap away text messages on their mobile devices.
It was then I learned the Zulu word uma-khala-khukhwIni, which translates literally as "thing that rings in the pocket." In a country where unemployment hovers around 25%, men in rural areas tend to leave for several weeks at a time to work near a city, then come home with money and things for the kids, like mobile phones. Those who don't have electricity go to a general store in town to plug the phone in and charge it. These kids may not have running water, but they can look things up on Wikipedia.
Naturally I was curious about the economics: how could these kids afford to rack up SMS messaging costs in an area where wealth is still largely measured by cattle, and public education only arrived after the fall of apartheid?
It turns out that the communication happens via a service called MXit, a free instant messaging software application that runs on GPRS/3G mobile phones with Java support, and native to South Africa. MXit doesn't charge for sending and receiving person to person messages, and while some service providers charge for GPRS/3G data cost, these costs are comparatively minuscule, about 1 ZAR cent, or one tenth of a US penny. In other words, the next time you buy a beer in London or Moscow, it's worth about 8,000 text messages to a kid in rural South Africa.
We mentioned in our 2009 predictions article that mobile analytics is going to become increasingly important in 2009 -- but for still too many companies, a mobile strategy isn't even on their radar. Smart companies have the foresight to think about content distribution beyond the technology elite, those of us sitting in our offices with PCs and dollars, euros, or pounds sterling in our wallets. As wealth grows in places like China, India and South Africa, where mobile phones far outnumber PCs, you'd be wise to do the same.
Submitted by Theresa Regli, Analyst | All Analytics Channel Trends
Who loves the incumbent vendor?
18-Dec-2008 | Permalink
One of my favorite little phrases is "double edged sword" and I found a perfect application for it recently, the discussion of "incumbent vendors" -- those whose product(s) you're already using.
Imagine you have been using a particular vendor's technology for the past 5 or 10 years. It could be EMC|Documentum or Open Text or any one of the 197 other products we evaluate. I'll just call them Vendor X. But now it's time for an upgrade, or even a replacement of that technology. It did what it was supposed to do at the time, but now technology has moved on and it's time for a refresh. So you're kicking off a major project and starting up the RFP and shortlisting process.
On the one hand, being the incumbent, Vendor X is at a real advantage to supply this new technology over anyone else. They have an existing relationship with the IT group, procurement department, and at least some business users. So they know you and they know your business to some degree. Equally important they know your IT expectations and limitations. Of any vendor they are the ones to beat, and should be able to not only pitch, but price at a point that will make you smile.
On the other hand, they are now the "old" supplier and as the Eagles once so perfectly put it, "wooo-hooo... everybody's talking 'bout the new kid in town." Whereas by default the incumbent comes with baggage. For nothing is ever perfect, and the last few years will have had its ups and downs, and of course it's only human to focus on the downs. Put it this way: if you think its time to upgrade or replace, then you likely think of the incumbent as dated.
Another twist in that two-way relationship is that you know a lot of dirt about Vendor X -- dirt you don't know about their competitors. The maintenance calls that were never properly closed, the bugs, the eventual fixes, and the license fee hikes. In that situation, who would want to be the incumbent?
Sometimes incumbents are going to win regardless, but it's not always an advantage. The key here for you the buyer is that incumbents require a particular type consideration. So, when automatically adding Vendor X to your shortlist, or conversely when deciding not to add them, make sure you come to the decision in a balanced manner, that you have looked at both sides of that double edged sword.
Submitted by Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Analyst | All Portal Channel Trends
Global web analytics marketshare conundrums
18-Dec-2008 | Permalink
I recently received an interesting survey from Steven Ashley, senior research analyst at Robert W Baird & Company, a financial services firm. The survey tried to figure out the analytics tools employed by the 500 most heavily-trafficked websites around the world as of early December, 2008.
The report found that a surprising 45% did not use any web analytics software at all, but it turns out the surveyors were just looking for JavaScript tags, when -- as Web Analytics Report readers know -- many companies use logfile- or sniffer-based architectures (in part because they want to capture information and devices where JavaScript doesn't work). So the report surely undercounts actual usage -- by how much, I don't know.
Our anecdotal research suggests that a growing number of large enterprises in fact are taking a hybrid approach, and this is forcing vendors to adapt, as well as supporting new entrants in the marketplace. Anyway, it's impossible to tell who's "number one."
Nevertheless, the survey offers some interesting nuggets among the collection of sites that do employ JS tags. I won't reveal all the goodies here; you'll have to ask Baird for a copy. One stat worth noting: Baird found seventy websites with Omniture tags, while all other paid analytics vendors -- WebTrends, CoreMetrics, et. al. -- totalled only fifty sites combined. Again, not all vendors use exclusively JavaScript. Omniture actually experienced a net decline of four websites from Baird's Q3 survey, interestingly in large measure by losing five SiteCatalyst sites to free services like Google Analytics. Conventional wisdom held that Omniture would see more abandonment of its acquired HBX line instead.
In any event, Ashley remains quite bullish on Omniture stock, and noted its growing revenues throughout 2008. That income doubtless came from additional customers beneath those top 500 busiest sites, but also from what Wall Street praises as "increasing the yield" from existing customers. I think you know what that means.
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All Analytics Channel Trends
Get smart and prepare for the impending DAM explosion
18-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Today we release our half-day online education course about Digital & Media Asset Management (DAM) technology. As we learned over the last 9 months of research into the DAM market, speaking with DAM project leaders and creative professionals around the world, many teams struggle to determine the optimal way to implement DAM technology.
The course walks students through important information to understand prior to implementation in order to mitigate risk, including: key administrative and system management services, roles and groups and how security is managed, scalability, capacity and bandwidth challenges, the value of specific DAM standards.
The online course includes sessions on:
- Introduction to DAM
- Asset Creation, Assembly & Delivery Services
- DAM Architecture & System Management Services
- DAM Implementation Scenarios
- DAM Vendor Landscape and Trends
As the course leader, I hope you'll "join me" as I walk you through the world of DAM, and please e-mail me if you have any comments on the course or our Digital & Media Asset Management Report.
Submitted by Theresa Regli, Analyst | All DAM Channel Trends
Looking for more E in SE
16-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Sitting through countless vendor demos to clients over the past couple of years, I've noticed a trend -- at least among Web CMS and Portal vendors -- of sales engineers ("SEs") emphasizing sales over engineering.
In the typical vendor pitch you'll see one or two vendor account reps (a.k.a. salespeople) who are mostly there to set the stage for the actual demo, given in turn by one or more SEs. Increasingly I find SEs somewhat removed from actual implementation details (except what they've customized on their own laptops). While comfortable issuing jargon about "persistence layers" and "dynamic cache invalidation," they don't always have much depth on the mechanics of how their tools actually work behind the scenes. Deeper questions frequently get added to the dreaded (and usually unfulfilled) we'll-get-back-to-you list. Or requests for details get side-tracked with a digression about successful Customer X or Customer Y -- the way a product manager would talk.
At some level the problem is us. If we don't create scenarios or specific questions that require technical depth, vendors will respond accordingly. Vendors also fear that a knowledgeable engineer (a.k.a. geek) will lose the attention of key business decision-makers in the room. Sizzle sells, and SEs with sizzle tend to get more S....if you let them.
I've often thought the best combo for a vendor demo team contains a salesperson, plus a professional services consultant (who can talk to real implementations), plus an engineer with substantial depth on the product. In any case, if your project is important, specify the type of team you want to see, and signal to the vendor very explicitly what you want them to demo and the expertise you expect them to bring. Then test, test, test. Our evaluation reports and educational seminars detail further how to create a test-based selection process.
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All Portal Channel Trends
Vibrancy in the ECM market
16-Dec-2008 | Permalink
The ECM world is dominated by EMC, Open Text, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle -- all big vendors with equally big publicity machines to keep their brands and "story" right, front and center.
But of interest to me these last couple of months has been the news from lesser-known vendors such as Nuxeo and SpringCM. Different news from each to be sure, but evidence that mid-market vendors should be watched closely by buyers as those suppliers often have a more resilient and detailed ECM strategy, they just don't have such big marketing machines to explain it with.
So firstly Nuxeo. They released their first packaged application to provide functionality for correspondence management (mail, invoices, contracts etc) in late 2008. With a second planned application for mid 2009 in Digital Asset Management. Why is this interesting news? Well Nuxeo is one of only three serious ECM open source options (Alfresco and KnowledgeTree being the other two) -- and the one that most closely follows the traditional open source model of a vibrant, community-driven framework/platform approach to software. Added to this sign of corporate maturity (packaged applications), reportedly big revenue growth in 2008, and planned expansion into North America for 2009 -- it's evidence of open source growing as a real and credible option for ECM buyers.
Secondly SpringCM, who throughout 2008 has been announcing an ever broadening SaaS alternative for ECM. Their partner network is expanding, as are the number of industry-specific applications that those partners have built on the SpringCM platform. Many customers have asked me about SpringCM in 2008 and for a small firm they have certainly caught the market's attention.
They probably deserve their day in the sun. Their smartest moves in 2008 were offering free Records Management functionality, and their decision to push SaaS ECM as a development platform, an approach that flies in the face of most people's understanding of SaaS. But it's equally an approach that gets SaaS on shortlists and begins to establish it as a potential alternative to on-site options.
Nuxeo and SpringCM are not alone in setting the ECM pace at the mid market level. As ECM Suites Report readers know, Objective released one of the more cutting-edge, SOA-based ECM packages in 2008, and of course Alfresco continues to steal some headlines away from much bigger rivals.
All in all a good market for both vendors and buyers -- with lots of options currently available. Vendors continue to differ widely in their offerings, with growth (and accompanying research and development investment) the norm, even in this challenging economy. All good signs for those planning ECM investments in 2009.
Submitted by Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Analyst | All ECM Channel Trends
Looking ahead to 2009 -- and evaluating 2008
16-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Today we released our annual predictions for 2009 (full article / press release / video).
Which begs the question: how did we do last year? (See the December 2007 article.) Let's look back at each of our 2008 predictions.
Archiving becomes a prime focus for ECM vendors
Definitely -- in particular for archiving SharePoint
sites.
Google will make a bid to become the World's Content Repository
Not quite, although they did make a bid to become the World's Application Platform,
which will get them to Content Repository eventually...
MOSS enters the valley of disappointment
I'd say yes, especially beyond North America, although "skepticism"
might be a more apt term than disappointment.
Return of the buyers' market
Absolutely. And it will return with greater force in 2009.
Web 2.0 exhaustion
Yes and no. The term continues to subside; the concept continues to thrive.
Social Software vendor collision
Definitely. Every Tom, Dick, and Portal Vendor thinks they can do this.
Facebook backlash in the enterprise
Not really. Some enterprises still ban it; many more are looking to exploit
it. We see greater reluctance to embrace outside North America, though.
Security and Identity Management trump functionality for buyers
Not sure. Functionality seems as important as ever.
Finally bridging web analytics and online marketing
Yep. Not all the spans are complete, but many customers are crossing.
Search is dead....Not!
Search definitely came alive last year, and will again in 2009 too.
Productization of Search Platforms
Yes, and we have the Google Search Appliance to thank.
We'll have 12 new predictions next year
Not a tough one to meet....;-)
So, your tally may differ, but by my count, we came in at about 75% (9 of 12) correct. Not great, but not bad.
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
Gadgets as increasingly relevant portal standard?
10-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Earlier this year in June, I argued that JSR 286 might be the last portlet standard, mainly due to the lack of attention to the updated specification. Earlier this week noted portal guru Apoorv Durga from outsourcing firm Wipro continued the conversation by asking whether gadgets and widgets are really an alternative to portlets as "many customers are considering these for building their next generation of web properties".
To be more accurate, Google Gadgets are actually not a standard, but simply a Google specification. It is interesting though to note that portal vendors have added support for gadgets with some alacrity, including IBM in a royal wedding-like partnership in early 2007, JBoss in much hyped integration a few months later, and this week eXo as they released eXo Portal 2.5 with support of Google Gadgets.
Programming gadgets may turn into a very useful skill for 2009, but as Durga writes there are also non trivial issues to address if you want to roll them out for an enterprise solution. While researching for a new evaluation report called Google in the Enterprise, we've talked to quite a few enterprises that have experimented with gadgets. Not surprisingly, some of them were more gloomy than the vendor marketing, but interestingly gadgets have indeed been deployed for difficult problems. Few enterprises, though, seem to have considered the impact of using a proprietary alternative to standards, as most seem just excited to use something new and hot.
Here at the turn of the year, it feels a bit like the browser wars, where developers are busy writing for their own preferred platform, but not really considering the longer term impact. My advice to practitioners is that experimentation is good, and so is organizational learning. But if you want to avoid surprises, make sure to test and plan carefully.
Submitted by Janus Boye, Contributing Analyst | All Portal Channel Trends
Open Source blogging, the Oxite way
09-Dec-2008 | Permalink
If you're one of the many industry observers who's wondered why Microsoft hasn't created a decent blogging platform, stop wondering. The platform is out: it's called Oxite, and the source code is available for download.
According to Microsoft's Jeff Sandquist (who blogs about it here), "Oxite began as a side project of Adam Kinney and Duncan Mackenzie and is a subset of the MSDN Channel 9 source code. When it was time to do a reboot of the Mix Online web site Duncan and his team created an experience where he could release the source code (a popular customer request of Channel 9) that used ASP.NET MVC to have 100% control of the resultant HTML."
Sandquist calls Oxite a "highly extensible content management platform that can run anything from blogs to big web sites." Paradoxically, the Oxite project site calls it something different, namely "a simple blog engine written using ASP.NET MVC." The latter seems more accurate, at this point.
The code consists of around a hundred C# classes, plus some SQL Server tables, DBML and SQL files, and other artifacts. None of the source files contains any copyrights, but the code is provided under MPL (Microsoft's Public License), which basically says "no warranties of any kind are made" and absolves Redmond of any risk. For all intents, this is not a Microsoft project in any meaningful way; it's something a few Microsoft employees put together and are letting the public use at its own risk.
A couple of additional things to note: First, the code is quite elaborate for what it accomplishes (the same can be said for Java MVC projects as well, of course). Don't expect to do Hello World in a matter of minutes, unless you're an accomplished .NET web developer.
Secondly, the code is not internationalized. It's riddled with hard-coded English language strings.
Interestingly, the code includes the jQuery library.
As of this morning, the project (which was posted publicly on December 5) has seen around 3000 downloads.
Oxite has already become the darling of the blogosphere, eliciting effusive praise (it seems) wherever it's discussed. We'd caution that although Oxite's creators are to be commended for putting this project together, and although Microsoft has done a good thing in allowing the creators to make their code public, stamping something with "MPL" and throwing it over the wall hardly qualifies as an open-source strategy. If you decide to use Oxite (and by the way, we'd like to hear from you if you do), remember that you'll get no official support from Microsoft, and the project's direction isn't really set by the community. It's set by forces outside your control.
Submitted by Kas Thomas, Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
The high cost of layoffs in Adobe-land
09-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Ironically, laying people off (as a way to improve operating efficiency) is not cheap. Just ask Adobe Systems.
Citing weaker-than-expected demand for its new Creative Suite 4 family of products that began shipping in Q4 in North America and Europe, Adobe announced that it will let go of approximately 600 full-time employees. The restructuring move will cost Adobe $44 million to $50 million -- about $80,000 per employee.
Submitted by Kas Thomas, Analyst | All CCM Channel Trends
The FeedRoom acquires DAM vendor ClearStory
08-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Digital Asset Management vendor ClearStory announced last week that they've been acquired by The FeedRoom, a web video management software and services provider (and another company that doesn't like to put spaces between words). We weren't at all surprised to hear this news, and in some regards, The FeedRoom might be seen as ClearStory's deus ex machina. ClearStory had been suffering financially for some time, laid off swaths of staff in late 2007, and was losing traction while chief competitors North Plains and Widen were growing.
As readers of our Digital & Media Asset Management Report know, ClearStory lags peers like North Plains and Artesia in managing video, so the pairing of ClearStory with The FeedRoom's video services may provide a bit more competition. However, we'd caution you to remember that the storage and delivery of video (which is The FeedRoom's focus), is very different from the creation and management of video assets. You're still going to need specialized applications to complete your full video management lifecycle.
For ClearStory customers, or those looking at ClearStory on their short list, we think this acquisition is good news. Most industry watchers were questioning the company's viability, and while it remains unclear how The FeedRoom will adopt or adapt ClearStory's technology, the current ClearStory management team (new as of late 2007) will stay on board. This likely means the technology will enjoy continued support from its new parent.
Submitted by Theresa Regli, Analyst | All DAM Channel Trends
Guarded optimism among Web CMS vendors
05-Dec-2008 | Permalink
As I wandered around the Gilbane Boston 2008 show last week, the question I heard people asking each other most often was some variation of: "How's business?" Almost everyone is trying to figure out what the economic train wreck is doing (or might do) to IT spending.
The Good News is that showgoers were, by and large, surprisingly optimistic. It seems in particular that government spending on Web and Search technologies hasn't abated (yet). "We've seen deals take longer to close," one vendor told me, "but they do eventually close. They don't just evaporate. At least, not yet."
I was sitting at a table in the Press Room with John Newton (Alfresco CTO & Chairman) and Yogesh Gupta (FatWire CEO) when the discussion turned to economic conditions and what the current malaise might mean for the Web CMS world going forward. Newton proclaimed that it was a great time to be in Open Source. (No surprise there.) A somewhat philosophical Gupta responded by saying: "Macroeconomic conditions really don't impact my business." (Newton's eyebrows went up.) "What I mean is," Gupta clarified, "it does not take all that many new leads, or new deals, for us to hit our 2009 numbers. It is really a very small number. And some of those deals can come from existing customers. Considering the overall size of the market, and how few deals we have to close in order to continue to do well, the larger economy is not even something I worry about."
Evidently, not everyone is worried about the sky falling.
Submitted by Kas Thomas, Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
Practical guide to Web CMS usability
05-Dec-2008 | Permalink
James Robertson has produced a very practical paper on how to assess the usability of Web CMS tools. I think it has relevance for other types of content technologies as well.
Before you get into these operational details (however important!), you need a commitment from project leadership and sponsors to care about application usability. Remember, you can't just look at tools and decide, on behalf of your colleagues, that one is "easier to use" or "more intuitive" than others. Usability is fitness to purpose. Different participants in your CMS are going to bring different purposes. They need to touch as well as see a system before they can decide how easy it is. And you need to anticipate the demand for UI customization.
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
How to screw up a keynote demo
04-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Ask Web CMS vendor FatWire. Linda Tucci calls it "...a booby trap."
Submitted by Tony Byrne, Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
SharePoint - Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No...
02-Dec-2008 | Permalink
Talking about SharePoint in Copenhagen today and yesterday reminded me of an interesting point. While I like to talk about the practices and tools of search, web content management, or social software, to my audience, that whole spectrum was simply "SharePoint" (or MOSS).
Sure, that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. What's in a name? Well, according to Microsoft, MOSS currently smells like "connecting people, process, and information." Which is a tagline that could also be used for a bus. Or a train.
It would be easy to blame Redmond for this, but they're probably right. While WordPress can be described straightforward as "blog software," even their customers aren't always quite sure what they're using. The WordPress showcase has such gems as the Fox Forum (which isn't a forum), and WikiRoma, which isn't a wiki. To most people, the content management spectrum actually is a little bit like a rainbow -- there are no clear distinctions between the colors (though there's obviously a lot of them).
Still, in order to be able to discuss the various ways you can apply the software, it's useful to have at least some grasp of what it is we mean with, for instance, "purple." Even though it's difficult to define purple, and even though rather counter-intuitively, it's not the same as violet.
So if you're looking at SharePoint, don't just see it as all colors at once. Try to separate its uses a little bit, so you can effectively compare them with other products (which might be better suited to a task) or third-party add-ons (which might do a better job than SharePoint out-of-the-box). And who knows -- there might even be a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.
Submitted by Adriaan Bloem, Contributing Analyst | All CMS Channel Trends
Come visit our stand at the Online Information Conference
01-Dec-2008 | Permalink
This week, my colleagues Jarrod, Alan and I will be at the Online Information Conference in London. If you'll be there as well, please stop by our stand, number 287, on the show floor, and say hi. We're always eager to meet our customers in person.
You can also come by one of our sessions. Alan will be talking about ECM and SharePoint, while I'll be moderating several panels and reviewing the 2009 technology marketplace for search & information access.
Submitted by Theresa Regli, Analyst | All Search Channel Trends
e-Discovery: selling umbrellas when it's raining?
01-Dec-2008 | Permalink
With recession clouds forming, there just has to be a silver lining. And thanks to Autonomy, I now know what it is: a "rosy outlook in litigation volume." The search and e-discovery vendor cites a recent survey by law firm Fullbright & Jaworski: "only 3 percent of in-house counsel foresaw a drop in litigation next year, while 43 percent predicted a jump in activity."
The survey addresses electronic discovery and records management, and of course Autonomy feels its software is uniquely positioned to deal with these issues. However, reading the survey report, what I found much more interesting is that 77% of the respondents said that "courts do not understand the difficulties in providing e-discovery." One quote described the process as "boiling the sea."
My first reaction was to check the "Scenario Fits" in our new Search & Information Access Report for the e-discovery scenario, and see which products are best suited (you may be surprised to see who the competition in the fields is). But if you ask the survey respondents for a solution, their answer isn't technology to help them do this -- two thirds is of the opinion that "full pre-trial disclosure should be reconsidered." Autonomy will have to demonstrate their ability in boiling the sea before they'll be able to turn the rosy outlook into actual profit. But for now, I'll at least award them a check-plus for cynical optimism.
Submitted by Adriaan Bloem, Contributing Analyst | All Search Channel Trends
SharePoint and 3rd Party Add-ons
26-Nov-2008 | Permalink
As we start to wind down 2008 and move into 2009, I still hear the same question from clients who have implemented or want to implement SharePoint: do I have to buy product A to get certain functionality in SharePoint or can I use the out-of-the-box service? For better or worse, often the answer is that organizations may be better served by buying a 3rd party add-on to enhance out-of-the-box (or non-existent) functionality in SharePoint.
To be sure, Microsoft has created a very wide-ranging product here, but not every aspect of SharePoint is up-to-the-task of serving the enterprise. As such, a whole community of ISVs have surrounded the product with various bolt-on tools to either enhance either what SharePoint does natively or add missing functionality.
It is for this very reason that when we updated the latest SharePoint Report, we included critical reviews of more than twenty add-on tools.
So, if you're going to implement SharePoint, start planning for the inevitable 3rd party products that you will likely have to purchase as well. Whether it's a search add-on or a tool to assist in backups, you have quite a few choices.
Submitted by Shawn Shell, Contributing Analyst | All SharePoint Channel Trends
Search is dead -- Long live search and information access!
25-Nov-2008 | Permalink
It has become fashionable lately to declare that search is dead. We've disagreed over the years, but to be sure, search technology has changed.
And so we've changed with it. Today, we announce the release of a new evaluation service, The Search & Information Access Report, which represents a total analytical re-work and re-write of vendor reviews, versus what we used to call simply "Enterprise Search."
We take a fresh look at the vendors based on how well they help people get access to information, which is a rather broader, but still quite alluring (and elusive) challenge. Our latest research suggests that buyers are less likely to be looking for one "Enterprise Search" tool that solves all of their information access needs. Rather, many are looking for specific solutions to some very specific problems.
Part of this evolution has to do with you, the buyer. You are less likely to accept that search is somehow "magic." Vendors have responded by opening up (to varying degrees) their "black box" architectures to enable you to construct meaningful search applications.
As always, if you are a full subscriber, you'll receive your full copy shortly. If you're a previous customer, look for an e-mail offering you special pricing. New customers can download a free sample here.
Submitted by Jarrod Gingras, Analyst | All Search Channel Trends
Capture software to the fore
24-Nov-2008 | Permalink
As we start to look back on the past year, one of the key trends we have seen is the resurgence of interest in capture software. It's early days for sure, but just as there is clearly increased interest in multi-channel publishing and CCM (component content management), so too at the entry point of the content lifecycle, is there an increased recognition by buyers that efficient capture delivers big dividends. Be it forms, paper, xml, pdf, or whatever -- making sense of the incoming information as early as possible in a process is one of the biggest productivity boosters your organization can attain.
Where there remains a disconnect between buyers and vendors - is in just how expensive and difficult good capture technology can be to acquire. For it seems that now OCR (optical character recognition) is commonplace, that buyers still imagine that dealing with the issues of distributed capture, multi-paged documents, multi-languages, in multi formats is somehow easy, and by default should also be cheap.
In fact the difference between the high end capture vendors (such as Abbyy, ReadSoft and Kofax) and low-end OCR is the difference between a bottle of wine vinegar and a bottle of vintage Krug. For at the high end, capture systems not only recognize multipage documents, but also relationships between pages and the context and content on them. They can recognize and capture a paragraph that is written in English, and just as accurately capture the native language Chinese footnotes related to that paragraph. They can capture at a staggeringly fast and accurate clip -- and once configured and running are typically far more accurate and faster than humans keying the same information in to a system manually. And of course, they cost more.
Key advice to buyers: don't underestimate the value of good clean captured data at the start of your process. Remember the maxim, rubbish in = rubbish out. At the same time don't underestimate the capabilities of what are genuinely some of the most technically advanced products in the ECM stack -- as it is likely that just for once, the right vendor may be able to do more for you than you think.
Submitted by Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Analyst | All RM Channel Trends
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