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GCN Insider | The tao of ECM

By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

Old-timers often regale us with wisdom about IT trends being cyclical. Now we get it. Last year, the content management field was aflutter over enterprise content management, or the idea of consolidating an entire organization’s documents, e-mail and Web pages under a single system. Yet this year, at the AIIM show, the scope of content management seemed to be shrinking. Rather than pitching an enterprise product for all needs, “Many of the vendors are focused in particular areas,” said Priscilla Emery, president of ECM consulting company e-Nterprise Advisors of Longwood, Fla.

David Lakness, vice president of business development for Laserfiche Document Management of Long Beach, Calif., stressed how his company’s products work particularly well for military procurement. Vignette Corp. of Austin, Texas, plays heavily in the e-government space, said Larry Warnock, Vignette’s chief marketing officer. Documentum Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif., and Open Text Corp. of Waterloo, Ontario, are going after case management work, according to reps from both companies.

Such specialization makes sense. Content management systems themselves are becoming more interchangeable. “If a vendor doesn’t have a particular feature now, it will have one in six to 10 months,” Emery said.

Knowing the intricacies of something like military procurement could be a true benefit to potential customers, who would rather not wait around for a vendor to get up to speed on the customer’s workflow intricacies.

For more IT trend and analysis, visit the GCN.com Tech Blog at www.gcn.com/blogs/tech.



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