“Giving up on the desktop” … accepting your premise, I shudder to think how many meetings that decision required!
If it happens to be so, even if not absolute, then I can only congratulate them and wish them well. (I keep KlipFolio on my desk as a momento; I haven’t used it in weeks whereas my NetVibes page is an ever-fresh work in progress.) Seems to me this is the sort of tectonic shift that neither requires nor produces loud proclamations and yet the implications and ramifications are general. (Perhaps the mechanisms of the shift don’t entail any sort of tipping point?)

I’ll reply to something in your “Still a Serious Player” here:

“… the emergence of Microsoft as a force in the ECM market. Some may say that this is a sign of weakness on the part of Open Text (i.e. that they’ve completely given up on the UI) but I see it as a bridge to a future where best-of-breed ECM applications are tied together.”

(My own bias against things M$ move me to wonder at your optimism; I’m suspicious of that entity’s capacity for anything like bridging.)
What you see as happening I agree is what should come to pass. I appreciate OpenText’s work … perhaps this “bridging” will lead to increased vigour for them as well as for such as Xythos?

“… the importance of “deepâ€? ECM products like Livelink, EMC Documentum and FileNet has never been greater.”
I agree. More: I suggest we (the community of principled practitioners) are letting down the front-line troops, be it the managers who are making complex decisions in situations of information glut and uncertainty or the bureaucrats who are calling audibles with regards to issues of national security, international relations, and domestic policy.

Thanks for your comments. In response to your first point, I see Open Text’s strategy as largely giving up on the desktop. As you pointed out in your second post, they do need to keep things running. Given recent results, I’d say they’re doing a reasonably good job of it. Their Enterprise Connect product, if it works as warranted, will allow Livelink to become the repository of record regardless of the content source (SharePoint, SAP, other ECM systems, what have you). I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago: http://www.c3associates.com/2007/10/22/a-shift-in-focus-but-open-text-still-a-serious-player-in-ecm/

Regardless, it is an interesting time in the ECM space and I’d say that while SharePoint is definitely a game-changer, the importance of “deep” ECM products like Livelink, EMC Documentum and FileNet has never been greater.

Following my nose through your fine BlogRoll in moments I found myself reading this: “>Customers Pave The Way to ECM’s Future”

“This week at our LiveLinkUp 2007 conference, there’s been a lot of talk about the future of Enterprise Content Management and what exactly it’ll look like over the next few years. [...] The big picture for ECM looks good, as Open Text CEO John Shackleton points out in his blog post earlier this week, in part because more customers are looking at the big picture when thinking about ECM.”

Right. Just so. That.
Keeping the ship afloat is necessarily a prime consideration. But having a capable navigator aboard with a well identified port of call is, well, right up there too!

“Incumbent ECM vendors will very likely continue to have success meeting the needs of organizations with a heavy regulatory requirement to manage their content and also in areas where they own mature vertical markets.”
I can’t disagree, and don’t demean regulatory pressures as motive. But I have to wonder if this doesn’t bode a conservative design philosophy. And I don’t mean conservative in any fine sense.

Are vertical markets “where it’s at”?

I can’t but return again and again to BPM … and BCM, if that fit the bills.

Without meaning to be cryptic here (Flying in stealth-mode gives me plenty of opportunity to be cryptic intentionally!) I have to wonder if ECM of this sort doesn’t amount to lining information silos with brocade.

BTW: I apologize for the fact of my blog being so dusty; over a decade of posting has left me somewhat jaundiced.

–bentrem

p.s. “SharePoint clearly owns the collaborative space and will continue to dominate the desktop.” … how does that affect OpenText, for whom I have always felt an affection that has not ramified to *cough* those behind SharePoint.