C3 Associates

Hello from sunny Orlando, Florida. Although the sun it out the temperature is not cooperating, with highs in the low 20’s (that’s about 70 Farenheit for my American friends) which is downright cold for this part of the world.

The keynote address at the opening dinner was by symphony conductor Boris Brott. He gave an interesting talk comparing the way a symphony works together to the way an organization can get into synch enabled by technologies like ECM. If everyone goes their own way it’s chaos, but if everyone works together they can make beautiful music.

The conference itself is interesting for the shift in focus from past years. This year it’s all about Web 2.0. The basic premise is that content enables Web 2.0, but that in a corporate context this content has to be secured and managed throughout its lifecycle. Open Text is developing a series of new tools to enable Web 2.0 in the enterprise including an enhanced Communities module, digital media management and support for mobile devices like iPhones and BlackBerries.

This strategy is not surprising, really. Open Text has to respond to customer requests for Web 2.0-type functionality within the enterprise and they are clearly trying to do that while at the same time trying to stay current with emerging technical and social trends. For customers that are committed to the Open Text stack this approach makes a lot of sense. At the same time, it’s a bit of a confused strategy given the close alignment between Open Text and Microsoft. Support for SharePoint as a front-end social collaboration platform in line with Open Text’s back end repository closely mirrors the direction Open Text outlined today. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, it just adds a bit of complexity into the mix for organizations that have both applications.

The other interesting news is the announcement of the Open Text Developers Network (http://otdn.opentext.com). In my mind anything that can help the development community succeed with Open Text products is a good thing.

I’ll add more tomorrow after John and I attend the detailed roadmapping sessions.

There’s been an interesting convergence of opinion pieces and hard news over the past 24 hours that speak to the future of Enterprise Content Management as we know it. I know that sounds a bit melodramatic but I sense that we’re in the midst of a seismic shift in the way organizations view ECM applications and the way vendors are providing those applications.

Yesterday, Matt Asay of CNet compared the recenty hype about Google’s Chrome browser to the quiet (or maybe not so quiet if you’ve been paying attention to the ECM blogosphere) reality of SharePoint’s massive expansion within the enterprise. His suggestion that Google has a long way to go to grab the attention of corporate IT groups and displace Microsoft is an understatement to say the least. He goes on to say that the trick for Google and others is to focus on interoperability if they have any hope of challenging SharePoint.

Matt is either incredibly astute or just plain lucky because it looks like Microsoft and friends have beaten Google to that punch as well. Today, Microsoft, EMC and IBM, supported by other key ECM vendors including Open Text, Alfresco, SAP and Oracle announced the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard (see also the Yahoo Finance article on this).

At this point in the history of ECM, I think Google Chrome and Google Sites are just noise from an enterprise point of view. Until we see significant adoption in the real world and some acknowledgement from Google that content has a lifecycle, I’m not going to consider Google tools as part of the ECM equation.

And that equation, in my mind, includes both collaboration and control. All true ECM tools enable both but each tool does some things better than others. Traditional ECM applications like Livelink, Documentum and FileNet are very strong when it comes to controlling content but have not been noted for their ease-of-use when it comes to collaboration. SharePoint, on the other hand, is not the first choice amongst the records management community but provides arguably the best enterprise-ready collaboration platform on the market.

Which brings me back to the CMIS Standard.

My first impression about the impact CMIS will have in the ECM market is that it validates what I’ve been saying for a while. SharePoint will not be the video that kills ECM’s radio stars (hands up all you Buggles fans; be honest). CMIS allows organizations to legitimately pursue an “all of the above” ECM strategy and removes any impediments they may have in deploying SharePoint to supplement an existing ECM application. At the same time, traditional ECM vendors will continue to survive and thrive as they support content that requires more rigorous controls.

Ultimately, as the news release announcing the CMIS standard says, this should be all about the customer. Of course we all know that vendors don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts, there’s clearly something in it for them as well. Here’s hoping that the CMIS standard will help break down barriers to successful content management by providing the best of both collaboration and control to the benefit of everyone.

Open Text Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins was featured in an extensive article in the July 21 edition of the Globe and Mail. You can find the article along with an audio interview here.

In addition to several hockey references that underscore the company’s Canadian roots, Jenkins made a couple of interesting comments about the “acquire or be acquired” nature of the software business. Let’s just say he didn’t do anything to dispel the speculation that Open Text will someday be acquired. At the same time, I think he didn’t take enough credit for the good work Open Text has done to become (and remain) Canada’s largest software company. He put a lot of it down to luck and also the ability to operate in relative obscurity due to the overwhelming success of Research in Motion (the makers of the ubiquitous BlackBerry, in case you didn’t know).

In my mind, Open Text has done a good job of positioning its technology to address a growing need while at the same time marketing well. The supposed “threat” to Open Text posed by SharePoint has yet to materialize and as the market comes to better understand how each of the products are positioned it seems even less likely that SharePoint will erode Open Text’s market share. Open Text’s “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” strategy seems to be working. We’re certainly seeing a lot of interest in hybrid solutions (using both Livelink and SharePoint) here in Calgary and I imagine that is likely the case elsewhere as well.