The Camel ECM Suite

January 22, 2009

Comment on Autonomy Acquisition of Interwoven

Posted by: Ian Howells

There is a common phrase “a camel is a horse designed by a committee”. Well if that is the case an ECM camel is a suite built through acquisition. The problem is that you get an extra hump you don’t need or worse still two humps that do the same thing and one hump has to go.

On a more serious note the last decade has shown us that when ECM companies expand their suite, new products either take a long time to get integrated or never do. Overlapping products become orphan children starved of resource and left to die.

In the old days customers bought an ECM suite because it was too hard to integrate multiple repositories. The reality was that these complex suites were only suitable for a small minority of users and were too costly to rollout widely.

What the last few years has show us is that multiple systems can be mashed up on the web. CMIS, which is set to become the SQL for content management, will make it dramatically easier to write an application that will run across multiple content management systems from multiple vendors.

This will allow companies to choose what system is most appropriate for each project and make dramatic savings, up to 96% and not be forced to use a camel ECM suits for all projects.

Autonomy adding Interwoven for Governance and Risk Compliance makes sense when adding the WorkSite product which is strong in the legal sector. But what about the Digital Asset Management and Web Content Management humps? Also, what about the two humps of WorkSite and Meridio.

Open source provides another way. It has a foundation of using standards and integrating components. Interwoven users may find it easier to migrate to an open source system than stay with their newly found camel or migrate to an alternative proprietary hump.

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