Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Enterprise Applications Offer a Glimpse of Google's Ambitions (Gartner)
Google will introduce communications applications intended for use within enterprises. Service-level agreements, security and support will determine whether these applications will catch on within their target market.
Enterprise Applications Offer a Glimpse of Google's Ambitions (Gartner)
Google will introduce communications applications intended for use within enterprises. Service-level agreements, security and support will determine whether these applications will catch on within their target market.
Monday, August 28, 2006
E-Forms Technology (Line56/PortalsMagazine)
The various benefits of electronic forms; get rid of paper and reap
the benefits
the benefits
Friday, August 25, 2006
IBM erweitert sein Speichersysteme-Portfolio (contentmanager.de)
Neue Turbo-Modelle der IBM System Storage DS8000-Serie und der Enterprise-Class N Series / Höhere Leistung, vereinfachtes System Management und preisattraktive Lösungen
Monday, August 21, 2006
Web Content Management: Tridion Named A Global Content Management Leader By Globalization Research Firm (ECM Connection)
Tridion, a leading global provider of web content management solutions, today announced that Common Sense Advisory Inc., an independent business globalization research and consulting firm, has named it a category leader among web content management (WCM) platforms for global and multilingual support. The report, entitled "Global Content Management Technology: A Buyer’s Guide," listed Tridion as one of the leading global content management technology vendors.
Research firm interviews 16 content management suppliers, provides SWOT assessment for each, and offers best practices, case studies, and technology recommendations for GCM read
Research firm interviews 16 content management suppliers, provides SWOT assessment for each, and offers best practices, case studies, and technology recommendations for GCM read
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The Value-Added Wiki (Line56)
The wiki concept is still new; JotSpot demonstrates one way of adding value
Monday, August 14, 2006
IBM Looks to FileNet Buy for Content, Process and Compliance (Gartner)
By buying its rival in the enterprise content management market, IBM gains content-centric business process management capabilities. We believe IBM's recent acquisitions point to a deeper strategy focused on service-oriented architecture.
The Hidden Flaw in Web 2.0 (FTD)
New-generation web-driven applications make it easy for users to build sites - but also for virus writers to attack. While the technology and tools may bring new freedoms, they also represent virgin territory for virus writers and identity thieves. A dark side to the shiny new world of Web 2.0 is being exposed by virus writers and the internet security companies that counter them. The linked-up, sharing, live-updating melting pot of web technologies that has been dubbed the second version of the web is proving fertile ground for infiltrators seeking to inject malicious code into the mix.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Open Text/Hummingbird Deal May Cause Concern Among Customers (Gartner)
Hummingbird has accepted a takeover bid from its rival Open Text. The deal will change the competitive landscape in the enterprise content management market. Hummingbird customers could face decisions on migration.
Weblog-Marketing: Verschenken Sie Potential? (contentmanager.de)
Schöpfen Sie das Onlinemarketing-Potential Ihres Blogs voll aus? (Gute) Weblogs bieten die besten Voraussetzungen für gute Suchmaschinenpositionen, da sie von anderen Bloggern verlinkt und häufig aktualisiert werden. Hinzu kommt ein suchmaschinenfreundlicher HTML-Code, denn Weblog-Layouts werden in der Regel mittels CSS realisiert – für Suchmaschinen nichts sagende Layoutangaben im HTML-Code werden auf diesem Weg "ausgelagert". Um dauerhaft gute Positionen auch in hart umkämpften Keywordbereichen zu erlangen, bedarf es jedoch ein wenig mehr ...
Thursday, August 10, 2006
IBM Snaps Up FileNet for $1.6B (AMR)
IBM has announced plans to acquire FileNet in an all cash deal valued at $1.6B. The deal is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter of 2006.
FileNet is one of the leaders in the enterprise content management (ECM) market. In business since 1984, FileNet predated the Internet boom and has been vital in helping companies digitize their document-intensive processes. Over the course of time, FileNet has expanded its core document repository capabilities, most prominently promoting business process management (BPM) in recent years.
In the ECM space, IBM has been one of FileNet’s most frequent competitors. While it has made numerous acquisitions related to content management in the past, including a July 2003 acquisition of web content management (WCM) vendor Aptrix and an August 2004 acquisition of content integrator Venetica (see “When Little Acquisitions Mean a Lot: IBM Acquires Venetica”), this is by far IBM’s most significant acquisition. In fact, it’s the most significant event in ECM since EMC acquired Documentum in October 2003 (see “Hindsight on Documentum’s Content Management Leadership; Foresight on EMC’s Direction”).
In IBM’s view, content management is becoming more vital as a component of an enterprise IT strategy to support decision making, information analysis and response, and to address issues like compliance, which encompasses every form of information and documentation an organization employs.
The FileNet side
To some extent, this is a far longer story than people think—one about FileNet finding a buyer—sparked by EMC’s Documentum acquisition.
Like its traditional competitors, FileNet has been under pressure to differentiate itself in a market under serious threat of commoditization, especially with the encroachment of the infrastructure heavyweights, Oracle, Microsoft, and of course, IBM, on its market. While its competitors gobbled each other up by amassing loosely related content management categories, FileNet’s growth has been conservative and organic. With a couple of minor distractions, FileNet kept close to its core document management capability, building its own BPM and records management systems to suit customers’ developing needs.
But the constant pressure to differentiate its products to suit specific customer and industry needs against its behemoth competitors may have been forcing FileNet into less fruitful niches. Undoubtedly, FileNet also found it had to embrace rather than work against new competitors like Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM itself, meaning it had to support various infrastructure platforms.
The IBM side
Despite FileNet’s worthy product developments over the past few years, the acquisition is hardly about technology. With the exception of some industry-specific applications built on the FileNet platform, IBM already has all the technology pieces. The motivation for the move is more likely acquiring customers and gaining a better competitive position relative to the ECM market and the enterprise IT market as a whole.
FileNet has a very strong position within its 4,700 customers, treated as a system of record almost as central to the success of document-intensive organizations and industries—banking, insurance, financial services, government, telecommunications, and utilities—as the ERP backbone. IBM will get these valuable customers.
As for the competitive factors within the ECM market, IBM has increasingly found itself vying for deals against FileNet, EMC, and Open Text on the content management front. Taking on FileNet means taking out one of the competitors and gaining an immediate market share boost—to No. 1 by a considerable distance over EMC and Open Text. Moreover, more customers are establishing company-wide standards on ECM, most often on a provider among many providers that they already use in house. So, IBM ensures that it’s called to the table far more often when such a standards decision happens.
As for the broader market, IBM’s competitive focus is on Oracle and Microsoft, both of which have expressed late interest in the ECM market. Simply put, they all realize that their success depends on being able to manage more of your information, with more of it needing to be managed because of compliance regulations and other concerns, and that more of it is not in databases. Moreover, being treated as a central source of information allows IBM to sell additional products and services, to remain entrenched in the business, and to adapt and respond to market demand as it occurs.
Oracle’s approach to content management was only recently rearticulated when it announced, along with numerous complementary content management partners, its newly positioned Oracle Content Database and Oracle Records Database products. While it’s a more definitive and realistic position in the ECM market than Oracle has ever had before, it won’t likely be aggressive enough in light of IBM’s move. An acquisition—think Open Text, Interwoven, or Vignette—is an even more distinct possibility.
While IBM and Oracle have been battling it out at the database or repository level, Microsoft is working the desktop. Introducing ECM to the masses through the Microsoft Office System, and specifically SharePoint, could be the most compelling angle of all.
The customer side
The most loyal and longstanding FileNet customers may feel a sense of relief, or they may feel a sense of fear. Those most fully invested in FileNet as the backbone for vital business processes, and those that have gone through considerable effort to upgrade to FileNet’s modernized P8 architecture, will undoubtedly be worried about the prospect of a rip and replace. IBM has so far been mum on the topic of product rationalization and consolidation, and we won’t hear about specific plans until after the acquisition is complete.
But to speculate on that topic despite the considerable overlap, IBM won’t likely try to merge the product lines for the foreseeable future. A development effort to combine the products would be too expensive for IBM and too disruptive for customers. In the meantime, both companies’ conformance to emerging content management standards and IBM’s Venetica acquisition (remember—“content integration”) should make integration and extension, rather than rip and replace, the direction for the future.
FileNet is one of the leaders in the enterprise content management (ECM) market. In business since 1984, FileNet predated the Internet boom and has been vital in helping companies digitize their document-intensive processes. Over the course of time, FileNet has expanded its core document repository capabilities, most prominently promoting business process management (BPM) in recent years.
In the ECM space, IBM has been one of FileNet’s most frequent competitors. While it has made numerous acquisitions related to content management in the past, including a July 2003 acquisition of web content management (WCM) vendor Aptrix and an August 2004 acquisition of content integrator Venetica (see “When Little Acquisitions Mean a Lot: IBM Acquires Venetica”), this is by far IBM’s most significant acquisition. In fact, it’s the most significant event in ECM since EMC acquired Documentum in October 2003 (see “Hindsight on Documentum’s Content Management Leadership; Foresight on EMC’s Direction”).
In IBM’s view, content management is becoming more vital as a component of an enterprise IT strategy to support decision making, information analysis and response, and to address issues like compliance, which encompasses every form of information and documentation an organization employs.
The FileNet side
To some extent, this is a far longer story than people think—one about FileNet finding a buyer—sparked by EMC’s Documentum acquisition.
Like its traditional competitors, FileNet has been under pressure to differentiate itself in a market under serious threat of commoditization, especially with the encroachment of the infrastructure heavyweights, Oracle, Microsoft, and of course, IBM, on its market. While its competitors gobbled each other up by amassing loosely related content management categories, FileNet’s growth has been conservative and organic. With a couple of minor distractions, FileNet kept close to its core document management capability, building its own BPM and records management systems to suit customers’ developing needs.
But the constant pressure to differentiate its products to suit specific customer and industry needs against its behemoth competitors may have been forcing FileNet into less fruitful niches. Undoubtedly, FileNet also found it had to embrace rather than work against new competitors like Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM itself, meaning it had to support various infrastructure platforms.
The IBM side
Despite FileNet’s worthy product developments over the past few years, the acquisition is hardly about technology. With the exception of some industry-specific applications built on the FileNet platform, IBM already has all the technology pieces. The motivation for the move is more likely acquiring customers and gaining a better competitive position relative to the ECM market and the enterprise IT market as a whole.
FileNet has a very strong position within its 4,700 customers, treated as a system of record almost as central to the success of document-intensive organizations and industries—banking, insurance, financial services, government, telecommunications, and utilities—as the ERP backbone. IBM will get these valuable customers.
As for the competitive factors within the ECM market, IBM has increasingly found itself vying for deals against FileNet, EMC, and Open Text on the content management front. Taking on FileNet means taking out one of the competitors and gaining an immediate market share boost—to No. 1 by a considerable distance over EMC and Open Text. Moreover, more customers are establishing company-wide standards on ECM, most often on a provider among many providers that they already use in house. So, IBM ensures that it’s called to the table far more often when such a standards decision happens.
As for the broader market, IBM’s competitive focus is on Oracle and Microsoft, both of which have expressed late interest in the ECM market. Simply put, they all realize that their success depends on being able to manage more of your information, with more of it needing to be managed because of compliance regulations and other concerns, and that more of it is not in databases. Moreover, being treated as a central source of information allows IBM to sell additional products and services, to remain entrenched in the business, and to adapt and respond to market demand as it occurs.
Oracle’s approach to content management was only recently rearticulated when it announced, along with numerous complementary content management partners, its newly positioned Oracle Content Database and Oracle Records Database products. While it’s a more definitive and realistic position in the ECM market than Oracle has ever had before, it won’t likely be aggressive enough in light of IBM’s move. An acquisition—think Open Text, Interwoven, or Vignette—is an even more distinct possibility.
While IBM and Oracle have been battling it out at the database or repository level, Microsoft is working the desktop. Introducing ECM to the masses through the Microsoft Office System, and specifically SharePoint, could be the most compelling angle of all.
The customer side
The most loyal and longstanding FileNet customers may feel a sense of relief, or they may feel a sense of fear. Those most fully invested in FileNet as the backbone for vital business processes, and those that have gone through considerable effort to upgrade to FileNet’s modernized P8 architecture, will undoubtedly be worried about the prospect of a rip and replace. IBM has so far been mum on the topic of product rationalization and consolidation, and we won’t hear about specific plans until after the acquisition is complete.
But to speculate on that topic despite the considerable overlap, IBM won’t likely try to merge the product lines for the foreseeable future. A development effort to combine the products would be too expensive for IBM and too disruptive for customers. In the meantime, both companies’ conformance to emerging content management standards and IBM’s Venetica acquisition (remember—“content integration”) should make integration and extension, rather than rip and replace, the direction for the future.
IBM buys FileNet for $1.6bn (FT)
IBM threw down a challenge to database rival Oracle on Thursday with a $1.6bn acquisition that marks its biggest software purchase in three years.
The acquisition of FileNet, a company that sells the content management systems that companies use to capture and manage many different types of digital documents, will also push IBM deeper into the software business at a time when its bigger hardware and services divisions have been struggling to grow.
The deal is set to double IBM’s share of the content management business and put it ahead of current industry leader Documentum, which was bought three years ago by storage company EMC.
Between them, IBM and FileNet accounted for about 18 per cent of the $3.2bn content management business last year, compared with 11 per cent for EMC, according to figures compiled by IDC.
That will put further pressure on Oracle to respond with an acquisition of its own, said Jim Murphy, a research director at AMR Research.
By helping to organise the many different types of “unstructured” data that companies amass, companies such as FileNet have become a critical part of the broader information management software that companies like IBM and Oracle are looking to sell. Shares in Open Text, the largest remaining independent company in the sector, climbed 3 per cent on news of the FileNet acquisition.
While FileNet “does not have any capabilities they don’t already have themselves,” the purchase of a company that last year had total revenues of $423m and net income of $40m will bulk up IBM’s presence in a corner of the software business that is likely to continue to see solid growth, said Mr Murphy.
The acquisition comes at a time when Oracle threatens to overtake IBM as the world’s second-largest software company, thanks to faster growth in its core database business and a string of big acquisitions of its own.
Last year Oracle’s revenues jumped to $14.4bn, while IBM’s revenues from software edged up by 4.4 per cent, to $15.7bn.
Sam Palmisano, IBM’s chief executive, has recently accelerated its push into the infrastructure software and middleware on which large corporate IT systems are built. IBM has made more than 50 software acquisitions in the past 10 years.
By comparison other big hardware companies, moving later than IBM into a business with greater profit and growth potential than their traditional businesses, have responded with more sizeable deals.
HP’s planned acquisition of Mercury Interactive, announced last month, will double its software revenues to around $2bn, putting it among the top dozen software companies, alongside EMC, which has also mounted a series of big purchases.
In the most recent quarter, IBM’s software division accounted for 19 per cent of the group’s overall revenues but 40 per cent of its gross profits.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
The acquisition of FileNet, a company that sells the content management systems that companies use to capture and manage many different types of digital documents, will also push IBM deeper into the software business at a time when its bigger hardware and services divisions have been struggling to grow.
The deal is set to double IBM’s share of the content management business and put it ahead of current industry leader Documentum, which was bought three years ago by storage company EMC.
Between them, IBM and FileNet accounted for about 18 per cent of the $3.2bn content management business last year, compared with 11 per cent for EMC, according to figures compiled by IDC.
That will put further pressure on Oracle to respond with an acquisition of its own, said Jim Murphy, a research director at AMR Research.
By helping to organise the many different types of “unstructured” data that companies amass, companies such as FileNet have become a critical part of the broader information management software that companies like IBM and Oracle are looking to sell. Shares in Open Text, the largest remaining independent company in the sector, climbed 3 per cent on news of the FileNet acquisition.
While FileNet “does not have any capabilities they don’t already have themselves,” the purchase of a company that last year had total revenues of $423m and net income of $40m will bulk up IBM’s presence in a corner of the software business that is likely to continue to see solid growth, said Mr Murphy.
The acquisition comes at a time when Oracle threatens to overtake IBM as the world’s second-largest software company, thanks to faster growth in its core database business and a string of big acquisitions of its own.
Last year Oracle’s revenues jumped to $14.4bn, while IBM’s revenues from software edged up by 4.4 per cent, to $15.7bn.
Sam Palmisano, IBM’s chief executive, has recently accelerated its push into the infrastructure software and middleware on which large corporate IT systems are built. IBM has made more than 50 software acquisitions in the past 10 years.
By comparison other big hardware companies, moving later than IBM into a business with greater profit and growth potential than their traditional businesses, have responded with more sizeable deals.
HP’s planned acquisition of Mercury Interactive, announced last month, will double its software revenues to around $2bn, putting it among the top dozen software companies, alongside EMC, which has also mounted a series of big purchases.
In the most recent quarter, IBM’s software division accounted for 19 per cent of the group’s overall revenues but 40 per cent of its gross profits.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Stellent's Acquisitions Seek to Boost Content Security (Gartner)
SealedMedia and Bitform will provide complementary technologies for Stellent's content management platform. To succeed, Stellent must quickly integrate these with its compliance and Web content and records management applications.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Forbes sells stake to Bono buy-out fund (FT)
The Forbes family has agreed to sell a large minority stake in its media empire to Elevation, the buy-out fund of rock star Bono, in a deal worth about $300m. The move highlights how private investors are seeking bargains in the struggling business of print journalism.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Stellent Makes Acquisitions (Line56)
Addressing metadata security and DRM with acquisitions of SealedMedia and Bitform
Enterprise content management (ECM) company Stellent has acquired SealedMedia and Bitform. SealedMedia's purchase price was $10 million while Bitform went for $1.2 million in cash and $1.3 million in potential incentive-based payments.
Enterprise content management (ECM) company Stellent has acquired SealedMedia and Bitform. SealedMedia's purchase price was $10 million while Bitform went for $1.2 million in cash and $1.3 million in potential incentive-based payments.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Interwoven WorkSite löst bestehende Dokumenten-Management-Lösung ab (contentmanager.de)
Interwoven WorkSite löst bestehende Dokumenten-Management-Lösung ab
Interwoven, Inc. (Nasdaq: IWOV), Anbieter von Enterprise Content Management-Lösungen (ECM) für Unternehmen, zählt die renommierte deutsche Anwaltskanzlei Gleiss Lutz zu seinen neuen Kunden. Die Kanzlei hat die Dokumenten-Management-Lösung Interwoven WorkSite für ihre europaweit sieben Büros erworben, um die Effizienz ihrer täglichen Mandatsarbeit weiter zu erhöhen. Der neue Kunde ist eine der führenden international tätigen Anwaltskanzleien Deutschlands. Mit über 220 Anwälten berät die Kanzlei Unternehmen und Konzerne im In- und Ausland sowie Körperschaften und Institutionen des öffentlichen Rechts.
Die Tätigkeit erstreckt sich auf alle Bereiche des Wirtschaftsrechts. Die Kanzlei verfügt unter anderem über Büros in Berlin, Frankfurt, München und Stuttgart. Seit dem Jahr 2000 hat Gleiss Lutz eine Allianz mit den Top-Kanzleien Herbert Smith LLP in England und Stibbe in den Niederlanden/Belgien. Mit insgesamt 1.500 Anwälten in über 20 Büros in Europa, Asien und den USA arbeiten die Kanzleien in grenzüberschreitenden Mandaten zusammen, vor allem in internationalen Transaktionen, im Banking- und Finance-Bereich sowie bei internationalen Schiedsgerichtsverfahren und Prozessen.
Interwoven, Inc. (Nasdaq: IWOV), Anbieter von Enterprise Content Management-Lösungen (ECM) für Unternehmen, zählt die renommierte deutsche Anwaltskanzlei Gleiss Lutz zu seinen neuen Kunden. Die Kanzlei hat die Dokumenten-Management-Lösung Interwoven WorkSite für ihre europaweit sieben Büros erworben, um die Effizienz ihrer täglichen Mandatsarbeit weiter zu erhöhen. Der neue Kunde ist eine der führenden international tätigen Anwaltskanzleien Deutschlands. Mit über 220 Anwälten berät die Kanzlei Unternehmen und Konzerne im In- und Ausland sowie Körperschaften und Institutionen des öffentlichen Rechts.
Die Tätigkeit erstreckt sich auf alle Bereiche des Wirtschaftsrechts. Die Kanzlei verfügt unter anderem über Büros in Berlin, Frankfurt, München und Stuttgart. Seit dem Jahr 2000 hat Gleiss Lutz eine Allianz mit den Top-Kanzleien Herbert Smith LLP in England und Stibbe in den Niederlanden/Belgien. Mit insgesamt 1.500 Anwälten in über 20 Büros in Europa, Asien und den USA arbeiten die Kanzleien in grenzüberschreitenden Mandaten zusammen, vor allem in internationalen Transaktionen, im Banking- und Finance-Bereich sowie bei internationalen Schiedsgerichtsverfahren und Prozessen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)