ITR53 PageDocMngSpecialReport 25/9/07 11:43 Page 10
Document Management Special report
<< There has to be technical, market and
operational synergy, not just 29 products
bolted together. Matching the corporate
lifestyle of the buyer is critical now, not
functionality.”
Globalisation factor
Has the growth in globalisation impacted
on the type of relationships DM vendors,
distributors and resellers now have?
Howells points out that traditional DM
vendors began operations in the US, came
to Europe and then APAC. By contrast, he
says, new Internet markets are global from
day one, transforming the type of relationship
vendors have with resellers and distributors,
as market expansion strategies are no
longer tied to hiring sales staff and investing
in regional offices. “This has transformed the
model from a local market creation ‘push’
model to a local demand fulfilment ‘pull’
model, where resellers and distributors are
asked to help with the roll-out of a product work in a more distributed manner, and
already selected,” he said. for them to be conscious of the cost of
Looking ahead
ownership challenges when configuring And what of the future; what are going to
Rowley also believes globalisation has had solutions.” Lastly, Rowley points out, there be the next key developments over the next
a definite effect on DM in a number of key has been an increased focus on delivering decade or so with regard to DM solutions,
areas, driven by: distributed solutions; industry-specific benefits, “which in turn the technology and the way the vendor,
corporate acquisitions; round-the-clock requires more subject matter expertise by distributor and reseller community work
support; shared service models (central the enabling network providers”. together? According to Howells, one key
repositories charging for services to development will be the roll-out of DM from
operating companies in the same group); Continuing on the theme of globalisation, the existing 10 per cent (often back-office)
the increasing prevalence of multi-lingual Abraham added that, in a shrinking world, to the other 90 per cent of enterprise users
development; and the fact that security you can be in New York in six hours and (often front-office staff). “This will be driven
issues have now largely been overcome. some of the major European cities within in a new way, not from major enterprises
“Clearly, most of these factors will affect the a few hours, making it much easier to do to SMBs to consumers, but from mass
consumerisation from the Internet and then
“
into the enterprise,” he said. “This will have
The approach of some ECM vendors has been to acquire
major impact – driving consumer technical
a large shopping basket of applications but with little, if any,
architectures into the enterprise, making
strategy for integration. Any form of product differentiation is
traditional direct sales models difficult to
sustain in all but the largest of software
coming from the open source arena or the web 2.0 arena, with companies.” Howells added that the
wiki, blogs, RSS, tagging and ‘mash-ups’ being distant hopes
boundaries of content will blur and will no
longer be based on external or internal
for ECM vendors based on legacy architecture.” – Dr Ian Howells,
organisational content.
Alfresco Software.
Herr maintains that the market will only have
distribution, reseller and partner chain (enabling business and develop ongoing relationships three big editors in DM, and that they will
network); in particular the requirement for with resellers. He also cited email as well regroup all the required functionalities. When
multi-lingual solution development,” said as web- and video-conferencing the DM market is fully mature, the business
Rowley. “It also requires the enabling technologies as having made it much process management (BPM) will come
network providers to take ownership of easier to do business whilst maximising naturally as the next important step, he
additional skills to ensure their solutions time in the office. believes. “Editors that provide good >>
10 IT RESELLER – SEPTEMBER 2007
www.itrportal.com
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