The Camel ECM Suite - Comment on Autonomy Acquisition of Interwoven
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 wither.
When companies pay large amounts for an acquisition they need to get a return on their investment and it is the customer (existing or new) that pays. The customers typically suffers either through:
- Higher license prices
- Higher maintenance costs
- Higher integration costs
- Lower customer service as key people leave
- or paying for support and maintenance on a product that is on life support with little investment
This is in contrast to an ECM industry that is going through:
- Commoditization - Driven primarily by Open Source in the ECM space
- Standardization - Driven by new standards such as CMIS
- Consumerization - Driven by simple mass market social computing interfaces
- Dramatic Cost Reduction - Publicly verifiable figures show this to be in the range of 89% to 96%
As I have previously written, the open source model operates at a dramatically lower cost and thrives in blue oceans where vendors such as Interwoven have been too complex and expensive. Websites don’t live forever. Many of our customers are existing Interwoven and Vignette customers who have chosen to build new sites on Alfresco and gradually move away from the legacy proprietary vendor. The new world is a heterogeneous one where users choose what is most appropriate for each project.
In acquisition situations such as this customers are taking a big risk staying with an ECM Camel. What products will exist in 6 to 12 months time. Which will be on life-support. Which ones will be in the process of being integrated. Even those that are being integrated come at a cost. A focus in integration means a long wait and a new version with no new functionality that is often less stable than the old version.
Interwoven was a good product in its day and to keep using the analogy a racehorse. Customers need to think about if they want a camel or to move to a modern racehorse that is very different to the one of the 1990’s.
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.
The Credit Crunch and acquisitions such as this make people stand back and think as opposed to just doing business as usual.
The blue ocean just got bigger and the flood gates are opening.
Welcome to a world of:
- Choice
- No Tie-In
- Standards
- Simplicity
- Dramatically Lower Cost
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Tags: Acquisition, alfresco, autonomy, Credit Crunch, interwoven, Open Source
