What is an Enterprise Content Management System, or ECMS?
Gartner defines a content management software vendor to be 'Enterprise' when "......they have strong channel partners, a presence in multiple geographies, consistent financial performance, broad platform support, good customer support, and dominate in one or more [content mangement] technologies or vertical markets. They have the ability to deliver a comprehensive ECM suite by owning all six core components and have proven enterprise scalability."
The problem with this definition is a lot of smaller cms vendors dont like it, as its exclusive to them. So you will find phrases like 'Enterprise Document Management System' or 'Enterprise Web Content Management System' being used to try to make sure the buzzword is included in their marketing material.
Its easy to undestand 'why' Gartner created the cut off given the thousands of solutions there are out there - but by the same token its easy to understand why smaller vendors - who dont qualify for the Gartner definition because they have e.g. only one product, or are only present in one or two geograhpical locations - take it upon themselves to apply the word 'Enterprise' to their products.
For the purpose of this discussion the Gartner Quadrant is being used as the core definition - but if your requirements are e.g. not requiring all or a number of the components that qualify a vendor in Gartners consideration, then it would be prudent to look at the vendors that consider themselves to be 'Enterprise level' in one or more of the Content Management types and consider whether they still meet your requirements. Its still hard to see how a WCMS vendor with 100 customers can justify the term 'Enterprise', but if you ask the vendor to explain what they understand under the term, you will at least understand why they feel they qualify - even if you discount that explanation.Gartner ECM Quadrant - the current players.....
At the end of 2008, according to Gartner, this is what the ECMS sector looks like;
ECM in 2008
Source: Gartner Research (September 2008)
You may notice some of the names associated with other IT sectors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle but to a degree the current status is the result of a long path of product evolution, acquisitions and mergers and does not explain what it means to be a so called Enterprise Content Management Vendor or Solution.
In order to understand the difference between straight Content Management and Enterprise Content Management its necessary to take a look at this evolution and history of ECMS.
If you are interested in purchasing the 'Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2008' study then it can be obtained at this address: http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=160668
The immediate future of ECMS
The dominance of the largest ECMS vendors is likely in combination with a downturn in the economy to force a re-shuffle of the CMS industry.
The cherry picking by the big players of the medium players has effectively 'knocked out' the mid market competitors - but in doing so left a vacuum that will allow smaller players to grow and expand in an area that the larger players can potentially no longer compete - and with the downturn, the larger ECMS vendors may have lost their exhaustive ability to purchase any more solutions - and to a degree it makes no sense given it would represent a replication of what they already have - but that does not mean it wont happen - especially if revenue from existing support and maintenance contracts can be purchased at a knock down price.
More likely is that it will result in a second wave of evolving (E)CMS vendors moving into the lower left hand quadrant as a realistic alternative to the big upper quadrant players. In addition in a world where recessionary forces erode an organisations ability to invest the sort of figures that the Enterprise CMS players typically require for their software - the smaller evolving (E)CMS vendor has a very significant role to play and is likely to attract the attention of would be (E)CMS purchasers in a way that would have been less likely in 'fatter times'. CMS Customer prospects are likely to be willing to accept less than the 'best' to match the budgets they have available.
The trick for the larger players is to respond to the market and ensure the smaller budding (E)CMS solutions fail to gain significant traction in their market place.
The history of Gartners Enterprise Content Management Quadrant from 2004
ECM in 2004 - A clear industry definition on what constitutes a true 'Enterprise Content Management system' is something that attracted attention from the analysts a while ago Gartner took the bold step of releasing a new 'magic quadrant', that attempted to define when a solution can be genuinely said to be 'Enterprise' and when it cannot. It would be incorrect to suggest that any one analyst holds an insight that is not shared by other analysts - but the Gartner definition was significant in that it was bold and public - and their conclusions and projections have (more or less) come true.
Source: Gartner Research (October 2004)
One of the first things that was noticeable on the quadrant in 2004 was that whilst some of the names such as Interwoven, Vignette, Stellent, RedDot were 'household' names in the CMS market space - many of the names previously associated with Gartner's earlier 'Magic Quadrants' such as Percussion, Tridion, Media Surface had disappeared. Also striking was that names such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft - who most would consider to the be the software giants - were placed in the lower left quadrant.
Probably the most significant reason for this new ranking was the fact that the Gartner ECM Magic Quadrant (which evaluated 22 vendors) required that a vendor was able to demonstrate that they offer Document Management as a core foundation to their product range. Put another way - of all of the types of 'content management' that exist, Gartner placed particular emphasis on solutions that had a strong DMS capability.
Gartner for its ECM ranking also gave emphasis to those content management companies that "...have the highest combined measures of 'Ability to Execute' and 'Completeness of Vision'". Those solutions that were on the quadrant were those that were "doing well and are prepared for the future with a clearly articulated vision for ECM."
Gartner further defined that "In a content management context, they have strong channel partners, a presence in multiple geographies, consistent financial performance, broad platform support, good customer support, and dominate in one or more technology or vertical markets. They have the ability to deliver a comprehensive ECM suite by owning all six core components and have proven enterprise scalability.
The six ECM components that Gartner reviewed were:
- Document management - check-in/checkout control, version control, security and library services for business documents
- Web Content Management - ability to remove the webmaster bottleneck, managing dynamic content and content authoring, general ease of use
- Records management - ability to comply with legal or regulatory purposes, long-term archiving and automation of retention and compliance policies such as admissibility
- Document capture and document imaging for capturing and managing paper documents - entire scanning process from paper to electronic format
- Document-centric collaboration for document sharing and supporting project teams - including permissions
- Workflow for supporting business processes and routing content, assigning work tasks and states, and creating audit trails of who did what, why, when and how
Maybe not surprisingly, the emphasis placed on being able to show strong DMS capability resulted in the DMS based solutions such as EMC (Documentum), Filenet, Interwoven (having purchased iManage), Hummingbird and Opentext dominating the upper quadrant.
Rather eerily in 2004 Gartner's own research predicted that by 2006, 50% of current 22 ECM vendors they have evaluated will have merged or been acquired and that by the end of 2007 Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SAP will share 50% of ECM revenues.
ECM in 2005
Source: Gartner Research (October 2005)
In essence, leading up to 2005, the ECM market space was marked by 'niche' vendors looking at their own product portfolio and purchasing solutions that extended their Enterprise offering. For example - OpenText purchasing IXOS (including Obtree), Interwoven's purchasing iManage and Hummingbird's purchasing RedDot was characteristic of the 'expansion' amongst the key ECM players.
ECM in 2006 and 2007
Source: Gartner Research (September 2007)
The first six months of 2006 were relatively quiet - possibly as ECM players took time to catch their breath and look at their new solution spread - but just as Gartner predicted - the acquisitions carried on through 2006 and 2007. IBM purchased Filenet. OpenText purchased Hummingbird and RedDot, Oracle purchased Stellent......at the lower end of the market SDL purchased Tridion and MediaSurface purchased Immediacy.
Whilst Gartner only got one of the names correct - they were spot on that 50% of the ECM market would be shared by two vendors. The dominance that IBM (combined with Filenet to take ca. 25% of global ECM revenues) and OpenText (combined with Hummingbird to take ca 20% of global ECM revenues) will enjoy is significant and is likely to force other key players to consider who they might merge with to be able to effectively compete. Whilst nobody doubts the overall sheer size of Microsoft - they do struggle - even with the release of MOSS to achieve the market penetration the others enjoy.
