Intermittent Postings coming up

Hi all who may be tuning in, I am currently travelling with my family through the US and therefore will be very intermittent in posting until the 4th August. I guess the shakes will happen and I will seek in a few post here and there along the way. See ya all soon

ECM - MOSS 2007 compared to ECM components

Some posts ago I outlined my view of the ECM core components that make up an ECM product set, with a set of explanations as well.

I posed these components as a mixture of product features and supporting services. So in this post I am going to make a "subjective" assessment of MOSS 2007 and how it compares to the ECM core components.

This assessment is based in a New Zealand view, especially around things like records management. It is an "out the box assessment" So belt up folks, here we go.

You need to realise that this is not a WSS 3.0 comparison, but a MOSS 2007 (read Enterprise version) comparison against the ECM core components that I have outlined.

Now for some commentary / justification! Let's start with the obvious strengths areas for MOSS 2007.

• Collaboration - Out of the box you get great collaboration features to share documents and get people working together in a unified collaboration workspace. Combine this with blogs, wikis and other social networking / collaboration tools and MOSS provides a great "high value" low cost Portal for getting going in Collaboration


• Web Content Management - MOSS 2007 handles web content as part of the platform. There has been quite a change from the 2003 model with integration of the WCM from CMS 2002 into the overall MOSS 2007 platform. With some planning you can now deploy Portal / Intranet and Internet content directly off the same platform base.


• Document Management - With the introduction of Content Types, two stage recycle bin and a slew of other features Microsoft has finally made it to real time document management. While some vendors may say that they have only"just" arrived, Microsoft has certainly arrived in style. Combined with Office 2007 you get very good integration at the Office interface, especially with the Info panel view at the top of the Word document.
  
• Forms Management - With the Enterprise MOSS you get the capability to publish forms that can be deployed to a client web browser. Combined with workflow and some custom code you can develop and deploy forms based workflow solutions that meet most requirements in day to day business activities.

Here is NZ Collaboration, Web and Forms are driving technology adoption of MOSS 2007. Implementations are manifesting in the form of Intranet Portal and Web Content Management (WCM) projects. My company's own website http://www.gen-i.co.nz/ is a representation of the WCM side of MOSS 2007 deployment.

Document management is an out of the box strength, but generally we are only seeing this being implemented as part of the overall collaboration space, except for some work that we are doing internally around our own systems of how we manage document control for various business functions, such as customer data and the sales and bid processes.

Forms that can be delivered through the web are fantastic, but will only become as useful as the workflow that can be built behind it. While there are business user tools in the form of SharePoint Designer this does not go as far as other workflow "out-of-the-box" visual build features.

So forms gets a big 100% but business process management really requires some help to get going, hence the 60% assessment against the component area here. There are currently a number of companies out that that provide this value in a very cost effective way. We are seeing these staring to be adopted by customers as a "value add" to the overall platform.

The other areas that are marked as a more than 60% are marked thus because there is more required to get the overall solution together. Now some of the these are specific to down under, especially in the records management area where we have a different lifecycle view on records management. To quickly explain the rating here is my explanation:

• Records management - There are core records management features that are delivered and this is a great move by Microsoft. There are some pieces that were missing out of the box, namely visible numbering patterns, record relationships and classification construction, (see also classification with search). There has been a DoD pack that has been built to add on to Microsoft and this has been released as both an installable pack and MSDN developer features that can be used as part of an overall development. Here in NZ and AUS we are staring to see ISV's building on top of the MOSS platform to create added value records management solutions building on what Microsoft has delivered.

• Classification and Search - First a confession. Grouping classification and search together in some ways is not fair to the capabilities of Search by itself. But generally the two are combined together so given these two Microsoft only get a greater than 60% rating. Why? Well it's mainly because of the classification part. Out of the Box there is little or no capability to create classification structures.

• Archival and Storage - All content in the MOSS platform is stored in the SQL Database. IF you want some form of secondary storage and archiving you will need to go looking for 3rd party add ons. This is where there is a big opportunity for the pure play ECM vendors to step in and let you know why you should be working with them in combination with MOSS as a platform. Or if you are looking for a more pure archive and storage option there are players such as Symantec Enterprise Vault, Autonomy Zantaz and Commvault Data Archiver that can assist.

• E-mail management - MOSS provides some basic e-mail management out of the box, but goes and does things like storing the e-mail message in a non MSG format. While they have probably attempted to keep the format open for storage it takes away some of the fidelity of being able to open up and forward or reply off the archived e-mail if necessary. Partners such as Colligo Contributor are a good fit to get the e-mail into SharePoint, plus pulls SharePoint list and other functions directly into the Outlook UI.

• Process management - Here is where we are looking to go beyond just a workflow type activity and get into system to system process management. Enter Biztalk if you are wanting to get serious around long running inter system process management. There is much that you can do with the Workflow foundation (WF) to get going but if you start trying to build out too much stop and consider the options that are available. In the workflow space there are a couple of good options to round out the Microsoft WF, these are Nintex and K2.

So there it is folks a purely subjective assessment of the MOSS 2007 platform against the Core ECM Components. Overall assessment is that you get a great set of features out of the box, and if you combine these with some cost effective partner products you are well on the way to getting the right ECM technology in place to support your overall ECM programme.

But remember technology is only one third of the overall ECM solution, and I regard it as the bottom third, so get planning and get on with the business alignment and change management before setup.exe takes hold.

ECM What does consolidation mean for customers?

Consolidation has been happening in the ECM marketplace for some time now. In a previous post I looked at the Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM over a period of years to see how things had progressed and who was still on and who was off the radar.

If you are interested in this post called Quadrants, consolidation and sausages. Following on from this previous blog entry, I have been wondering what consolidation means for customers? Well here are a couple of thoughts on the situation.

On the positive side vendor consolidation creates a greater opportunity for software to broaden out for the customer, that is, if the vendor is an innovation focused company. Acquisition of smaller companies by a larger one allow the acquiring company to rapidly assimilate innovation and deliver new value through synergy with their existing technology. This creates a 1+1=3 offering for customers, and provides some longevity to the company that has acquired the innovation. Alas this perfection is not always reality.

On the negative side acquisition can also stifle innovation as the big fish gobble up smaller more innovative players, possibly as a blocking play to consolidate their position. Maintenance revenues for these vendors are a large and certain thing, especially when you have a massive target to make, you need to fill up the yearly quota with consistent and repeatable revenue. Often the mantra of management is "no disruption", "no bugs"so that customers are happy and pay out the cheques.

Hopefully there are not too many companies that take this attitude, but have a more balanced outlook and acquire for the betterment of the customer base, to increase their competitive advantage and to drive greater value of product functionality and ease of use for the customer.

After all it is for the customers benefit that we are building all this stuff anyway? Which camp is your vendor in, ask some questions and find out. Be sure not to ask too close to an end of quarter cycle!