From sausage to splat- Gartner's ECM 2008 MQ update

Last time I wrote about the Gartner ECM MQ I commented that the 2007 MQ view resembled that of a sausage with the way the vendors were spread from the bottom left to the top right. Well now that the September 2008 release has been put out I have to say it now looks like a splat !

So what has changed in significance?

The top right quadrant (Leaders Quadrant)

• Microsoft has arrived in the leaders quadrant, any surprises here!
• IBM and EMC and OpenText are curling back to the left so is there a stall here, or more like a market realignment?
• Oracle has risen up in the leaders quadrant, seeming to make good head way after the Stellent re brand.

In the top left (Challenger Quadrant)

• Hyland once nearly smack, bang in the middle has drifted to the left but remains in the challengers quadrant.

In the bottom right (Visionary Quadrant)

• Interwoven seems stable and near to breaking the top right line
• Vignette has drifted back to the left and is close to entering the niche quadrant

In the bottom left (Niche players)

• Alfresco has entered the quadrant, welcome and well done for Open Source
• Other players seem to be grouping together for a conference of some sort
• Tower Software has become HP
• Objective has drifted further to the left

Overall the sausage has become a vendor splat onto the MQ quadrant and next round is going to be interesting as to where some of the players move too looking at the current moves.

Don't forget to execute

In a previous post "Plan, plan, plan then execute" I stressed the importance of planning, and that is correct.

But what often happens is that the the execute part of the plan gets left out, becuase people stop at the end of the plan, consequence, little or no execution to make the plan a reality. After all why have a plan if you are not going to execute it in the first place.

In the strategy world it is often said that a bad plan executed well has better sucess than a great plan not executed at all. Execution is all about having the right direction as indicated by the plan and then adjusting according to weather conditions on the way to the destination.


Like sailing there are times when you must tack like crazy just to get a few yards up the line and in other areas you are blasting ahead with a downwind stream behind you. What really matters is that you keep making decisions (execution) along the way to ensure that you are headed towards the goal that you have set.

Now back to the linking blog. Why were Justain & James successful? Not only did they have a plan but they executed sucessfully by making decisions to compensate for the unknowns, keeping the end goal in mind. Outcome, sucess.

Leverage Momentum

The US Elections have been and are still quite topical. What was the result, sweeping change to the government from the Republicans to the Democrats. Barack Obama on his victory night speech invoked the picture of lines and lines of people, thereby creating an illusion that the voter turnout was massive towards the change mantra that had been preached over the campaign. To quote from his victory speech.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in
numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four
hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this
time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

Listening to the victory speech made we want to check the inside messaging of the statement.

Was it massive voter turnout? NO; Total voter turnout was 60% of total voters up 3% from the previous election in 2004, and the increase is in line with the general increasing trend of participating voters showing a steady increasing trend from '96 when it was 49% of total voters. So this is a trend of +4% per election over 12 years.

Yes, there were more registered voters this time, but that is also line with general population increase and the general trend of registrations.

Was it total dissatisfaction (excluding President Bush's personal ratings)? NOT NECESSARILY., as there was only 53% to 46% in the popular vote total, a gap of only 7% in the end result. The electoral votes are a winner takes all, but in some states the individual races were very close indeed.

What made a difference was the mood for change. The Democratic party identified this an galvanised people to action, leveraging the mood for change. They managed to gain the precious percentage over and above the registered party core to win through.

Along with the change message there was the defining figure of Barack Obama. Change became personalised, a history making event and therefore more real, more personal. Momentum began to build more and became defined in the person of Barack Obama.

Then on top of this was the availability of funds for ad spending and airtime. In reviewing the numbers I see that the Democrats had roughly a 2:1 ratio in funds to put into the overall campaign. In Florida alone the Democrat's spent somewhere around $24M to the Republicans $9M, go figure that, great marketing.

So to sum up, the thoughts here are that there was a momentum for change, a defining figure to attach to and that momentum was leveraged through solid marketing to ensure achievement of success.

There are some lessons that we can learn here for our ECM projects.

1. Find the mood for change (the compelling event)
2. Place the right leader in front to make the change personal
3. Leverage the Momentum through marketing and messaging for example "Yes we can" Change you can believe in"

And don't forget that a little extra funding does help to move things along. I am sure that now the campaign is over and the victory won that reality will hit home. All the best Mr President-elect.

Microsoft Sure with Azure?

Microsoft broadens the "Software + Services" play with the Azure platform pitch. What's this all about? Well the Azure services platform is, and I quote from the Microsoft site:

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

This set of hosted services provides a "cloud platform" that developers and users can consume to quickly deliver solutions either, stand alone or as part of a hybrid application that may have some of the services on the inside of the firewall.

I find this positioning from Microsoft interesting. One would say that Microsoft are just trying to counter the Google effect. However, if you look into the Microsoft past as a fast follower, you would more likely say that they have seen SaaS as a viable market play and are now moving to dominate or at least re brand the market in their favour. I have seen before that when Microsoft see an opening they are quick to move and look to dominate within a three year period where possible.

Will this happen? Time will tell.