Mare Nostrum

ECM DOA

Today, I'm at the Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration Summit. (Say that three times fast.) Two Gartner analysts, Toby Bell and Kennet Chin, have made a bold statement: ECM is dead.

What does that mean? Well, it's not that there isn't a place for tools to run big, complex web sites, or high-end DM tools. However, enterprise content management has never been able to expand to either involve or control everyone in the organization. In that sense, enterprise content management--CM by and for the enterprise--hasn't succeeded. In fact, it hasn't really ever gotten off the ground.

Well, heck, who am I to argue with that? Basic content services--content management for the masses--doesn't move from the complex to the simple. It moves fromthe very simple to the somewhat more complex. In other words, it's tough for ECM vendors to prine their technology down to become basic content services tools. On the other hand, it's possible to build from the simpler tools--file management, e-mail, chat, etc.--to more complex rules and processes.

I've often half-jokingly called this process "The Stairway to Heaven." (Yes, I am a Zep fan.) The first step is what people do for themselves, or to work easily with their most immediate collaborators. Once you've made people happy with those tools and processes, you can start adding new functionality, restrictions, content, you name it--as long as you don't stray immediately from what people already know and embrace. In other words, you can't go from 0 MPH to ISO 17799 compliance in 6.0 seconds.

There will always be a role for ECM. As a BCS vendor, we still need to co-exist with ECM systems already deployed. However, ECM today looks a lot like ECM several years ago--and that picture isn't likely to change. People still need to manage content--which is why organizations will invest in BCS.

I used to have a pair of model tanks on my desk to make this point. Both were used in WWII; each represented a different design philosophy. The American M4 Sherman was simple and reliable. The German Panzerkampfwagen VI ("Tiger") was powerful, but prone to breakdown, and consumed fuel and spare parts at a furious rate. Which tank would you buy? For most jobs, the Sherman. For a few jobs, the Tiger. That distinction is a lot like the dividing line between BCS and ECM today. (And who won the war?)