EMC’s Upcoming Plans
May 23, 2008
Last year, IBM created InfoPrint. When Ricoh, the Japanese copier outfit, invested, InfoPrint became a $1.2 billion company. The idea is that an organization has informatioin scattered in many different systems. IBM’s InfoPrint would make it possible for an organization to tap into these facts and data, generate an output, which could be a personalized invoice, a benefits statement or a Web page. Viewed one way, InfoPrint is a virtual print shop. Viewed another, it was an IBM play to bring some sort of order to the crazy, poorly-disciplined world of content management of CMS as its cheerleaders say.
Then a Lexington, Kentucky, company called Exstream Software was acquired by Hewlett-Packard earlier this year for $1.2 billion and change. Exstream became part of the HP’s printer unit, and marked a turning point in CMS; namely, the notion of software to produce a Web page became a tiny cog in a giant printing or output machine. The functionality in the HP model shifted from the department to the a meta function.
Optio, an early entrant in this sector, struggled and then found a buyer called Bottomline. And, at the same time Swedish-based segment leader Streamserve found itself smack in the middle of a CMS revolution.
These changes underscore the Balkanized state of information management in most organizations. To fix a big problem, each of these companies offer a big solution.
Will the H-bomb approach to helping workers write, access, and repurpose information work? Probably not, but it certainly means that the CMS vendors have to respond to the sins of their past.
In New York yesterday, I learned that EMC (once a vendor of storage devices) has begun to reposition itself to become a more significant player in a changing and increasingly contentious market.
Here’s a run down of what the storage company will do in 2008, if my source has her ear angled the right way.
First, EMC is going to be a player in the enterprise search market. Even though there are more than 300 vendors in this sector, EMC figures that there’s room for one more company. I’m not so sure because EMC’s archives often pose more challenges than they solve when it comes to finding the specific piece of information in one of EMC’s archives or buried in the bowels of its Documentum CMS.
Second, EMC is going to be a player in the eDiscovery business. Regulated industries have to save and be able to find information in archives. EMC reasons that this is a growing sector. If Autonomy (the number two company in enterprise search) can make a go with its Zantaz eDiscovery unit, EMC can certainly squeeze money from regulated or litigated entities. See my list of more than a dozen companies in this search niche now. EMC will have to find a way to sidestep some specialist companies and the aforementioned Autonomy which is smaller and more than willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
third, EMC is going to jump into the middle of the emerging enterprise publishing sytem market where InfoPrint, Exstream Software, and other player have gained some key sales in the auto industry, insurance, and health care sector. Remember, this is a market created because established CMS vendors like Documentum, Ektron, vignette, and a 100 others have created because their systems were more problemattic than panacea.
To top these ambitious plans off, EMC wants to enter the SaaS or cloud computing market. Cloud computing is an emerging trend. EMC is a company able to build high performance storage systems, but pulling off an Amazon or Google play is going to be an extra challenge for EMC.
You can read more about EMC’s plans for the next 12 months in the Computer Reseller News’ story about the company.
My thought is that EMC will want to set clear priorities and the realities of competing with the likes of IBM, Ricoh, and HP in a sector created largely because CMS sytems have been tarballs.
I think EMC has its work cut out for it. But once again, in today’s financial climate, some managers find it easier to assert that it can provide a one-stop shop for anything that has to do with information. Customers are looking for new solutions, and I think there will be blood on the floor of the conference room and red ink in the company swimming pool for high-tech companies who think their engineers can solve any problem–even the ones their previous software created.
What are your thoughts about the CMS tarballs? Can giants like IBM and HP learn new tricks? Can companies with a core competency in storage transform themselves into cloud-based services companies?
Based on what information I have, EMC will have a tough time delivering in just one sector–for example, enterprise search. Hitting home runs in these other sectors is going to require more than PR puffery.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2008
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