FileNet: An Agile CMS with Search and More?
October 4, 2010
We have been working on a new Web log. The reason I listened to the Floss podcast about the open source content management framework Plone was to get a sense of the threat open source content management systems (CMS) pose to big outfits like IBM. IBM and its ilk assert that their software is really a platform, a framework, an architecture. I am not 100 percent convinced.
What makes IBM interesting is that the company has already shifted from its raft of home grown and partner search solutions to open source search. The last time I poked around the innards of OmniFind 9.x, it looked like Lucene, walked like Lucene, and said open source like Lucene. I, canny goose that I am, concluded that OmniFind was open source.
Would it remain open source? Would IBM pull an Oracle Java “move”, allowing lawyers to be innovators? Would those folks who paid big bucks for the FileNet system that once snarfed down paper checks for at least one bank with which I worked be stuck with a big dinosaur?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I can summarize – before I forget them – the points that I captured in a short discussion I had with a client last week. Summer is sure over. Lots of 30 year olds seem to be coming to the goose pond for what I told the president of MarkLogic was a consultation with the goose-ru. I am not a guru, of course.
The points:
First, the current IBM description of FileNet says here that:
FileNet® P8 Platform is a next-generation, unified enterprise foundation for the integrated FileNet P8 products. It combines the enterprise content management reference architecture with comprehensive business process management and compliance capabilities. FileNet P8 addresses the most demanding compliance, content and process management needs for your entire organization. It is a key element in creating an agile, adaptable ECM environment necessary to support a dynamic organization that must respond quickly to change. Agile ECM solutions using IBM technologies bring together capabilities for process management, content management, regulatory compliance and legal discovery. [Emphasis added]
The summary is quite comprehensive. One point omitted from this Web page is the fact that FileNet dates from 1982. My math is not too good, but I think that is more than 20 years ago. As a result, I wondered about the reference to “agile.” At age 66, I am not agile, and I am not sure that two decade old software is as spry as the Plone team’s product. Just my preliminary opinion, gentle reader. Your opinion may differ.
From the Red Book. I suppose one could describe this as an agility engine. Notice the components and the dependence on the tough and expensive to scale traditional RDBMS. Copyright IBM 2010.
Second, FileNet was an early Brainware. The idea was to suck in paper, allow the trained FileNet specialists to monitor the system, and then output reports. My first exposure to FileNet was at a check clearing operation in Manhattan. Lots of people worked from sundown to sunrise processing paper checks. When the math no longer worked, that bank shipped the work first to Puerto Rico and then to Asia. I think the bank went south, sunk in part by financial managers’ acrobatics and the economic downturn. There is a lot of money to be made is manipulating paper documents. The Brainware twist, as well as other 21st century solutions, is to manipulate paper and digital content and make the results useful within a work flow. Brainware’s method relies on its trigram technology. I am not sure whether the heart of a 1982 architecture beats deep within the FileNet construct, but my hunch is that change comes slowly to large systems nurtured in the IBM $100 billion in revenue environment. My last check on Brainware revealed that Oracle, one of IBM’s competitors, has been relying on Brainware for some paper and data tricks. One rumor which I will try to substantiate when I meet with an informed source on October 12, 2010, is that Brainware and Oracle have been winning sales from IBM FileNet. If so, will Oracle put on the pressure? Will IBM be able to spiff up a 20 year old system? I don’t know.
Third, my recollection is that FileNet has become an umbrella product for IBM. The original FileNet is probably still remembered with some fondness, but today FileNet touches upon technologies rolled into FileNet before IBM paid $1.6 billion for the company in 2006. The various technologies within the FileNet wrapper include /.MS, search, and almost anything one would require to build a complete information platform. If you want to dig into the product, download the 300 page Redbook.
You can also sign on for services, which seems to be the reason agile FileNet exists in my opinion:
- Content Manager OnDemand Conversion Services
- Disaster Recovery Services
- FileNet P8 Conversion Services
- FileNet Report Manager Conversion Services
- Health Check Services
- Media Migration Services
- Mobius to Content Manager OnDemand Conversion Services
- Packaged Implementation Services
- Platform Conversion Services
- Remote System Administration
- System Management Services
- Transition Services.
Now some questions:
- With a system as “agile” and extensible, why did IBM sign on a bunch of CMS partners. One example was Documentum, which is now owned by rival EMC. i recall that there were some exciting deployment activities with an IBM Documentum system when I was poking around the US Senate. But why sign on for another super complex, aging CMS when FileNet was tan, ready, and rested, just like Nixon in one of his election bids?
- Why would IBM be sort of open source in search and proprietary in the core platform? There is a modern framework available; for example Plone? IBM dumped proprietary search, so won’t IBM dump FileNet? What’s good for the search goose should be good for the CMS gander.
- With the revenue for FileNet focused on services, particularly migration and conversion services, isn’t there more revenue to be had by swapping in a more modern system and then charging to move customers off the 20 year old FileNet platform and then selling more Web savvy, cloud centric, and flexible solutions?
I think this product will be interesting to watch for three reasons:
First, the Brainware success is going to inspire other companies to go after these hugely complex, expensive legacy systems. I think with CMS is not just disarray but full scale marginalization, the sector will undergo some additional change.
Second, I think that under the present financial pressure, IBM is going to turn up the heat on the lucky MBA who is supposed to grow the FileNet revenue. That will be a fun job and one that a 66 year old goose will find interesting to observe. Big information technology is a concept under scrutiny, and I think the IBM business unit with this product will be subject to some media attention, particularly in the banking and financial services trade press and blogs.
Third, the age of systems positioned as agile strikes me as the product of a marketing sensibility better tuned to writing about the troubles at Digg.com and Yahoo.com. But if IBM says, FileNet is agile, it has more than one billion reasons to tell that story.
To sum up, hello, Plume, Squiz, and the dozen other open source solutions. Maybe IBM should just buy Brainware and try again? Obviously there will be English majors, second and third tier consultants (the azurini), and probably journalist involved in FileNet’s battle against open source CMS. Today Plone looks good to me, however. And when I think of a framework for today’s information challenges, I am not sure that IBM or any of the other brand name enterprise vendors have what customers want: low cost, flexibility, and painless scaling.
Agile! Amazing.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2010
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The author writes “the fact that FileNet dates from 1982” and goes on to use this to suggest that FileNet is an old product. It is probably worth noting that FileNet used to be a company, now part of IBM, but it has released multiple products and upgrades over this period. The FileNet P8 is a very different product to that was released is early 80s.
Based on the above, I am not sure how accurate and/or helpful this article is to anyone thinking of comparing the commercial and open source products.