Open Text Unveils Industry’s First Records Management and Archiving Services for Microsoft’s Cloud Storage

I had missed this announcement last week. OpenText expands its Enterprise Library Services into ‘the cloud’ with a solution based on Windows Azure :

… The Right Combination in a Tough Economy to Address Growing Compliance Demands; Customers Can Control Risks, Manage Compliance for Content While Gaining the Cost Benefits of Cloud Storage: No Infrastructure Investment and Rapid Implementation

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference - 2008-10-27 - Open Text™ Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), a global leader in enterprise content management (ECM), said today it is unveiling first-of-its-kind records management and archiving capabilities for Microsoft’s new cloud-based operating system Windows® Azure™, which Microsoft announced today at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Open Text will incorporate these cloud-based capabilities into its Enterprise Library Services offering early next year. Enterprise Library Services is one of a series of software services from Open Text that let customers integrate and extend ECM technology across their organizations (http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=1948).
With the new capabilities, customers will be able to manage Microsoft SharePoint content, Microsoft Outlook email and other business information they want to store on Windows Azure, allowing them to apply records rules, archive content, and address compliance mandates. The new services will give customers the integrated records management and archiving capabilities they need to better leverage cloud-based services, while avoiding the high costs of maintaining their own storage infrastructure. Open Text, the industry’s largest independent ECM vendor, is uniquely positioned to offer this solution as the company’s ECM solutions are storage agnostic …

Source: http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=2128

Forrester: SharePoint Shoots For The Cloud

Forrester has a good piece on SharePoint Online. A solution that will fuel the growth of SharePoint tremendously in the coming years …

When is SharePoint not like SharePoint? When it's SharePoint Online, part of Microsoft's recently announced Microsoft Online Services offering. Unlike Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 — a full-blown collaboration platform with collaboration, content management, business intelligence, portal, search, and application development facilities — SharePoint Online offers only basic collaboration capabilities.

That said, SharePoint Online could be perfect for your organization. If your organization is looking for commoditized collaboration and business content management services, then take a close look at SharePoint Online.

Alternatively, if you're looking to build differentiated solutions for knowledge workers, then consider taking the full MOSS plunge. To assess which offering best fits you, start by mapping your requirements using Forrester's research on IT archetypes.

Source: SharePoint Shoots For The Cloud

Forrester: Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move

Open Text has acquired eMotion, a SaaS based Digital Asset Management solution. Combined with the OPenText platform a good Software + Services example I would say …

… Open Text announced late last week that it has acquired eMotion, a software-as-a-service digital asset management (DAM) product, from Corbis. Open Text plans to rebrand eMotion as Artesia on Demand for Marketing, complementing its full-featured, installed Artesia DAM product.

This move into SaaS DAM is a smart move by Open Text. The installed version of Artesia has a reputation as one of the top DAM solutions out there, but its functionality and price tag may be daunting for those organizations just starting to dip their toes into the DAM waters. Some enterprises don't have the need for some of the high-end functionality - management of broadcast-quality video, for example - that "Classic Artesia" offers. Instead, many enterprises exploring DAM want to use it to manage rich media assets for use in the online channel. …

Source: Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move

Siberlogic Announces SaaS Version of SiberSafe

COntent Management vendor SiberLogic is also entering the SaaS arena :

SiberLogic recently announced a SaaS version of their component content management system, SiberSafe On-Demand. This brings to three the SaaS options in this market. DocZone.com was the first to announce their product, DocZone, which is only offered as a hosted service. Astoria Software was the second with their move from client-server to hosted with Astoria On-Demand.

The availability of SaaS options is a welcome sight in the component content management space. Often the customers that need CCM the most do not have the budget or the technical resources required to support a client-server product. SaaS is particularly appealing to global teams with global content because it can facilitate 24x7 access and translation linkages.

The SiberSafe product has been one of the few lower-cost solutions in this space, and a SaaS alternative presumably makes it even more affordable, but the effectiveness of any hosted offering is also heavily dependent on customer service, not one of SiberLogic's strength in the past...

Source: Siberlogic Announces SaaS Version of SiberSafe
rockley@rockley.com(Ann Rockley)
Date Published: Fri, 18 Jan 2008

One Collaboration Platform to Rule Them All?

Cathing up on some news of earlier this month.

CMSWire published an article quoting some of the findings from a recent report by Osterman Research. Let's go straight to the quotes ...

... SharePoint is a big topic these days. With the release of SharePoint Server 2007, analysts everywhere are trying to get a grasp on its reach into the enterprise and the issues surrounding its implementation.

According to the latest from Osterman Research, SharePoint is becoming the de facto collaboration platform for many organizations today. ...

Strong confirmation on the uptake of SharePoint ...

... The Osterman study sought to determine trends in the use of SharePoint over the next 12 months. Results of the study indicate that in organizations that deployed Microsoft Exchange, more than half are currently using SharePoint and 12 percent plan to deploy it in the next 12 months.

The number of organizations that employ SharePoint for mission-critical applications is less than 20 percent, a figure expected to double over the next year. Meanwhile, the number of SharePoint applications will quadruple. ...

Good detail on the level of application into 'mission-critical' area's and a strong confirmation of the level of trust companies have with regards to SharePoint, as the mission critical application of SharePoint will double over the next year ...

... The study also noted that most deployments are hosted by third-party hosting providers. Organizations for the most part don’t have plans in place for hosting SharePoint applications. ...

This is one I didn't expect to be the case already. The fact that the majority of the surveyed companies uses a hosted SharePoint environment shows also a high level of confidence in the partner ecosystem around the Microsoft platform and in hosted (SaaS) solutions ...

... To many IT managers, implementing SharePoint is a no-brainer. ..

... At the end of the day, SharePoint is still a lot cheaper than many other enterprise CMS systems. Thus it makes sense that organizations want to take advantage of it for content management and collaboration.

However, with great power comes great responsibility.

Organizations looking to implement SharePoint just need to remember this one word: governance. It’s not a big word, but it carries a big stick. ...

Be sure to read the whole article for the full perspective : CMSWire.com