EMC Turns a Corner on Content Management

EMC issued the first major refresh of its content
management platform, unifying the various software components to share a common architecture. The release is the first since it acquired content management software provider Documentum for $1.7 billion.

The Content management applications in Documentum 5.3 now share the same code
base, security model, repository, object model and programming
interfaces to
trigger business processes, said Lubor Ptacek, product director for EMC
Documentum.

This represents a shift in the philosophy of enterprise content
management
(ECM), which used to solely determine how files, Web content, and rich
media
were created, stored and distributed. To make this happen, EMC had to
eliminate so-called siloed applications that operated independent of
one
another and replace them with a stack that is interoperable all around.

“Content management is now becoming the ERP of unstructured content,”
Ptacek
said, noting that Documentum 5.3 will be available March 31.

This is consistent with analyst observations that enterprises are
shifting
away from point products in favor of more unified software stacks for
content repositories.

The revised platform differentiates from products from IBM, Interwoven
or
FileNet because those vendors’ architectures still comprise multiple
code
bases, security models, repositories, object models and APIs , he said.

Documentum 5.3 also boasts several new features to help the platform be
more
actionable for users.

Documentum Client for Outlook, a new client interface for Microsoft’s
e-mail
application, lets users access Documentum directly within Outlook.
Documentum Content Transformation Services lets users easily change
desktop
documents and images, audio and video into any compatible content type.
Documentum Collaboration Services lets clients work together on tasks.

5.3 also incorporates a rash of new business process management (BPM)
capabilities to help enterprises orchestrate enterprise resource
management
(ERP) , supply chain management (SCM) and
other
tasks.

Included in this are a business process manager, execution engine,
services
and process connectors to help Documentum BPM products with third-party
applications such as rules engines, simulation environments, and
auditing,
analytics and reporting tools.

New federated search tools allow users to have one access point to
perform
content searches across heterogeneous repositories within or outside
the
enterprise. This includes integration with other competing systems from
FileNet, Open Text and SAP.

Enterprise search is also becoming increasingly important to IBM, which
recently upgraded
its content management tools, spicing them up with its OmniFind
technology.
Big Blue will also refresh its Websphere Information Intrgrator product later this year.