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Enterprise Content Management: The Breakup of the Industry
I wrote last month that it has been a decade since the term Enterprise Content Management (ECM) was coined by AIIM. The last decade was one of consolidation of ECM software elements into mammoth software suites that are able to ensure that every box is checked from a requirements perspective — think IBM, EMC and Oracle. The problem is that once the scope of software grows to be too large, it is easy to lose focus and the ability to innovate. The market is beginning to fragment again and we are seeing innovation from companies focusing on standard Document Management (DM) and Web Content Management (WCM).
Gartner has just released their annual report on the ECM industry. In that report they note that ECM is fragmenting, but the industry categories that Gartner creates are not the standard ones of ECM component technologies like Scan/Capture, DM and WCM. Instead they recognize the following four areas:
- Transactional content management This includes applications around imaging, workflow, BPM, compliance, eforms and Records Management.
- Social content management This includes document collaboration, markup, annotation, version control, workflow automation, calandering, and integration of social media, like wikis, blogs and videos.
- Online channel optimization Focus on the “web channel” that includes technology like WCM, DAM, portals, XML authoring, rich-media management, social content and collaboration.
- Content management as infrastructure Low-level content management library services embeddable into technology stacks
Gartner’s report found that the ECM market grew 4.8 percent in 2009, a slowdown from earlier years, attributed to the poor showing of the global economy. Total global ECM software license and maintenance revenue came in at $3.5 billion for 2009. WCM is growing rapidly in its total percentage of the ECM market, reaching 30 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The prediction is that ECM sales will begin to pick up. Gartner is predicting 10.1 percent compound annual growth through 2014, and the return to higher sales is expected to be seen in the sales results for 2010. ECM software revenue is expected to exceed $5.7 billion by 2014.
