Enterprise Content Management vendor Interwoven [1] took a leap into e-Discovery this week when it purchased e-Discovery vendor Discovery Mining [2] for $36 million. Discovery Mining tackles e-Discovery tasks using a software as a service (SaaS) model. If Forrester Research market growth estimates cited in an eWeek article on the purchase are accurate, the e-Discovery market is expected to grow to $4.89 billion by 2011, up from $1.45 billion in 2006. Given those numbers, it's hardly surprising to see Interwoven looking for a key player in this space that could give it a foothold in this growing market segment.

Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed back in 2002, it has been a critical focus area for many content management vendors because its provisions require careful maintenance of electronic records. That means if a company is called upon by a government audit, or as part of a litigation to produce or review electronic records, it needs to be able to process huge volumes of electronic records to locate key bits of information required by the requesting party. This purchase should complement Interwoven's existing RecordsManager [3] quite nicely, giving them the ability to not only manage and maintain electronic records, but also to retrieve information quickly from the records repository when called upon to do so.

For more on Interwoven's purchase:
- check out eWeek's article [4]