Gartner

Could the dearth of mid-market vendors stunt DAM growth?

Ron Miller — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:36:28 -0500

In a recent report, covered in our article, "Gartner expects DAM explosion in coming years," Gartner predicted big growth for digital asset management vendors due in large part to the explosion of video content in the enterprise. But just this week CMS Watch released a new DAM report and warned that the absence of mid-market vendors could hurt growth as companies look for reasonably priced solutions in tough economic times.

According to Theresa Regli, principal DAM analyst at CMS Watch and one of the authors of The Digital & Media Asset Management Report 2009, there are lots of options for small work groups in the $2000-$5000 range, but beyond that the price jumps considerably to $150,000-$200,000. (All prices are in US dollars). Regli says there really aren't many choices in between and this could be an issue, especially this year. "This situation is a serious problem for buyers who need more from their DAM system than a simple digital archive, but don't have six-figure budgets."

One area where you might find a lower cost solution is with an open source product like Razuna. While it's not clear Razuna could scale to meet the needs of an enterprise customer, it might be worth a look to find out. Further, Regli does point out that some traditionally higher-priced vendors like Open Text Artesia are now offering hosted solutions. It should be interesting to watch this year and see if this ends up stunting the growth predictions or if vendors will move to add more reasonably priced solutions to stimulate sales.

For more information:
- read the press release

Gartner expects DAM explosion in coming years

Ron Miller — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:42:35 -0500

Gartner released a report this week predicting explosive growth in digital asset management (DAM) tools in 2009 and beyond. The growth will be fueled by the increased use of video in the enterprise. In fact, the report predicts that by 2013 as much as 25 percent of content users see in a day will not be text documents, but audio, video or images.

The video will come from a variety of sources, including customers who submit videos to their company website. Whit Andrews, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, says that if companies don't provide video services, they risk alienating customers looking for such interactions. Not coincidentally, Gartner surveyed 800 companies last summer and found that managing multimedia content, video, audio and images, "is the fastest-growing segment of the content management market, with just 44 percent of enterprises having such products today but 22 percent intending to install it in 2009."

As this type of content explodes inside organizations, it requires specialized content management found in a DAM. Andrews says the DAM can help solve a number of problems such as incorporating video into documents. Regardless, if these numbers prove to be correct, then your company needs to be thinking about digital asset management moving forward to help manage and use this type of content more efficiently.

For more information:
- see the press release

Gartner and IDC predict bright future for SaaS

Ron Miller — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:52:53 -0400

A CIO.com article reports that both IDC and Gartner are predicting good things for the Software as a Service industry, and a huge boost in business over the next several years. This could explain why Microsoft wants a piece of this action and announced its own cloud computing initiative, known as Microsoft Azure, this week. When you look at the numbers, it's easy to see why Microsoft covets a share of these earnings.

Gartner predicts that SaaS spending will top out at 6.4 billion this year alone, then more than double to $14.8 billion by 2012. What's interesting is that Gartner sees much of this spending targeted at content, communications and collaboration. As companies grow more comfortable with a services model, they see it as way to save money and speed up enterprise software implementation cycles.

IDC paints an even rosier picture by saying the $16.2 billion spent on cloud computing this year will climb to a whopping $42.3 billion by 2012. The difference in numbers could have to do with how each company defines the space. Whether these predictions are accurate, or just wild speculation, it seems cloud computing is in a position to grow--especially over the next year as companies look for ways to reduce overall IT spending initiatives.

For more information:
-read the CIO.com article

Related Article:
When times get tough, get SaaSy

Gartner says half of social networking projects will fail

Ron Miller — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:26:30 -0400

In an article this week on CNET, Gartner analyst Adam Sarner says his research shows that over 75 percent of Fortune 100 companies plan to undertake some sort of social networking initiative, mostly under the marketing and public relations umbrella. But in a startling prediction, Sarner says half of those projects will fail. Why? Because the companies will offer contrived social networking projects and consumers can sniff out when they are being played.

In an earlier time, when blogs were emerging, marketing departments latched onto them as a way to communicate directly with an audience, but many blogs failed for the same reason Sarner says social networking efforts will fail. The companies provided content that served their own interests, rather than the audience's.

There's plenty of good use cases for social networking in the enterprise, yet I'm hearing more and more lately about social networking falling under the marketing department. Yes, marketing and PR can make use of social networking tools, and they should, but so should the rest of the enterprise, and for the same reasons. It offers a good communication tool, but if a company uses social networking only as an internal vehicle for company messages it will quickly lose its audience. It has to be more than that.

Social networking is about sharing content and collaborating--whether it's internal or external. That means it's a give and take exercise. If you truly care about your customers it will show. If you are trying to use social networking as a sales tool, that will show also. You have to keep it real or the social network with wither and die.

For more information:
- see the CNET article

Ektron releases CMS400.NET upgrade

Ron Miller — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:47:30 -0400

Ektron, one of two companies to earn the Strong designation (top honors) in the Gartner MarketScope report released last summer, announced the release of Ektron CMS400.NET v7.6 this week. The upgrade boasts advanced SEO tools, personalization features and multi-site support. The new features should help customers drive traffic to their websites, build personalized portals with customized individual workspaces and streamline web development by giving customers a single launch point for multiple sites. Article

Gartner predicts recent troubles in financial services will lead to more regulatory compliance

Ron Miller — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:54:52 -0400

Monday was a disaster on Wall Street. Financial services firms continued to get pummeled in the wake of the mortgage crisis and Wall Street responded with a 500-plus point plunge that the Boston Globe dubbed "Black Monday." What does this have to do with content management? Well, it could have a lot to do with it if Gartner is right when it says that the recent troubles on Wall Street could lead to increased regulation that could actually dwarf the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations that were enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal. Many companies were introduced to enterprise content management because Sarbanes-Oxley forced them to manage their content better, or face serious consequences. In fact, ECM was closely related to regulatory compliance for much of this decade until more recently, when ECM began to shift toward social networking, knowledge sharing and collaboration.

This level of regulation, if it comes to pass, could transform the content management industry yet again, or expand a niche that had taken a back seat to collaboration and knowledge sharing. When you combine that with the news last week about the CMIS content management standard, it could bode very well for the future of the content management industry. Able to sell on several fronts, and bolstered by a standard that opens up disparate content repositories, we might be looking at an enterprise content management renaissance, with your company possibly looking at an increased need in content management services.

For more:
- read this ChannelWeb article
- check out this NetworkWorld article

Hype Cycle report identifies hot trends

Michael LoPresti — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:59:49 -0400

Gartner has released another installment of its Hype Cycle reports, which seek to identify emerging technologies. They also pinpoint which of those are on the precipice of having a significant impact on business, as well as those that are close to gaining widespread adoption. "Although Web 2.0 is now entering the Trough of Disillusionment, it will emerge within two years to have a transformational impact, as companies steadily gain more experience and success with both technologies and the cultural implications," Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner Fellow, said. The trends that Gartner identified as being at the peak of the Hype Cycle this time around include green IT, cloud computing, social computing platforms, video telepresence and microblogging.

For more:
- read Gartner's release