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September 19, 2008
Services Spark ECM Growth
Love it or hate it, Microsoft continues to be big enough to occasionally act as a game changer when it comes to business software. So when it began to succeed with its SharePoint document-management technology, some observers worried that the game would soon be over for competitors in that market.
Fortunately for end users and solution providers alike, the opposite seems to be happening. According to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, a principal analyst with consultant CMS Watch, SharePoint may actually be taking on the role of catalyst. “If anything, it’s woken up the [document-management] market,” he says.
In addition to validating document-management applications for a larger audience, including small and medium businesses that have adopted the technology at lower rates than large enterprises, Microsoft's offering is encouraging programmers to design easier to use applications, he adds.
These developments are part of a larger growth trend in the market that has been spurred by desires for greater information-handling efficiencies and help in meeting regulatory requirements. Current enterprise content management software sales, of which document-management systems are a subset, now approach $4 billion worldwide, Pelz-Sharpe says.
Even better news for solution providers is the fact that the value of professional services for implementing, integrating, and maintaining the systems is typically twice that of the software itself, he adds.
Posted by ajoch at September 19, 2008 10:34 AM
