IBM After Content Control

While Oracle , EMC and others have grand
content management plans to manage unstructured data, IBM
plans to serve notice later this year that it is still the big gorilla in
the space.

The Armonk, N.Y., company will release upgrades to both its DB2 Content
Manager and DB2 Document Manager around March or April, according to Theresa
O’Neil, director of content management, at IBM. The products help companies
manage structured and unstructured data, such as e-mail, video and audio
files, as well as images, such as X-rays.

DB2 Content Manager 8.3 and DB2 Document Manager 8.3 are the next step along
IBM’s path of improving the efficiency with which its products process XML.

For example, O’Neil said that a mapping function in Content Manager 8.3 will
enable users to map XML files created with a different schema to
repositories. This provides administrators with greater flexibility to share
information and search across different documents.

This capability, which IBM has code-named Cinnamon, is a small piece of IBM’s broad plan for
adding unprecedented search perks to its information management software.
IBM is also adding
native XML to DB2 this year.

The software packages will also feature better workflows for improved
collaboration among colleagues and other organizations. Workflows also help
enterprises streamline business processes, O’Neil said. Content Manager 8.3
will feature better graphical utilities that help users drag-and-drop
content flows across organizations through a central console.

“A lot of customers have multiple content repositories because different
departments or work groups may have set up different applications,” O’Neil
said. “We’re looking to bring them all together.”

One of the ways IBM is able to do that, O’Neil said, is through its acquisition of Venetica, a content management software company that provides
information integration. Venetica allows users to centrally manage documents
as if they are from one source.

As for the competition, IBM isn’t too concerned about newcomer Oracle, which
O’Neil said basically provides document management and records management
through its Files 10g product.

IBM provides those capabilities plus Web content management, a big reason
IBM will pit its content management portfolio versus anything from EMC
and Microsoft, or traditional pure plays like FileNet or Interwoven.

Major customers of Content Manager include the U.S. Army, which is currently
taking 100,000 paper forms and automating those on electronic systems with
the product. The New York Stock Exchange and CNN also use IBM’s Content Manager.

While the company doesn’t break out software earnings specific to product
groups, O’Neil said IBM’s information management software group saw 8
percent growth for the fourth quarter of 2004, with content management
specifically growing at a 31 percent clip.

IBM led the market in collaboration and content management software with a
17.9 percent market share in 2003, according to Gartner. Enterprise content
management is one of the fastest growing areas of the software sector, with
Meta Group expecting it to grow to $9 billion by 2007.