EMC (Documentum) is talking but not many are listening- What's up with that?

A few weeks back I pleaded with my readers to give me something nice, or new, to say about Documentum. Did I get any responses? Publicly, no. Privately, yes, but they were all about the "canary". Not a single person mentioned anything to get excited about when it came to Documentum. How disappointing.

Why am I so hung-up on this? Because I've served the Documentum community since the early 1990's. I've watched people build their careers, their departments and their consulting organizations around the technology. And though I have no numbers to prove it, I suspect that Documentum is losing market-share, which means that job growth is first going to stall and then go negative. Needless to say, this isn't good for the Documentum community.

So I wonder how much EMC worries about losing Documentum-related market-share, and if they plan to do anything about it. It seems that they're focusing their efforts in other areas (and that those efforts are paying off, their stock has gained good value in the past year). But I have to go back to March 3 to find a press release that even mentions the word Documentum.

And yes, I get that EMC is a big company. They may say that they can't write a Documentum-related  press release everyday, so how about once a week? Maybe more people would read them than watch their videos, which they seem to be able to produce with some regularity. While congratulations is in order for those who take the time to make them, why is no one watching them? Of the 27 views the one I've embedded below has gotten, at least seven are mine. Maybe those of us who blog should paste a link into some of our entries and help EMC along a little bit. I think almost everyone who has a Documentum-related blog gets more than 27 hits a day, and that video has been up for longer than a day.

Way back when I first started recruiting Documentum folks, some companies had employees whose unofficial title was "Documentum evangelist". They showed their user communities aka "internal clients" all that Documentum could do. When Documentum became widely adopted, their roles disappeared. Now, though there is probably still a faction of Documentum enthusiasts at companies who use Documentum, I suspect their voices go largely unheard by those who make enterprise-wide software acquisition decisions.

The systems integrator community could help sell/market Documentum. Alfresco's sales skyrocketed last quarter partly because they got integrators involved (they have a great product as well). And though I'm saving a conversation about this for my next post, take a look at the offerings of some the integrators that made Documentum sales soar once upon a time ago: Blue Fish Development Group's homepage talks about Alfresco and not Documentum. CSC which purchased  First Consulting Group (FCG) which purchased ISCG (which made a huge Documentum imprint at Life Sciences firms) is still marketing Lifeworks a Documentum dependent framework (but they also sell FirstPoint a Sharepoint dependent solution); Burntsand (which acquired Documentum champion Altro Solutions) is trying to straddle the Documentum/Sharepoint fence. I could go on...

My point here is that unless the Documentum part of EMC is able to grow its marketshare in the ECM world, Documentum professionals will need to make their skill sets less Documentum-dependent.

So, if you belong to the "Documentum community" look up from the line of code you are writing or the project you're managing, and see what's going on in your world. Champion Documentum in your workplace if you think you can make an impact. If not, and you want to stay in the ECM world, take the time to learn core Java (not Documentum Java) and Spring so that you can get a job working with Alfresco, or consider whether learning Sharepoint and becoming a beginner again if that makes sense to you. If not, you might be able to take your knowledge of Workflows and Lifecycles and BPM and see where that might be adopted. Most importantly, beg your boss to give you an assignment (even a small one) that doesn't rely on Documentum.

Let's hope that, if you want to, you'll be able to continue growing your career with Documentum; but unless you're planning to retire in the next decade, I wouldn't hedge my bet on that.

Let's also hope that the upcoming AIIM Conference and EMC World  will generate tons of Documentum-related interest and license sales so that those odds change.

Comments

[doQuent]

Here's a nice thing I can say about EMC Documentum - they have done a great job opening up to the developer community. Access to developer edition, documentation, and an online community will all help the developer community grow.

I wish they were also listening to their customers. At least they could keep the existing customers even if others went elsewhere to satisfy their ECM needs.

From an ECM professional perspective, I agree with your general stance that we need to diversify our skill-set with Alfresco and SharePoint in the mix.

[Sharepointpmp]

nice post.... Documentum isn't completely dead...companies still have needs for heavy lifting ECM and records management and there is value in Documentum and it has many many customers.

The problems with Documentum (and EMC) are marketing, openness, economics, and ecosystem.

Microsoft has so much free knowledge and open blogging and evangelizing of sharepoint...it's why they continue to dominate market share. SharePoint has been more of a "movement" vs. a product release. I know many people who have shifted their business away from traditional ECM like Documentum or Note/Domino development who know only focus on SharePoint. There are SharePoint Saturdays in local cities with hundreds of people who come to learn about SharePoint....where are the Documentum Saturdays?

Documentum just doesn't have enough openness of the development community, knowledge sharing, etc... Documentum is too hard to learn....high learning curve and low knowledge sharing and community participation = lower adoption. EMC needs to open their powerlink to anyone and encourage and promote knowledge sharing and community. It's not about writing press release today...it's about building a following, a community and social media!

SharePoint is an ecosystem that addresses many problems in one platform. Documentum isn't marketed that way. It could be...but it's not. And the economics of EMC products show the TCO is higher for companies and they can save money by moving to SharePoint with an ROI of a year. That's also a huge driver of SharePoint (it appeals to decision makers).

Of course everything I'm saying is about talent -- the people who are passionate and evangelize the products and push adoption and accelerate learning curves....and that talent has definitely shifted to Microsoft SharePoint in the ECM world...

[shiningarts]

I reckon Documentum lags in innovation that had lead ECM last decade. However, at the same time, we should not forget why EMC acquired Documentum: EMC has proven track records of acquisition such as vmware (mere 600m to 7b in a couple of years) that became almost as big as EMC. Arguably, some believe SharePoint changed the ECM by commoditizing it. However, comparing Documentum and SharePoint is like comparing apple and orange. Microsoft’s history to make anything better than OS or Office products is indeed questionable. Perhaps, the current SharePoint’s irrational exuberance could follow the shares of Microsoft’s reputation dealing with its inconsistent performance in general. The gravity of SharePoint will fall onto the ground and it could end up as server sprawl, process pollutions, and variety of virus infection. Never mind SharePoint Saturday, they may need 7x24 SharePoint social for that. Although the fact that SharePoint is based on Windows platform is their marketing strengths now, it could become its very own downfall. Someday, they may wish that they would have stayed with EMC’s.

[Garrett]

I already knew it, but whatever thanks.
http://www.filecatch.com/trends/nl/02-08-2010.html