Oracle wants to own the Enterprise Content Management space, and they want it bad. So bad that they are offering Documentum customers the chance to trade in their Documentum licenses and get 100% credit on Oracle WebCenter Content.
Say what you will, but Oracle's pitch is pretty compelling and its dig at EMC is pretty fierce:
"In its day, Documentum was a market leader in the document management space. But customers are increasingly disheartened by the lack of vision and product improvements since the acquisition by EMC. Meanwhile, many of the older products are reaching end-of-life and will no longer be supported. Organizations are finding that they need to make a decision about whether to make the costly commitment to stay with Documentum or move to another platform.
By moving to Oracle WebCenter, you will find that you are able to significantly cut your costs with a platform that is less expensive to maintain. But more than that, WebCenter is uniquely positioned to enable you to move forward, adding value by expanding the ways content can be used in your organization. Oracle WebCenter provides more than the most comprehensive ECM offering in the industry, with out-of-the-box integrations to the top enterprise applications. It also offers social collaboration capabilities, web experience management, and comprehensive enterprise search. You can lower your costs and create move value for your organization with Oracle WebCenter."
And Mr. Ellison must have told his marketing sherpas to be smart and go wild because if you did a keyword search on Twitter yesterday using "Documentum", here's what you got more than 90% (my visual estimate) of the time:(Things are calm this morning the sherpas in Redwood Shores are probably still sleeping.)
RT @OracleWebCenter The other hidden cost of Documentum: Third party licenses. End them with Oracle WebCenter http://bitly.com/oCQTki
RT @oraclewebcenter: Still paying per seat costs with #Documentum? http://bitly.com/r1HJVy
KapowSoftware Kapow Software Stop Maintaining Documentum and Start Innovating With Oracle WebCenter http://bit.ly/n4FYMr
oraclewebcenter: Still on #Documentum? Still have an 8-track too? Get into the 21st century #Oracle #WebCenter h... http://bit.ly/oAbAkB
Oracle had also purchased the "Documentum" search header on TweetDeck yesteday, so if you searched on Documentum then, Oracle WebCenter was the first thing you saw.
All of that being said, there are some really great things happening at EMC IIG right now (post to come*). Even though their sales were flat in the 3rd quarter and their revenue is down 23% from this time last year (I'm talking about IIG and not EMC as a whole), IIG actually beat Alfresco to market with its iPad app and a recent demo I saw of how xcp can be used to leverage insights from Big Data was impressive.
Not that Oracle strategists will be reading this entry, but there is at least one vertical where Oracle can really hurt Documentum here, so I'm not going to say what it is, lest my clients get bombarded by Larry Ellison's army. But please pay attention EMC.
And finally Mr. Tucci, even though Documentum represents a tiny part of EMC's revenue, don't turn your back. Sure, Oracle wins might be good for EMC outside of IIG's territory, but these assaults don't feel like coopetition; they feel nasty.
* This post would have been written by now had EMC provided WiFi for the general public (or at least people who write about them) at the EMC Forum in NYC last month.
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