With over 40 successful SharePoint and Office System implementations and projects under our belt (and a plethora of CMS solutions, using Microsoft CMS and a host of other content management solutions) we're of course more than curious about what Microsoft's future Office System product offering will be (especially with the rumors circulating about the merger of CMS and SharePoint).
So, in August 2005 we excitedly attended the Office 12 TAP: a preview program of the new version of Office for a group of companies (such as us) that are expected to become early testers and adopters. I'm officially unable to speak about the specifics of the event (Attend the Professional Developers Conference for a first hand look at all the cool things coming!). But I will talk briefly about a concept that Microsoft has seemed to take to heart in its next product stack: Enterprise Content Management.
We've been hearing about ECM for years. Large players such as IBM, Interwoven and Vignette have the story down pat: manage the flow of organizational content from conception to publication to destruction with one system. There's some problems though...many of the ECM solutions out there (not necessarily the products, but the implementation of the products) are really just rich Web Content Management systems, helping companies manage and maintain rich Internets and intranets. Are they really Enterprise solutions? Usually not without some help from other "3rd party" players. Here's why:
When we create content (usually using Desktop Publishing Tools such as Microsoft Word, Corel's WordPerfect or Sun's StarOffice), we often need to collaborate on that content: multiple authors, checking content in and out and maintaining security and history. These features are often found in a Document Management System, but more recently are also found in the richer and arguably more usable Collaboration Systems such as Windows SharePoint Services (Microsoft), Vignette Business Workspaces (Vignette) and Lotus Team Workspace (IBM). Sometimes the output of this effort (or sometimes every piece involved in the effort) becomes a company Record. This means we need to manage the destruction, security and archival of this piece of content to ensure it meets regulatory requirements (and practical company requirements). That's where a Records Management System comes in.
Now this content needs to be shared out to the people it was originally created for. This probably means we're going to publish it to an intranet, extranet or Internet. Enter in more technology concepts: The Portal Server for sharing with the internal or extranet users (which hopefully has a great Enterprise Search built into it) and a Web Content Management System to communicate with our clients. Let us not forget the need for a great Workflow Solution, to ensure the proper people approve its dissemination in a timely manner.
Sometimes (and more and more frequently) this content is also partially derived from other Line of Business systems such as a CRM or ERP. In comes the Enterprise Application Integration tools such as Microsoft's Biztalk, TIBCO and IBM's WebSphere MQ and the Single Sign On Solutions that help us get to and integrate that data with a single username and password.
Now when I think ECM, I think of the combination of all of the necessary pieces that and deal with Enterprise Content Management end to end. IBM almost has it with its WebSphere suite, but falls short with less than stellar integration in the desktop authoring tools (arguably the most important aspect since that's where the content often originates). Vignette and Interwoven are troubled by the same thing, and by the fact that they are often labeled as big player solutions: not the kind of products you can start small with and grow on.
So in comes Office 12. Can't say what's in it yet, but let's just say it meets the ECM dilemma head on. None of the "systems" mentioned in bold above are left out of Microsoft's offering. Will this new system beat the best of breeds? Will it eliminate the need for pieceing together technologies from multiple vendors? Don't know yet. But I'd expect it to be a HUGE player in the space.
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