Enterprise eDiscovery?
I awoke this morning to an interesting blog posting from a guy I respect a lot - Aaref Hilaly of Clearwell Systems. He’s commenting on the IBM announcement of its eDiscovery Manager. Aaref’s post astutely points out the IBM capabilities as well as product gaps (such as review, tagging, and analysis - conveniently enough, exactly the things that Clearwell provides…of course, I don’t begrudge a vendor conveniently taking advantage of an opportunity to promote itself; after all, I work for a technology vendor).
Aaref’s point is ultimately that IBM entering the market is significant because it’s a sign that large software vendors take the eDiscovery market seriously. Nothing wrong with that argument at all. But, my opinion is that the announcement is just a sign on the road rather than some significant event. After all, IBM has had all the capabilities to create an eDiscovery solution for years, but has waited until now to make an announcement. And, as far as I know, there is no real eDiscovery expertise in IBM Global Services (and what a consulting opportunity there is in the eDiscovery market).
What I think is that IBM is letting the eDiscovery market know that it’s coming. As leverage, IBM has “built” its own solution. But, if history is any lesson, IBM will buy several smaller vendors within the next two years. Looking back at the ECM market, IBM did the same thing - even as it built out its own capabilities, the software giant acquired point solutions like web content management and records management to roll into its own suite.
In theory, the IBM offering is the answer to the eDiscovery problem, offering a solution to manage all kinds of content. But in the real world where the rubber meets the road, best-of-breed point solutions are creating real value for organizations. Even Fortune 500 companies aren’t ready to implement enterprise-wide retention initiatives; rather, they attack information management according to the most burning pain points (typically email and other user-generated content). To think that any organization is ready to deploy a single infrastructure for total information management today is to ignore the realities on the ground.
We should applaud IBM for entering the market and recognizing the need organizations have to decrease eDiscovery costs and risks. I don’t think this entry will fundamentally change the market over the next year, but I do think this signals that IBM is serious about the market. It will be interesting to watch what kinds of acquisitions Big Blue makes to build out more of a best-of-breed portfolio.
