Why I Joined Mimosa Systems
Much has been made of my decision to leave Forrester Research for a content archiving vendor. It’s been interesting for me to follow the news, if only because it’s part of the natural lifecycle for an industry analyst to join the ranks of a software vendor (and vice-versa). The analyst world is both interesting and rewarding, and Forrester was a great place to work. I learned much about the records management, content archiving, and eDiscovery solutions in the marketplace; I was able to interface with hundreds of organizations to learn the very real challenges associated with information retention and access; and I was able to develop a good sense for the chasm that exists between where we are now in terms of litigation readiness and where we need to be.
It’s this last point that led me to the content archiving world directly. As an analyst, I could advise organizations of best practices and strategies to improve litigation readiness, but there was a level of depth that I could not get to. And, what was clear is that organizations have an extremely tough job ahead. I want to be part of the deeper solution – and content archiving is the first step that is both pragmatic (meaning it can have real, immediate impact) and a right step in the direction of “where we need to be.”
The obvious question, then, is “why content archiving?” And, this is a good question – with enterprise content management (ECM), records management (RM), and enterprise search technology all offering to be the ultimate solution, why is content archiving the place to hang your hat? Well, all of the afore mentioned technologies offer theoretically good solutions to the information retention problem. But, this is where we need to loop back to pragmatism. ECM deployments are extremely broad and take years (think at least 3+) to fully implement – and historically, less than 20% of licenses sold have ever been deployed (that’s a big sunk cost to swallow). RM requires that organizations have fully-developed policies governing all potential information sources; however, most organizations don’t even have policies to govern the most-used information tools like email. Enterprise search is good at finding information across various repositories, but not at enforcing policy on it.
Content archiving can have a positive impact for organizations, and can do so immediately. First, there are the obvious benefits: storage optimization and system optimization (such as alleviating the burden on messaging servers with email archiving). The beauty of archiving, though, is that it kills multiple birds with one stone. Not only does it deliver optimization and reduced storage costs, but it also:
- Makes information available seamlessly to end-users (say, via stubbing) without requiring them to manage quotas
- Simplifies retention management by providing one administrative interface from which to manage retention policies on all content in the archive (say, from emails and file systems)
- Eases the process of enforcing litigation hold (especially important given that email is the most-often requested form of electronically stored information)
- Doesn’t require an organization to have full-blown records management policies; that’s right – organizations can comply with the FRCPs and have some simple (and consistently enforced) retention policies – and the content archiving solution is flexible, allowing organizations to change retention policies as they evolve.I will certainly miss the analyst world and some of the breadth of learning that one can achieve in it. But, I am excited at the opportunity to get more depth with customers. I’m happy to be in the content archiving world and look forward to reporting on some of the success stories I see out there.
