How about that IBM. Goes out and acquires Venetica just ripping another OEM off the market. It's very similar to what they did with Tarian a couple years ago. Tarian was all set to provide records management capabilities to all the document management vendors and IBM goes and buys them. Knocked FileNET out of the water. It's take FileNET two more years before they came up with their own records management solution. What took so long? Don't know everybody else seemed to come with one on less than half the time - maybe FileNET's is more complex, but that's another story...
Anyways FileNET and Inerwoven both had OEM deals with Venetica. FileNET's was about a year old. You think that will end? ASAP. Just like Captiva cut out Mohomine right after it was acuired by Kofax. Still waiting for a Digital Mailroom deal. But that's another story.
Anyways, the Interwoven relationship with IBM bears watching . IBM has a ton ECM stuff, but I don't really think they have any WCM or EDM stuff - or even collaboration - which is what Interwoven specializes in. Not sure the WCM stuff is worth much, but it's something at least - and the EDM and collaboration that might come in handy. Ole Max Panjwani from iManage was no dummy and I think he was kind angling his company to be bought by IBM...
That's all for now.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Pegasus Imaging
Had an interesting converstion with Jack Berlin, president of Pegasus Imaging the company that is buying TMSSequoia (see previous post.) I'll have a complete story on that interview in the next issue of DIR. But, briefly I wanted to note that Pegasus specializes in image compression and has JPEG, JPEG 2000, Group 4 and now JBIG2 products in this area. According to Berlin, Pegasus' JPEG compression technology is one of the only commercially available JPEG pograms. He notes that most companies have developed JPEG compression based on free source code, which is now coming back to bite them because of the recent actions of Forgent, the company that claims to have uncovered a 10-year old patent that pertains to JPEG compression.
The bottom line that Berlin was pointing to is that nothing is free. Sony, for example, has already paid Forgent something like $15 million. Pegasus claims to indeminfy its customers - taking liability for any patent infringement issues regarding its compression tools. Berlin compared to buying insurance.
Reason I say all this is because it's odd how businesses don't recognize that there is no free lunch. This setiment also shows up in this interesting piece I came across in the PDFZone. Remember, you're in business to make money and you provide valuable goods and services in order to make that money. Don't be afraid to give other businesses their due as well and you'll find things run much more smoothly.
Okay, off the soapbox.
Thanks.
Ralph
The bottom line that Berlin was pointing to is that nothing is free. Sony, for example, has already paid Forgent something like $15 million. Pegasus claims to indeminfy its customers - taking liability for any patent infringement issues regarding its compression tools. Berlin compared to buying insurance.
Reason I say all this is because it's odd how businesses don't recognize that there is no free lunch. This setiment also shows up in this interesting piece I came across in the PDFZone. Remember, you're in business to make money and you provide valuable goods and services in order to make that money. Don't be afraid to give other businesses their due as well and you'll find things run much more smoothly.
Okay, off the soapbox.
Thanks.
Ralph
Friday, August 13, 2004
TMS
Sorry I haven't been here for awhile. Been busy getting next week's newsletter out. The this just in section includes a brief piece on the liquidation of TMS Sequoia
Here's RRI EVP Chris Thompson's thoughts, "TMS was the very first company
to come out with software-only Group IV decompression, which was an
absolutely critical component toward getting this industry into the
mainstream."
That's all for now.
RG
Feel free to post your own comments at TMS.
Here's RRI EVP Chris Thompson's thoughts, "TMS was the very first company
to come out with software-only Group IV decompression, which was an
absolutely critical component toward getting this industry into the
mainstream."
That's all for now.
RG
Feel free to post your own comments at TMS.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Wow, talk about a ton of press releases for the middle of summer. We just posted like 8 more on the home page. Nothing too great:
TiS landed another high-end deal in a foreign country. Fujitsu came out with a new scanner. Open Text acquired a Digital Asset Management Company. In other words, it's business as usual in the ECM community.
The most intriguting story of the day, however, comes out of NARA. The National Assocation for Records Management has announced it has doled out $20 million to two companies, Lockheed Martin and Harris Company to develop blueprints for a system for electronic archiving.
The contracts set up a one year competition between the two firms. Here's what the press release says regarding this competition: "At the end of the one-year design competition, the National Archives will select one of these two contractors to build the Electronic Records Archives, a revolutionary system that will capture electronic information, regardless of its format, save it permanently, and make it accessible on whatever hardware or software is currently in use. Over the life of the contract, it is potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars with countless positive implications for individuals, private businesses, and government organizations alike."
Very interesting stuff. We're going to try and invetigate where document imaging formats like PDF-A and microfilm play into this standard. Stay tuned to DIR.
RG
TiS landed another high-end deal in a foreign country. Fujitsu came out with a new scanner. Open Text acquired a Digital Asset Management Company. In other words, it's business as usual in the ECM community.
The most intriguting story of the day, however, comes out of NARA. The National Assocation for Records Management has announced it has doled out $20 million to two companies, Lockheed Martin and Harris Company to develop blueprints for a system for electronic archiving.
The contracts set up a one year competition between the two firms. Here's what the press release says regarding this competition: "At the end of the one-year design competition, the National Archives will select one of these two contractors to build the Electronic Records Archives, a revolutionary system that will capture electronic information, regardless of its format, save it permanently, and make it accessible on whatever hardware or software is currently in use. Over the life of the contract, it is potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars with countless positive implications for individuals, private businesses, and government organizations alike."
Very interesting stuff. We're going to try and invetigate where document imaging formats like PDF-A and microfilm play into this standard. Stay tuned to DIR.
RG
Monday, August 02, 2004
All Things Storage
Just posted a number of press releases on our Web site. The most interesting of which is probably Sony's release of AIT-4. AIT is Sony's inexpensive tape storage that is now on its third generation of WORM capabilities. When you couple the incrimental price/performance improvements in tape, along with advancements such as the recent announcement by KOM of patented technology for creating random access on tape, it makes you wonder about the future of storage. In the meantime, Plasmon of course continues to fight a brave battle to keep optical alive. The HP partnership was a big coup and now Verbatim has come on board as a second source media provider. Today, Plasmon and HP announced a UDO Web site.
With the continued work of magentic storage providers like EMC in the area of WORM storage, there are a lot of options open to imaging vendors that were not there just three or four years ago. Just another sign that this market is really coming into its own after all those years.
Final note. If you get a chance, check out Documentum's recent press release regarding its Content Addressed Storage strategy. We'll have more in our next (Aug. 20) issue of DIR, but it's pretty much HSM on steroids and incoroprates factor such as workflow into the level of storage for documents. Pretty interesting stuff and could represent the future of storage and the emerging ILM characteristics it is taking on.
That's all for now.
Cheers.
RG
With the continued work of magentic storage providers like EMC in the area of WORM storage, there are a lot of options open to imaging vendors that were not there just three or four years ago. Just another sign that this market is really coming into its own after all those years.
Final note. If you get a chance, check out Documentum's recent press release regarding its Content Addressed Storage strategy. We'll have more in our next (Aug. 20) issue of DIR, but it's pretty much HSM on steroids and incoroprates factor such as workflow into the level of storage for documents. Pretty interesting stuff and could represent the future of storage and the emerging ILM characteristics it is taking on.
That's all for now.
Cheers.
RG
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