I'm not sure why this is a good move for Iron Mountain aside from the fact that it generates some cash. According to a press release, Autonomy has agreed to pay $380 million in cash for a business with a run rate of $130-$140 million that includes "selected key assets of Iron Mountain's digital division including archiving, eDiscovery and online backup." I'm assuming this includes Iron Mountain's growing document scanning business, which was certainly integrated with the e-discovery business.
I like the deal for Autonomy and have echoed the setiments of CEO Dr. Mike Lynch in the past: ""In 2007 we correctly predicted the merging of regulatory archiving and search, and we believe we are now seeing the next phase where the convergence of regulatory archiving, back-up and data restoration with operational processing of data in the cloud is coming to pass." - A lot of my view was formed by conversations with Dr. Johannes Scholtes, the CEO of Zylab, another vendor with a focus on search, so I guess it would make sense that I agree with Autonomy's strategy.
Apparently, Iron Mountain felt it couldn't compete in the emerging cloud-based storage market.
Showing posts with label e-discovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-discovery. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Upcoming E-Discovery Webinar
I have been asked to be part of an upcoming Webinar entitled:
E-Discovery, Retention & Records Management
My role will be to discuss the synergies between ECM and E-Discovery: an crossover that I think is thoroughly underexploited by our industry. Tune in for more:
WHEN: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM EDT (10:00 AM – 10:45 AM PDT )
E-Discovery, Retention & Records Management
- There will be three presenters:
- Scott Rosenberg, CEO, Miro Consulting
- Myself
WHERE: Click here to register or
Twitter:
Follow the webinar on Twitter: MiroConsulting (#Miro).
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Iron Mountain Buys Mimosa for $112 Million
We've been touting the potential of e-discovery in the Document Imaging Report for at least the last year. Well, Iron Mountain's acquisition of Mimosa would seem to validate some of our hype. After all, it paid $112 million for a company with 2009 revenue of $20.6 million and expenses of more than $30 million. So, Iron Mountain basically paid more than five times revenue for a company losing some serious money.
That said, it does give the $3 billion paper giant another stake in the digital world. Mimosa is best known for its e-mail archiving business, although it apparently offers some e-discovery tools as well - a natural extension in our opinion. While Iron Mountain has had technology in both these areas - it has primarily been of a hosted variety. Apparently, Iron Mountain felt it needed Mimosa's on-premise technology to complement its hosted options.
Iron Mountain's biggest asset, of course, is it's install base. Recently, it has been focusing more and more on converting these paper customers to digital customers - with imaging part of the mix. Iron Mountain is an interesting company with a lot of advantages because of its size and market penetration. It will be interesting to see if it can make this large investment in electronic information technology pay off. We definitely think it has chosen a pertinent and valuable asset to acquire. Now, it will come down to execution.
That said, it does give the $3 billion paper giant another stake in the digital world. Mimosa is best known for its e-mail archiving business, although it apparently offers some e-discovery tools as well - a natural extension in our opinion. While Iron Mountain has had technology in both these areas - it has primarily been of a hosted variety. Apparently, Iron Mountain felt it needed Mimosa's on-premise technology to complement its hosted options.
Iron Mountain's biggest asset, of course, is it's install base. Recently, it has been focusing more and more on converting these paper customers to digital customers - with imaging part of the mix. Iron Mountain is an interesting company with a lot of advantages because of its size and market penetration. It will be interesting to see if it can make this large investment in electronic information technology pay off. We definitely think it has chosen a pertinent and valuable asset to acquire. Now, it will come down to execution.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ZyLab Introduces New E-Discovery Application
“Approximately one percent of organizations are prepared for full-scale eDiscovery activities,” says Johannes Scholtes, Chief Strategy Officer for ZyLAB. “As a result, the vast majority of organizations facing litigation are forced into a costly reaction mode in order to respond to discovery requests within court-imposed timelines."
Scholtes makes this statement in a press release about the new capabilities in the ZyLAB eDiscovery & Production system. ZyLab, which began life as a search vendor, and transitioned to document imaging, is now very focused on this legal/e-discovery market. In the press release, ZyLab breaks down how its product addresses the five areas of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) and how addressing these areas can benefit businesses. ZyLab has had some significant success in this market recently and checking out how it applies its product to EDRM could be very instructive to imaging VARs, end users, and vendors looking to succeed in what is burgeoning opporunity.
Scholtes makes this statement in a press release about the new capabilities in the ZyLAB eDiscovery & Production system. ZyLab, which began life as a search vendor, and transitioned to document imaging, is now very focused on this legal/e-discovery market. In the press release, ZyLab breaks down how its product addresses the five areas of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) and how addressing these areas can benefit businesses. ZyLab has had some significant success in this market recently and checking out how it applies its product to EDRM could be very instructive to imaging VARs, end users, and vendors looking to succeed in what is burgeoning opporunity.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Iron Mountain Subsidiary buys Legal-focused Service Bureau
For its traditional business Iron Mountain has focused mainly on ramping up its document conversion services internally or leveraging partnerships. However, to better address the burgeoning e-discovery market, the paper storage giant's e-discovery subsidiary, Stratify, has acquired a litigation-support focused service bureau Legal Imaging Technologies. LIT, which has partnered with Iron Mountain for several years, is based on Mountain View, CA.
On a related note, Zylab, a search and imaging vendor that now focuses on e-discovery applications, recently published this new whitepaper that says "only about 1% of organizations are prepared for full-scale eDiscovery activities. As a result, the vast majority of organizations facing litigation are forced into a costly reaction mode in order to respond to discovery requests within court-imposed timelines."
On a related note, Zylab, a search and imaging vendor that now focuses on e-discovery applications, recently published this new whitepaper that says "only about 1% of organizations are prepared for full-scale eDiscovery activities. As a result, the vast majority of organizations facing litigation are forced into a costly reaction mode in order to respond to discovery requests within court-imposed timelines."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Interview with EMC's CMO
Whitney Tidmarsh, EMC's Chief marketing office for its archiving and content management division, and a former marketing VP at Documentum, talks with Fierce Content Management about several hot topics in this interview. She touches on the emerging e-discovery preparedness market and how it relates to content management, EMC's relationship with Microsoft and its SharePoint strategy, as well as its cloud computing initiatives.
Ralph
Ralph
Monday, June 29, 2009
Legal Depts. Cutting Costs
Here's a press release about a survey that talks about the pressure that corporate legal depts. are under to cut costs. You can get a copy of the complete survey through a link at the bottom, and we hope to see it and check it out more fully this week. But, it promises "an overview of the strategies, systems and management tools that law departments for U.S. organizations are using to cope with current economic challenges." Just curious if any of these strategies involve improved records management, which should cut down on e-discovery outlay. We'll have an article on that in this week's edition of DIR.
Also, here's an interesting press release about ColorTrac providing multiple 40-inch wide-format scanners to the Lebanese government for scanning election results. We've never heard of the use of WF scanners in elections and have put in an e-mail to ColorTrac asking about the logistics behind the scanner choice.
Also, here's an interesting press release about ColorTrac providing multiple 40-inch wide-format scanners to the Lebanese government for scanning election results. We've never heard of the use of WF scanners in elections and have put in an e-mail to ColorTrac asking about the logistics behind the scanner choice.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Lawsuits Down
Using a slower day to go through some back e-mails, I came across this fairly comprehensive summary detailing the results of a survey on corporate legal affairs. Surprisingly, it indicates that lawsuits in 2006-2007 were down from the previous year. The survey was conducted by a law firm, which corresponded with some 250 coroporations.
The summary doesn't speculate that improved RM is one of the reasons for the reduced rate of corporate lawsuits, but findings like, "...81% of U.S. companies said they had reviewed their retention policies over the previous 12 months," indicate to me that better RM might have something to do with it. Another interesitng tidbit I is the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are not having much effect on litigation practices to date. This is something we predicted a couple years ago, as the rules as we read them, didn't seem to have too much teeth.
As I said, the survey summary is fairly lengthy, but it's at least worth giving a cursory read-through. It touches on relevent topics like e-discovery, RM, records retention, and all that good stuff.
Cheers.
Ralph
The summary doesn't speculate that improved RM is one of the reasons for the reduced rate of corporate lawsuits, but findings like, "...81% of U.S. companies said they had reviewed their retention policies over the previous 12 months," indicate to me that better RM might have something to do with it. Another interesitng tidbit I is the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are not having much effect on litigation practices to date. This is something we predicted a couple years ago, as the rules as we read them, didn't seem to have too much teeth.
As I said, the survey summary is fairly lengthy, but it's at least worth giving a cursory read-through. It touches on relevent topics like e-discovery, RM, records retention, and all that good stuff.
Cheers.
Ralph
Friday, May 04, 2007
Microsoft Yahoo!
Unless there's something here I don't see, I don't understand how Microsoft and Yahoo! getting together will pose a threat to Google! Putting together two also-rans (alright, maybe the number-two and three players) to take on the leader in a developing market just doesn't seem like a good idea. It almost reminds me of the Time-Warner/AOL thing. Two losers don't necessarily make a winner.
Also, here's a link to podcast of a roundtable on e-discovery that I participated in at the recent AIIM Conference in Boston. It's interesting for its diversity of opinions on the topic. Obviously, this is very much an emerging market, in which the rules and directions are still being determined. You also had a good mix of editors, lawyers, and consultants on the panel.
Also, here's a link to podcast of a roundtable on e-discovery that I participated in at the recent AIIM Conference in Boston. It's interesting for its diversity of opinions on the topic. Obviously, this is very much an emerging market, in which the rules and directions are still being determined. You also had a good mix of editors, lawyers, and consultants on the panel.
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