Enterprise content management vendors go mobile

Mobile ECM looks set to take off

Enterprise content management (ECM) vendors are finally responding to changes in users' working environments to innovate in areas such as mobile ECM, according to the latest report by analyst firm CMS Watch released today.

The ECM Report 2009 evaluated 28 ECM vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Alfresco, EMC and OpenText. The results suggest that the vendors are responding to changing customers needs by "bringing ECM to where people work".

"Mobile is just one piece of the larger movement. They are listening to their clients more. People's working environments are changing and the ECM vendors are being forced to adapt," said report author Jarrod Gingras.

Alfresco is one of the notable vendors innovating in the mobile space, although development in the area is still limited to a few vendors and most customers will have to wait until 2010/2011 to see more mobile functionality, according to the report.

Robert Bredlau, director of international business development at ECM vendor e-Spirit UK, argued that businesses are hampering their own success by not maximising the potential of their web sites in the mobile sphere.

"There has been a massive surge in the number of people accessing the internet by mobile devices as they become more ubiquitous. However, research we recently carried out found that only 35 per cent of UK businesses have optimised their web site content for mobile devices," he said.

"This is worryingly low. What's essential now is that businesses prepare themselves for this growing trend and see it as a 'must have' as opposed to just a 'nice have'."

Another way the vendor community is bringing ECM to where people are working is by meeting customer demand to use the products from within SharePoint, according to Gingras.

"A SharePoint connector is now virtually a pre-requisite for any ECM vendor, " he said.

The ECM Report also highlighted an increasing trend among vendors to build specific "verticalised" solutions as opposed to more generic platform-based offerings, according to Gingras.

CMS Watch said that this trend will continue most in the tier below the major players such as IBM and EMC.