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Get the NewsletterCenterStage - How EMC is Taking on Microsoft SharePoint
The face of enterprise content management is taking many forms today. The need for knowledge workers to leverage an ECM's capabilities while at the same time leverage Web 2.0 tools for better collaboration, has led to a number of new Enterprise 2.0 solutions from ECM vendors.
EMC's Lance Shaw, Group Product Marketing Manager, Knowledge Worker Applications, says that CenterStage, an enterprise collaboration tool, is not meant to be a direct competitor to SharePoint. But looking at what it is and what it does, one can easily draw the comparison and see why an organization would implement it instead of SharePoint.
Shaw took us on a tour of this new offering from EMC.
A Face for Documentum
EMC CenterStage is a business-to-business collaboration solution built to support the mobile knowledge worker and office worker alike. It is a client to EMC's enterprise content management system, Documentum. So, if you don't have Documentum, then you don't need CenterStage.
If you do use Documentum as your Enterprise CMS, then CenterStage is a good way to take advantage of Documentum's capabilities using Enterprise 2.0 tools like collaborative workspaces, blogs, wikis and more.
CenterStage is the evolution of Documentum's eRoom. It is directly connected to Documentum and Shaw says it is a balance between empowerment and control. It has three core themes:
- Team Productivity
- Business Process Automation
- Information Discovery
Essentials and Pro Versions
There are two versions of CenterStage: Essentials and Pro. CenterStage Essentials offers basic content services and team workspaces. But to get the most of this solution, you should have CenterStage Pro which adds personal workspaces, wikis, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools, and even more importantly advanced search and discovery tools.
Added Benefits from Documentum
With Documentum as the back end, there are a number of added benefits to CenterStage. These include integration with Records Management, retention policies, auditing and lifecycle management.
CenterStage Functionality
Personal and Collaborative Workspaces
Workspaces are key to any collaboration solution and CenterStage offers both personal workspaces and team workspaces.
CenterStage Workspaces
Collaborative Workspaces are very flexible. You can control the layout and add any number of widgets if you have the proper administrative permissions. You can have widgets that display image libraries through a list, images or thumbnails, track specific content, discussions, blogs and more.
In your personal workspace you can things like a Favorites list and a My Current Work list.
You can also watch your workspaces for updates either through RSS and email notifications.
Managing Content in a Workspace
One of the interesting aspects of managing content within CenterStage is that nothing lives within CenterStage directly. As we've said, it is a client for Documentum. So all content actually resides within Documentum.
CenterStage Collaborative Team Workspace
This is not limited to documents, but also includes all other forms of content such as images, blog posts, wikis and discussions. As a result, versioning is applied to all content, as is check-in/check out and workflow capabilities. Versioning is applied by default, workflow is not.
Note that workflow processes are associated with a CenterStage folder and can be automated and routed via Documentum to CenterStage or some other collaborative workspace solution.
What you don't see in CenterStage is the ability to add metadata to your content. Shaw indicated that the intent of CenterStage is simplicity, so the functionality is designed to allow users to easily add content without needing to include a lot of additional information.
Search and Discovery
The need to easily find information is critical. With CenterStage, the search and discovery capabilities are very useful.
CenterStage Search
You can choose to search within a specific workspace or across all workspaces you have access to. Search is faceted and federated including information across any number of enterprise systems.
CenterStage also includes text analytics. This version is just the start of this capability, but you can easily find information using a number of different filters that are based on key categories and principle concepts. Text analytics are performed on content residing within Documentum repositories.
Future enhancements to the text analytics capability includes the analysis of rich media and other file types.
Tagging
Tagging is another way to find information within CenterStage. Any object can be tagged and found using a tag cloud.
Tagging in CenterStage
Managing Security for CenterStage
Security for CenterStage is typical of any IT solution. You can connect to Active Directory or another LDAP directory for your list of users. You can also add internal and external users, opening CenterStage up to partners and clients.
Roles within CenterStage include participants and coordinators, and you can create your own roles and permissions as needed.
Offline Capabilities
Like some other solutions, you can take content offline. With CenterStage this is done using a separate download. The application sits in your system tray. It's free, but it doesn't currently offer the ability to take an entire workspace offline, only specific content.
Technology Behind CenterStage
CenterStage uses Web Services in a Services Oriented (SOA) environment. It is built with Extended Javascript and DHTML. Frames are extensible, allowing you to add other image formats, like video.
CenterStage or SharePoint?
CenterStage is not a standalone solution. It is a client front-end to Documentum designed to make the lives of the knowledge worker easier. Providing a collaboration solution that includes all the basics, it combines web 2.0 features to support highly collaborative teams. The user experience is clean and flexible.
It has the strength of Documentum behind it, offering controlled management like IRM, lifecycle management and retention. Things the everyday knowledge worker doesn't really need to know or be aware of.
Connecting with SharePoint
EMC also provides the ability for SharePoint to connect to Documentum, exposing Documentum services and content within the SharePoint interface. And SharePoint provides much of the same capabilities as CenterStage.
Shaw told us that some of their clients utilize both CenterStage and SharePoint, just in different situations.
The Choice is Situation Dependent
So is one of these better than the other?
The search and information discovery functionality within CenterStage are much better than those that SharePoint provides.
SharePoint, however, provides more document management capability, including workflows and metadata out of the box. SharePoint does not, however, provide versioning capabilities for blogs, wikis and discussions — something CenterStage does.
The one you select is going depend on your situation. Do you already have SharePoint up and running? Then maybe all you need is the connection to Documentum. Are you looking to create workspaces with external parties? Then CenterStage may be a better fit.
Not a Competitor, Definitely an Alternative
It's important to point out again, that EMC does not consider CenterStage a competitor to SharePoint. They believe it serves a different market: business to business collaboration. But you can implement SharePoint in the same scenario, it just might take some work on the security side.
Competitor or not, CenterStage is a viable alternative to SharePoint and a way for EMC to offer Enterprise 2.0 capabilities on top of Documentum.
Currently in controlled release to a small collective group, CenterStage is being put through its paces. It is expected to be available later this year.
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Is CenterStage a re-branding of eRoom or a new product? If new, what happens to eRoom?
Hi Ed,
According to EMC, CenterStage is a completely new product and not a rebranding of eRoom. They also stated that eRoom clients will continue to be supported.
barb
SharePoint is more than a document management system. Way more. Your comparing apples to oranges. The first thing that popped out at me was your grammatical error "But looking at what it is and what it does, one can easily draw the comparison and see why a organization would implement it instead of SharePoint." It should be "an organization" not "a organization".
CenterStage is a new product from the ground up, but it's built on several of the core concepts in eRoom. I've heard through the EMC grapevine that although eRoom will be supported for a time, EMC intends its customers to migrate to CenterStage eventually, and I wouldn't be surprised if EMC ends support of eRoom over the next couple of years.
I saw CenterStage at EMC's big user conference, EMC World, and there was even talk of migrating some of the document management applications (such as WebTop) to CenterStage over time. It looks like EMC hopes CenterStage will be a core application layers.
Micheal Trafton states above: "SharePoint is more than a document management system.Way more".
Well so is EMC Documentum, especially when the eRoom family was added into the equation and now CentreStage.
Yes SharePoint is more than DM, its a collaboration, portal and content management 'platform' (yes, and BI, and Forms, and workflow and search....... yawn......) - and 'platform' is the key word, really its a .Net development platform, and I know as my current job title is "Senior SharePoint Specialist".
However I think the comparison of CentreStage to SharePoint is in fact a good one in the context of collaborative content management. Documentum is a also a content management platform, with well documented API's, SDK's and various front ends. SharePoint is not a fully blown ECMS, even though some in MS marketing might have pushed that message in the past. And Documentum can't do '"BI for the massess" - but where it comes to document centric collaboration via workspaces, commenting, forums, blogs and wikis etc the comparison is contextual and is indeed oranges to oranges.
In my opinion EMC has the bigger, juicer orange for enterprise wide deployment, can it sell it at the right price point to encroach on the MS market share, especially with SharePoint 2010 around the corner ? Or will it just rely on pushing current eRoom and Documentum customers towards CentreStage instead of trying to sell the full package to new accounts ?? We shall have to wait and see !