Will Interwoven Leave the Web CMS Market?

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Jan 23, 2009

4 comments

Big new yesterday — the acquisition of Enterprise Content Management provider Interwoven by Autonomy. A surprise to many, not so much because Interwoven was snapped up, but more because it was Autonomy that did it.

Regardless, the news has sparked much discussion in the ECM industry. Or wait.. it's the Web Content Management industry that is all a buzz…

We call Interwoven an enterprise content management provider because they offer a number of solutions aimed at the enterprise content management market. One only has to take a peek at their products page to see the number of products available. Of these TeamSite (Web CMS) and WorkSite (WorkSpace/Document Management) are probably the most known.

Which begs the question, does this acquisition cause bigger ripples in the Web content management world or the enterprise content management world? Apparently, it depends on who you ask.

The Content Management Industry Weighs In

Obviously many content management providers sat back and weighed the consequences of this acquisition (see our news on the deal).

FatWire seems to believe this is good news for them. Interwoven was looking to be a major competitor in the Web Experience Management space against them. Not anymore according to FatWire:

"There is great uncertainty around the future of Interwoven’s web business. Autonomy has stated clearly that the main focus for the acquisition is the legal and compliance side of Interwoven’s offerings, not the web business. Thus it is unlikely that the web business will receive much further investment inside the larger organization. We saw a similar fate for Stellent within Oracle. Regardless, the company will be going through significant restructuring for the majority of 2009 and will be re-evaluating its priorities and investments."

It seems that Vignette agrees: “The acquisition is an interesting pairing for both companies. We believe this will shift Interwoven away from its focus on web content management, creating opportunity for Vignette to expand its market share,” said Dave Dutch, senior vice president of products and marketing for Vignette. "We plan to continue our march in introducing product and solution innovations in the WCM space.”

Of course, the acquisition is also seen as good news for the SaaS Web CMS space as Clickability points out: "The Autonomy/Interwoven combination is going to provide very 'old school' technology," said Robert Carroll, vice president of marketing at Clickability. "This move is designed to help sales of Autonomy's information management suite, not to improve or expand the innovation or quality of Interwoven's CMS product. A SaaS-based Web Content Management solution remains the best option for companies who are looking for a cost-effective CMS with rapid innovation and quick implementation times."

Open source ECM vendor Alfresco sees the possibility of changes for Interwoven's Worksite product. Alfresco CMO Ian Howells says that "It will be interesting to see what Autonomy plan to do with the overlapping product sets of Interwoven’s WorkSite and Automomy’s Meridio. No doubt their respective install bases will be bracing themselves for potential impact on product roadmaps.”