Top Five Data Trends for 2005

Its that time again — shopping mayhem, possibly some snow, and wise geeks bearing delusions of Delphi.

Today we have the oracles of Mediasurface UK weighing-in. In the fore are Compliance, Vertical Markets, Hosted Solutions, CRM/CM Integration, and Unhappy Web Surfers.

1. Compliance Crisis
New Legislations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, UK Companies Bill, Basle II and IFRS will certainly be giving CIOs a headache in 2005 and are already proving to be a driving force in software vendor’s strategies for the coming year.

Legislative requirements are pushing the volume of data organisations need to manage and we are already beginning to hear some ‘end of the world’ storage crisis hype. While the increased amount of information will have major implications for the storage market, we are already seeing significant impact on all areas of IT, including Content Management. “Complying with the latest government requirements is a problem IT departments should solve with catch-all – not legislation specific – solutions,” says Clive Longbottom from analyst firm Quocira.

Lawrence Flynn, CEO of Mediasurface says: “We see Content Management solutions becoming a key driver as a foundation layer solution to build, retrieve and store this now vital information, due to its very nature and the ease in which it can manage unstructured data.”

2. Creating verticalised markets
With the advent of an age of increasing industry regulations we will see an increased need for tailored solutions to meet each industry’s different demands. Vendors will increasingly need to support businesses by providing an industry tailored wrapping around their core products. IT purchasing is no longer about technology – is about benefits – adding real value in the business to the people who need it. Vendors can’t now just whack out the same product to everyone, across all verticals, they have to be providing a genuine solution for the specific needs of an organisation. It is about ‘solution’ not ‘product’.

People don’t buy products – they buy the benefit the product brings. For example, when you buy a light bulb, you’re actually buying the ability to have light, not a lump of glass and metal. This is also true of Content Management (CM); Mediasurface’s customers are not buying software, but the benefits it brings them such as compliance, competitive advantage and so on.

Nick Bolton, Product Marketing Director, says: “Mediasurface pioneered verticalisation in Content Management and now other providers are beginning to follow us down the vertical route. When I came to the industry it had always been horizontally focussed – the generic name for the market itself suggests this. But what was immediately apparent was that our clients were spread across a wide range of industries all using our product for differing business purposes. - World Wrestling Entertainment to entertain, the Environment Agency to inform homeowners and Prudential to empower its staff. I undertook a programme of verticalisation and building ‘whole products’ and now two years on, the business benefit is clear - our customers are happier, we are selling more and our tailored vertical solutions are always the big differentiator in new business wins. We will continue to lead this charge to verticalisation.”

3. Mainstream appeal through hosted solutions
In the year to come we see high-end vendors beginning to explore new routes to market; as the high-end enterprise market begins to become saturated, vendors will undoubtedly have to deploy a mid-market strategy.

Increasing commoditisation of technology has always, in the past, opened up doors for smaller businesses. With software it is not about how you make it, it is about how you charge for it and about inventing new ways of selling the product. Microsoft changed its licensing structure a few years ago – it had to do it, as the market had reached a point of saturation. There is currently a trend for outsourcing, reducing the costs and overheads of running and managing your infrastructure. Content Management is a technology that can offer the mid-market tremendous advantages and benefits but it has always been perceived as an expensive technology route. Mediasurface is planning a pilot project into more mass-market hosted technology solutions in the New Year.

Top Five Data Trends for 2005

Its that time again -- shopping mayhem, possibly some snow, and wise geeks bearing delusions of Delphi. \n\nToday we have the oracles of Mediasurface UK weighing-in. In the fore are Compliance, Vertical Markets, Hosted Solutions, CRM/CM Integration, and Unhappy Web Surfers.

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