EMC Replaces their WCM with FatWire's Web Experience Management

EMC (news, site) says they can't own and be experts in everything, so strategic partners are a critical element to their business strategy. Which is why EMC has just announced a strategic partnership that will see the replacement of their WCM capabilities with FatWire's Web Experience Management platform. Of course, FatWire (news, site) customers get a little something too.

Improving WCM via FatWire WEM

That's right. Although EMC does have some basic web content management in the Documentum platform, according to Whitney Tidmarsh, Chief Marketing Officer, Content Management and Archiving Division for EMC, it pales in comparison to the solution offered by FatWire.

So the two have created a strategic partnership that will see EMC resell FatWire's WEM platform as EMC's web content management solution of choice.

EMC Strategy

Called the EMC Web Experience Management Solution by FatWire, Tidmarsh told us that EMC now has a complete suite of solutions aimed at the Chief Marketing Officer and designed to "achieve market objectives for engaging experiences and greater efficiency."

FatWire Adds Brand Management

FatWire customers get a little something out of this partnership as well. FatWire will offer EMC's digital asset management solution for marketing, called Brand Management. It will be called FatWire Brand Management Solution by EMC.

FatWire Adds EMC Brand Management

Gupta told us that his customers have been asking for DAM capabilities integrated into the WEM solution.

A Long-term Partnership

There's a joint reseller agreement included in this new partnership and to make it clear that EMC sees FatWire as a viable, long lasting partner, they have taken a minority equity stake in the enterprise WCM vendor.

We asked if there an acquisition looming in the future, but both companies denied it would happen. Tidmarsh said that EMC's strategy is to identify partners in markets where they want to focus and leverage those partnerships. EMC is impressed with how fast FatWire has been able to innovate. The fact that they also have a significant presence in the enterprise market is another reason they chose to work with them.

Gupta said that acquisition tends to slow down activity and getting new capabilities to market. Which means partnership tends to be the better option.

And of course you know EMC did their homework on the performance, scalability and customer service capabilities of the FatWire solution.

EMC and FatWire have History

Now this is not the first time these two vendors have worked together. In fact they have a number of common customers that have provided the opportunity to do integration between FatWire's WEM and EMC Documentum in the past.

Two years ago FatWire was asked to integrate with Documentum, Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of FatWire told us. FatWire took content created in the Documentum suite and made it available in FatWire's WEM (this included workflow integration). So both vendors knew a little about how to integrate the two solutions.

Future Integration is Bi-Directional

Tidmarsh and Gupta spoke of some interesting integration plans for the future. First up will be the ability to move content created within WEM into Documentum. This provides some nice compliance and archiving capabilities to FatWire customers and ensures that EMC customers that leverage WEM will continue to have that functionality. Gupta confirmed that workflow will also be bi-directional.

A longer term initiative focuses on EMC's xCP solution for case-based applications. FatWire will be working with EMC to figure out how to leverage xCP to create marketing applications.

A Win, Win For Both

This new strategic partnership is a win-win situation for both companies. FatWire's Web Experience Management Solution is well recognized in the content management industry providing capabilities for awhile now that many Web CMS vendors have only recently began implementing.

Today there is greater recognition that traditional approaches to WCM don't work as well and that there needs to be more focused capabilities and integration of other things like analytics, targeting and personalized interaction — which is what FatWire's WEM solution offers.

It makes sense that EMC would want this solution. It would probably take a long time to build, test and implement their own version of WEM.

As for Brand Management, FatWire should have digital asset management functionality as part of their WEM solution. And partnering with EMC provides it, enabling FatWire to continue focusing on the capabilities they know and understand the best.

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