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CMSWatch's 12 - no - 11 Predictions for 2008

It is that time of year again isn’t it? Predictions up the wazu…from every walk of analyst. CMSWatch is one of the first to spout it’s predictions for 2008 on everything from Google, to the downfall of SharePoint, to the rise of the Search engine.

Yes, the CMSWatch analysts have been hard at work thinking about 2008 and what will shape content technologies.

#1: Archiving becomes a prime focus for ECM vendors
ECM vendors will begin to switch their attention to archiving strategies for the large volumes of data that is no longer relevant to the organization’s current activities. They see HP moving in to challenge the big boys like EMC, IBM and Open Text.

#2: Google will make a bid to become the World’s Content Repository
Google will offer to store anyone’s data, any kind and any quantity - looking to become the record of source for every organization in the world. But can Google truly provide reliable storage of enterprise information?

#3: MOSS enters the valley of disappointment
They continue on their “SharePoint is a virus” bend predicting it’s growth and the inevitable backlash, particularly in larger enterprises. The backlash relates to compliance issues as organizations lose site of their data in their SharePoint sites. Organizations also start to wake up to the reality that it isn’t cheap to build applications in SharePoint (at least not as easy as Microsoft had led people to believe).

#4: Return of the buyers’ market
Organizations to slow down their ambitious implementation plans and the rise of the availability of experienced consultants to lend a hand (with some exceptions - SharePoint expertise and advanced Drupal architectures) make 2008 a buyer’s market. They also note that buyers will start to share experiences not just at conferences but through formal and informal networks.

#5: Web 2.0 exhaustion
People will wake up and realize that Web 2.0 is not a “secret sauce”. The term will finally meet it’s maker and not be the big deal it’s constantly made out to be today. Instead new content management “recipes” will be created.

#6: Social Software vendor collision
And so the rise of Enterprise 2.0 really begins, with vendors seeing the big sale behind the firewall. There will be great battles over this market as new products fight against the incumbent Web CMS/Portal/ECM/ERP vendors who want the prize for themselves. How will the battle be fought? It looks like it’s between usability/functionality and security/native access to information stores.

#7: Facebook backlash in the enterprise
As fast as it’s been growing, Facebook may meet it’s maker in the enterprise as organizations try it and find disappointment. Why? It’s not a platform for information-oriented collaboration and it’s security capabilities are less then stellar.

#8: Security and Identity Management trump functionality for buyers
Predicted to become the key focus for ECM implementations, this focus on security and identity management will be driven by the need to align with SOA strategies and the realization that security needs to be much deeper and advanced then it is at the document level.

#9: Finally bridging web analytics and online marketing
It was talked about in 2007, but 2008 will see it come to fruition. Web analytic vendors are ironing out their integration woes. Customers are starting to realize there’s more to analysis then visits and clickthroughs and will start doing more with email marketing and other activities.

In addition, we will see more integration of third party marketing vendor data with analytics resulting in the web analytics UI becoming the dashboard of all costs, revenues and performance information. It will also become the dashboard for decision making on marketing and content delivery and other types of targeting.

#10: Search is dead….Not!
Read the research. Yes that’s right, they may be trying to yell to the world that search is dead - but CMSWatch knows better. There will be a renewed focus on search fundamentals in 2008, cleaning up content, better indexing, content security, etc… Treating search like any other software implementation - with a real plan!

#11: Productization of Search Platforms
Google has made an impact with their Google Search Appliance demonstrating that search can be implemented fast and easily. Even if there are limitations, it’s a viable option against a potential year-long implementation of any traditional search product. So they predict you will see more vendors producing this type of search product - you are starting to see it now (Coveo, Oracle, IBM).

#12: Wait a minute! Where’s prediction #12?
“We’ll have 12 new predictions next year”…

All in all, lots of interesting predictions to ponder over a cup of rum and eggnog whilst chatting with the little kiddies on Christmas eve. Not sure I can agree with them all (what with me being a SharePoint junkie myself). But 2008 will be a year of adventure for everyone and it will be interesting to see how many of these actually hold true.