Records Management News & Articles

This week there has been a whole spate of new releases in the world of GRC, most of which -- unsurprisingly -- have been focused on better security. There have also been a couple of acquisitions as well as increasing interest in services and cloud computing.

In the mornin' fog,
the evening breeze,
the cool, cool night...

(Soundtrack for this weekly review: John Lee Hooker, Frisco Blues)

Greetings from San Francisco, where there's barely any content management rush (or any rush, for that matter), but the fog, the breeze and the air filled with the freedom-loving spirit of start-ups. Lean agility is something that the big ECM kahunas could learn from start-ups.

Is that an agile move to buy something that creates an even bigger overlap in the already simmering soup of information governance technologies? Yes, I am talking about Autonomy's decision to buy CA Records Manager and CA Message Manager that transpired earlier this week.

The importance of GRC in this day and age is quite clear. What is not clear is why Autonomy would want to "IDOL-ize" this records management and archiving bundle if they already have products for that job (including from previous acquisitions like Interwoven)? "IDOL-ization" is like a rite of passage that most companies acquired by Autonomy go through after they're integrated with the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) platform.

In other news, Oracle released the long-awaited ECM 11g. The biggest sales pitch? Unified content repository and "extreme" scalability. But not everyone is wooed. Some are wondering whether Oracle knows that "WCM & ECM are actually different things." Even some industry analysts are finding it difficult to decipher the actual capabilities and intentions of this monster truck of ECM.

Editor's Picks

• Autonomy Adds More eDiscovery Capabilities via Governance Acquisition. No surprise then that Autonomy has announced it is buying CA’s information governance business, including CA Records Manager and CA Message Manager.
• Oracle ECM Suite 11g: One Repository, Web Content Management for Web Apps. In what Oracle is describing as a “strategic release”, the company says that the thinking behind it is ‘taking content management' where you work’.
• Report: Ranking of Content Management Systems for Global and Multilingual Scenarios. An analyst firm recently released their rankings of 16 content management systems attempting to answer the following question: “Which CMS delivers the best support for multilingual and multiregional use?”
  
• WEM Components: Tools for Social Engagement and Communities. Once you have your social engagement strategy, you need your tools. The complexities of your communities make choosing the right tools tricky. Here's what you need to know.
• Privacy: Is Google's Opt Out Solution Just Insane? What it comes down to is Google has chosen to offer what some call a "nuclear" option instead of promoting something less assertive.
• Alfresco Enterprise 3.3 Fully CMIS Compliant, Demonstrates Drupal Integration. With the latest release, Alfresco jumped headlong into integration that allows for a much more flexible document infrastructure.
• IBM Shows iPad Some Enterprise Love with Lotus Notes Traveler. IBM shows it can keep up with the Enterprise 2.0 in-crowd, launching Lotus Notes Traveler — a new iPad software app squarely targeted at mobile enterprise collaborators.

Most Popular Articles

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Featured Events:

• Oct 7, 2010 -- HartmanEVENT 2010 - Social Media & Mobile Usability

eDiscovery and records management have certainly evolved. What started with emails and electronic documents has spread into the cloud and then some. And now, just as predicted, it’s taking on social media.

The recent release of annual figures from Autonomy (news, site)  indicated that company was in the market for more acquisitions. No surprise then that it has just announced it is buying CA’s information governance business, including CA Records Manager and CA Message Manager.

More new releases this week that will help SMBs do business and cut costs, not least of which is the launch of Google Caffeine that will see SMB websites updated quicker. A new release from Cisco offers affordable storage solutions with integrated business applications.

Oracle (news, site) has just announced the release of its Enterprise Content Management Suite 11g, which tightly integrates its content management platform into the Fusion Middleware architecture and is built on a unified content repository.

There has been a lot of talk about Microsoft Web Apps in recent months and a lot of discussion about how it and Google Docs are going to square up. Meanwhile, HP follows Dell as the latest company to add new document management capabilities to a new set of printers.

Maybe it’s a sign of the growing awareness across enterprises of the importance of records management, or maybe it’s just because they could, but for whatever reason Perceptive Software (news, site) has added an optional records management component that can be placed directly into its enterprise management content system ImageNow.

Social media was and will always create compliance headaches unless there is a way of monitoring its use. Autonomy has come up with a solution to do just that, while Laserfiche produces a governance framework for public sector workers.

While document management, and more generally enterprise content management, have made strides in the past year, many companies are still fighting to management their content. Oracle has improved its document management capabilities by upgrading Documaker for insurance.

What if you can reduce cost and still provide the necessary tools to meet organizational needs? SharePoint 2010 (news, site) can do exactly that. 

Recent events -- particularly in the financial services sector -- have increased the pressure on enterprise records management practitioners, as more and more companies face regulatory audits or litigation-related discovery requests. The idea of document management is easy for most people to understand. Records management, on the other hand, presents some conceptual challenges. Here's a primer.

Any British-based businesses looking for information on enterprise content solutions will find advice and solutions in their area thanks to Aiim's (news, site) road trip.

There’s always a lot to chew on in the AIIM annual State of the ECM Industry and from a compliance perspective this year is no different. While compliance is losing out to BPM as a adoption driver, we can’t seem to get enough of risk management solutions.

While figures from AIIM’s State of the ECM Industry 2010 report indicate that the management of content across enterprises is still, to a large extent, chaotic and disorganized, they also show that there has been a considerable improvement on last year, and that many enterprises have finally seen the writing on the repository walls.