Content Buildup

The vendor this week plans to unveil a program that offers market development funds, joint sales support and runtime licensing to VARs that build applications atop its software.

"We want them to help our customers get lower cost of ownership and get to production very quickly with package applications," said Nancy Williams, vice president of business development at Documentum, based here. "We also want them to be selling outside our channel and going to tier-two and tier-three customers."

Though Documentum has about 150 systems integration partners, the VAR program represents a new channel, Williams said.

Over the past two quarters, Documentum has been in talks with about 10 to 20 applications VARs. One of the first to sign up for the program was McLaren, a Glasgow, Scotland-based supplier of collaborative software solutions for oil and chemical companies and engineering firms that build chemical plants.

McLaren has already reaped benefits since showing its kVista applications to Documentum's sales staff, said Paul Muir, CEO of the VAR. "They're passing us leads and also taking us into some of their accounts."

Muir added that the runtime licensing,which restricts Documentum's software to use with McLaren applications,is enabling him to reduce the overall cost of his solutions. "The cost to us of buying a runtime license is less than buying full-use development licenses," Muir said. "It makes us more competitive."

One Documentum competitor, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Interwoven, also took steps last week to bolster its credentials as a supplier of enterprise contentment management software.

Interwoven integrated Venetica's VeniceBridge content integration software into its own TeamSite suite and plans to market the product under the name Content Provider for TeamSite.

The software is designed to enable TeamSite users to check in, modify and check out documents from the repositories of Documentum, FileNet, Lotus Notes and other apps. Users also can use the software to copy documents into the TeamSite repository, where they can be managed and repurposed for portal, e-commerce, CRM and other initiatives.