EMC, IBM Bulk Up Content Management With Updates

Documentum 5.3 adds federated search of diverse unstructured data and better content integration across its applications. Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, meanwhile, has integrated the records management expertise it gained from its acquisition of Tarian Software into its new DB2 Content Manager 8.3.

Jim Nasr, CEO of Armedia, a content management solution provider in Atlanta, said Documentum has significantly bolstered its enterprise change management infrastructure and tightened integration between its various application areas.

"The hottest thing is the integrated search, which now works across multiple repositories," he said. He also cited the new content-transfer mechanism for moving data around. "Before, it was a clunky, slow Java applet. Now Documentum's Unified Client Facilities make such transfers easier and faster."

This wizard-based approach lets users easily take and transform desktop documents and rich media, including images, into any compatible data type, according to Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC. There is also a new Microsoft Outlook client interface for the content management system to make training easier.

DB2 Content Manager 8.3 seeks to meld the thus-far discrete worlds of content and records management. IBM claims its product is the first to integrate automated records management within content management.

Solution providers said the new product lets administrators automate what is declared as a record from within the content management system.

"You can set it up so that when a type of file comes in, it gets stored automatically as a record," said Greg McCormick, president of Silicon Plains, a Des Moines, Iowa-based content management VAR and ISV. "Before you had to carefully identify the record and manipulate it."

What IBM hoped to get from the Tarian acquisition was the ability for users to declare a record in two clicks in a matter of seconds, he said; otherwise, users won't do it.

Records management has been a hot spot among all players. IBM bought Tarian and Documentum bought TrueArc the same week in November 2002. (Documentum was purchased by EMC a year later.) Last year, Vignette bought Tower Technology for its records management expertise.