Web Applications are Crucial to Successful Enterprise Content Management

London, 17 March 2003 - Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is an infrastructure component rather than an application and as such must provide a complete platform for the management of content, with which content service applications can integrate. However, management of content per se, has little worth without the ability to realise the value of this content, so applications are a crucial part of the overall picture; says Butler Group in its latest Technology Evaluation and Comparison Report, Enterprise Content Management - Building a Scalable and Effective Content Infrastructure.

"It is unfortunate that the dot.com boom and bust has left behind a legacy of suspicion towards externally facing Web applications," says Sue Clarke co-author of the Report, and Senior Research Analyst at Butler Group. "Due caution and realism is, of course, important, but it has held back the understanding of how powerful a channel the Web can be."

Previous generations of Web Content Management systems have converged with Document Management systems to provide a far broader concept of enterprise-wide creation and deployment of content. One of the distinguishing factors of an ECM system over previous generations is its ability to handle a wider variety of content ranging from voice, graphics, and image at one end of the spectrum to database tables, XML, and HTML at the other. Therefore, one of the most powerful aspects of ECM is the ability to present both types of information as part of a single application.

Consequently, the current range of applications managing content and data ranging from Relational DataBase Management Systems (RDBMS) for management of structured content, to word processing, spreadsheet, groupware, and enterprise applications that manage different types of content, will all become tightly integrated and managed within the ECM application infrastructure.

These applications will deliver content through portals and Butler Group believes that, as there is a close relationship between the two types of systems, we may expect to see some consolidation between portal and ECM vendors.

One major challenge for ECM vendors, as foreseen by Butler Group, will be scalability. As both content volumes and the number of users increase so will the demands made on all aspects of the system. However, Butler Group sees more and more functionality being incorporated, as ECM becomes a true platform for the management of all types of content within the organisation regardless of its source or location.