Functional Assessment of Hummingbird Enterprise

Transcription

1 Functional Assessment of Hummingbird Enterprise July Doculabs, 1201 West Harrison Street, Third Floor, Chicago, IL 60607, , Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Doculabs is a registered trademark. All other vendor and product names are assumed to be trade and service marks of their respective companies.

2 Table of Contents Introduction...3 Managing Content across the Enterprise...4 Hummingbird s Approach... 6 Product Analysis...9 Vendor and Product Overview... 9 Architecture Functionality Administration Key Strengths and Challenges Conclusion DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

3 INTRODUCTION Today, organizations face the need to manage vast amounts of content content that can range from the classical object types (images, office documents, and print streams), to the newer object types such as web content, , digital assets (audio and video), and even source code. For most organizations, managing this content requires the use of multiple systems from multiple vendors in multiple locations for example, an EDMS system from one vendor may manage an organization s relatively static content such as Microsoft Office documents; a content management (CM) solution may manage dynamic web site content. Organizations need the capabilities of both EDMS and CM systems to manage enterprise content. However, managing multiple systems for this purpose presents a high cost of ownership in terms of the resources required to acquire, administer, integrate, and maintain them. The result has been a growing market demand for vendors to develop integrated enterprise content management (ECM) systems to support the major functions of document management and content management, coupled with business process management capabilities such as collaboration and workflow. In response to this market demand, a number of vendors have begun to focus on these requirements. To date, however, Doculabs has found relatively few vendors whose products deliver on all of them. Among these is Hummingbird Ltd., whose product, Hummingbird Enterprise, is among the foremost contenders in the ECM market space. With its strong heritage in the EDMS market space, Hummingbird is positioning its product suite to serve this growing market need. The product combines the component technologies of ECM into a single platform, thereby allowing organizations to manage all types of enterprise content through all phases of the document life cycle, within a single content repository and from a common interface. Hummingbird commissioned Doculabs, an independent analyst and advisory firm, to conduct an independent evaluation of Hummingbird Enterprise, focusing primarily on its core module, Hummingbird DM, which forms the repository for its solution. This report reviews the product from a functional and technical perspective, describes its strategic benefits, and identifies its major strengths and areas for enhancement. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE 5.0 3

4 MANAGING CONTENT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE Enterprise content includes considerably more than just web content. Historically, the EDMS space has focused on managing business documents through document management (library services), imaging, and services for computer output to laser disk/enterprise report management (COLD/ERM); some of the integrated EDMS solutions include workflow capabilities and are beginning to include capabilities to manage and perform digital asset management. In contrast, vendors of content management products initially focused on maintaining dynamic content on web sites, with tools for assembly, approval, and publication processes. The upshot is that EDMS products have not provided the capabilities to adequately handle web content, , and digital assets, while the CM vendors have not adequately addressed much beyond web content. Today, however, organizations need to capture, control, and deliver more types of content than either traditional EDMS or CM systems can address. But organizations also seek to put that content to work and share it with the people and business applications that use it. This typically requires production workflow, collaboration capabilities, and connection to business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems and desktop office environments such as Microsoft Office, e- mail, and web portal frameworks. Increasingly, companies also seek to share content with people outside their organization and therefore outside their organization s firewall. This presents a new requirement for security, to eliminate the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data. While the need for information management continues to underlie many business problems, organizations are now beginning to face further challenges. Business continuity and disaster recovery concerns are being given higher priority. And the heightened concern for effective records disposition has raised the profile of records management. The result is a critical need for broader and deeper life cycle management functions beyond traditional library functions. For operational efficiency, business continuity, compliance, and risk management purposes, organizations need backup capabilities, hierarchical storage management, and standard records management functions that can be applied to all types of enterprise content. Until recently, many of these capabilities were relatively low on an organization s list of requirements if they appeared at all. Now, they are on everyone s list, and organizations recognize a strong imperative to find a technology that addresses them. 4 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

5 For all of these reasons, the needs for enterprise content management have become far more wide-ranging than ever before at a time when organizations must scrutinize the costs of information technology as never before. And the fact is that using multiple systems EDMS and CM products to manage enterprise content, together with an additional product for electronic records management, presents an organization with a far higher total cost of ownership. This cost comes in terms of the resources required to administer multiple systems, including higher training costs, redundant or duplicative content creation efforts in multiple systems, and higher costs for the systems integrators that implement these systems. In many instances, this scenario also results in a higher percentage of system downtime because of the maintenance required for multiple products. But one of the biggest obstacles to managing enterprise content through the use of multiple products is the need to integrate the multiple systems managing the various types of content. Today, IT departments are making concerted efforts to consolidate the array of systems they have acquired or may be acquiring for capturing, controlling, and delivering content. Because of the difficulties inherent in integrating multiple vendor solutions, it is imperative that ECM capabilities be delivered by a minimum number of vendors ideally, one vendor through a single integrated platform. True ECM thus requires a single integrated solution for life cycle management of all types of content within an enterprise, including content managed by EDMS and content management systems, as well as other types of content, such as and digital assets. An integrated ECM solution must also offer process management capabilities such as workflow and collaboration, and provide content and process integration capabilities for managing content across business applications and other content repositories. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE 5.0 5

6 Hummingbird s Approach Hummingbird Enterprise represents a suite of products a balanced portfolio of the technologies that an organization requires for ECM. The products are designed as interoperable, modular applications capable of being installed separately or in combination, to leverage each other s functionality. Deploying all modules of the suite allows an organization to provide what Hummingbird calls a 360-degree view of enterprise content. Hummingbird calls its approach to enterprise content management Enterprise Information Management System (EIMS) providing the key technologies that enable an enterprise to manage all of its information (whether structured or unstructured, internal or external). The individual modules of Hummingbird Enterprise are designed to meet specific market needs, each on its own. In addition, when any two Hummingbird Enterprise modules are combined, they can leverage each other s functionality. The result is a suite of products that delivers the highest usability, along with the lowest cost of ownership possible. With its product offering, Hummingbird has completely integrated the component technologies of its suite, providing a platform for seamlessly managing the life cycle of enterprise content and thus a true ECM solution. At the same time, the individual component products are designed as building blocks pieces that can be implemented on their own, allowing for incremental implementation of other modules of the Enterprise suite. The goal has been to deliver high usability, with a lower cost of ownership. But Hummingbird Enterprise goes beyond the offerings of other vendors by providing extended ECM capabilities. Its advanced collaborative capabilities allow organizations to enable collaborative activities both inside and outside the enterprise, creating collaborative communities. Its records management module is an integral part of the Enterprise solution, providing the ability to manage all enterprise content as records. And Hummingbird has built upon its heritage in the EDMS market space to provide advanced knowledge management functionality again, across all enterprise content. The modular design of Hummingbird Enterprise allows organizations to build their solutions around their specific requirements, and to bring in additional components incrementally as those requirements change with the assurance that all components will be interoperable. 6 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

7 Following are the eight primary modules that comprise Hummingbird Enterprise: Hummingbird DM the document management module and the core element of Hummingbird Enterprise that serves as the foundation for collaborative and content management solutions, with search tools, versioning, and security profiles; includes tools for imaging, workflow, web publishing, and engineering drawing management Hummingbird RM the records management module that provides an organized, secure environment to manage the complete life cycle of knowledge assets, from creation to destruction Hummingbird Portal a web-based workspace that improves access to information with secure single logon to multiple knowledge sources and applications Hummingbird KM the knowledge management module, with powerful search, categorization, and retrieval capabilities to provide fast, accurate access to an organization s collective content and expertise Hummingbird Collaboration a web-based module that enables secure access to collaborative activities inside and outside the enterprise, providing a single point of access to all critical project information Hummingbird BI an integrated, scalable business intelligence solution that enables an organization to access and analyze data from applications across the enterprise Hummingbird ETL a programming tool that performs extract, transform, and load functions to help organizations access data and transform it into accurate, timely information, thereby leveraging existing IT environments Hummingbird Connectivity host access and network connectivity solutions to allow seamless access to information and resources on legacy systems such as mainframe, AS/400, Linux, and UNIX FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE 5.0 7

8 Hummingbird s design goal has been to provide all of the enabling technologies for ECM in a single, integrated front end, thereby providing a single point of content access and administration. Within the emerging market for enterprise content management, Hummingbird has leveraged its considerable expertise in EDMS technologies, and, with the Hummingbird Enterprise offering, stands alone in its ability to deliver an extended set of capabilities: general EDMS, along with advanced collaboration, knowledge management, business intelligence, and extract, transform, and load (ETL) functionality all in a single-vendor modular suite. Certain areas of functionality notably workflow, COLD/ERM, and web content management are weaker and are being addressed through partnerships and integrations. The strength of the current Enterprise modules, however, is their interoperability, allowing organizations to exploit more fully the functionality of whatever combination of modules they may choose to deploy. 8 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

9 PRODUCT ANALYSIS This section provides Doculabs review of Hummingbird Enterprise, focusing on the core component, Hummingbird DM. It contains the following subsections: Vendor and Product Overview Architecture Functionality Administration Key Strengths and Challenges Vendor and Product Overview Hummingbird was founded in The company is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, and employs approximately 1,300 people in nearly 40 offices worldwide. Hummingbird is a publicly traded company and is listed on both the Toronto (HUM) and NASDAQ (HUMC) stock exchanges; it reported revenues of $237.1 million in the 2000 fiscal year. Hummingbird s customer base spans diverse industry lines, with a strong presence in the legal and government vertical markets. The company s heritage is in the development of enterprise software solutions, including network connectivity and business intelligence products. In June 1999, the company acquired PC DOCS Group International, a developer of EDMS software solutions, making Hummingbird one of the fifty largest software developers in the world. With the completion of this acquisition, Hummingbird has focused on simplifying the architecture of its product line, converging the constituent technologies into a suite of modular, yet interoperable components with a single content repository and a consistent platform as well as a common interface and a consistent user experience across all the modules. Hummingbird positions its solution as an integrated information and knowledge management solution suite, capable of managing the entire life cycle of information and knowledge assets. It offers extended ECM capabilities, including advanced collaboration, records management, and knowledge management functionality, delivering them in a single-vendor modular suite. Hummingbird DM is a core component of the Hummingbird Enterprise suite the content repository of the Hummingbird ECM solution and the enabler of actionable knowledge. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE 5.0 9

10 Architecture The architecture for Hummingbird DM is designed around a multi-tiered platform, with four layers: The repository layer, which houses the back-end metadata, file, and content stores for the enterprise system The transaction server layer, which provides the business logic for storing, accessing, securing, sharing, and searching for documents The web server layer, which provides web application access to Hummingbird DM repositories, housing user interface components accessed by browsers The user access layer, which provides access to the content housed in the DM repositories via both web- and Windows-based methods The following figure illustrates the architecture of Hummingbird DM. Figure 1 Architecture of Hummingbird Enterprise (Source: Hummingbird) 10 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

11 As for security, Hummingbird provides a customizable and flexible security model to accommodate differentiated levels of security and access to documents both within the organization and for the extended enterprise. It enables simple configuration of role-based user groups, including support for externally focused users who access but do not create. It supports exclusionary security to allow ethical wall scenarios. It provides Published Version support, which allows creators to see all document versions, but allows consumers to see only the final, published version. The Hummingbird RM module adds functional security for flexible configuration of end-user involvement in record capture processes. The Hummingbird Collaboration module provides a flexible permissions model for users and administrators to assign security rights on a wide range of levels. Hummingbird Collaboration s security model provides organizations with a safe way to include outside participation in projects without jeopardizing internal system integrity. Hummingbird Collaboration Page Server feature adds yet another layer of security, allowing users view-only permissions to protect sensitive documents. It prevents such consumers from capturing document screens, saving documents, or printing screens, and incorporates watermarks. More specifically, Hummingbird plans to expose the Hummingbird repository and services to applications, extend its capabilities outside an enterprise, and integrate with third-party environments. Hummingbird Collaboration supports the W3C Consortium Web Services standard for interoperability between Internet-enabled applications. By providing this support, organizations can quickly and easily integrate Collaboration into their business processes. Hummingbird is moving to support J2EE and Web Services in its Hummingbird DM, Hummingbird RM, Hummingbird Collaboration, Hummingbird BI, and Hummingbird Portal modules, to provide interoperability and enhance the e- business capabilities of the Hummingbird Enterprise product suite. J2EE will help deliver portability to multiple hardware platforms (Intel, IBM, Sun), allowing them to deliver applications in context with line-of-business and custom applications targeted at J2EE. Hummingbird s products will reside on J2EEcertified applications servers. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

12 Hummingbird s move to Web Services support is particularly significant. Web Services are evolving as an enabling technology that bridges the platform divide and delivers on the concept of service-centric computing. They represent an evolution of the distributed computing approach, providing a standards-based interface and discovery system that can be used with almost any programming language, platform, or operating system. Web Services make use of three main technologies: Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). The push to Web Services is being driven primarily by the vendor community today, but will be embraced by the end-user community over the next two to three years which means that Hummingbird is wise to incorporate this trend in its product architecture. 12 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

13 Functionality Hummingbird DM is a core element of the Hummingbird Enterprise solution. It provides the centralized repository for enterprise content, with powerful search tools and versioning and security profiles to ensure life cycle document integrity, as well as web access to facilitate collaboration. Imaging, document management, workflow, web publishing, and engineering drawing tools provide additional, domain-specific capabilities. Hummingbird DM consists of three components: Hummingbird DM Client, Hummingbird DM Server, and Hummingbird DM Extensions. The Hummingbird DM Client consists of a DM WebTop, as well as several optionally installable Microsoft Windows-based components that enrich the user experience through integration with the Windows environment and mainstream authoring tools. The Hummingbird DM Server is a threaded transaction server that brokers communications between the Hummingbird DM client and back-end information stores, such as document servers for electronic file storage and SQL servers for meta-data storage. The Hummingbird DM Extensions are code pieces that achieve integration with various interfaces to the user s work environment. The philosophy behind the various extensions is to remove barriers to using the Hummingbird DM system by integrating with familiar work interfaces. The Hummingbird DM Extensions may be installed separately to increase the quality of the user experience, or together, for a fully integrated Windows and web environment. Hummingbird offers the following extensions for Hummingbird DM: Application DM Extension provides integration with mainstream user authoring tools, including Microsoft Office Suite, Corel Office Suite, and Lotus Smart Suite, as well as the applications GroupWise, Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes Mail. Application integration may be supported through Active, Passive, ODMA, or Interceptor integration methods. Windows Desktop DM Extension extends the Windows desktop environment to accommodate document management functionality, and enables the user to drag shortcuts to profiled or checked-out documents, folders, quick searches, and workspaces to the desktop, as well the ability to search for documents and folders from the Start/Find menu. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

14 Outlook DM Extension transforms Microsoft Outlook into a Hummingbird DM client, and provides access to the Hummingbird DM repository as part of the tree view available within Outlook. Users can traverse the repository, perform searches, and manage documents. Windows Explorer DM Extension transforms Microsoft Windows Explorer into a Hummingbird DM client, and provides access to the Hummingbird DM repository via the tree view, as well as the ability to traverse the repository, perform searches, and manage documents. Hummingbird DM also serves as the content solution for Hummingbird Portal; users can publish managed content to the portal using Hummingbird Web Publishing. With the addition of the Hummingbird RM module, Hummingbird DM becomes a standards-compliant records management solution, creating an organized, secure environment that manages the complete life cycle of corporate knowledge assets from creation to destruction. The Hummingbird DM module is integrated with Hummingbird s own content search and knowledge management technologies. It leverages the powerful indexing and search abilities of Hummingbird SearchServer, which supports multiple content indexes to improve performance or to provide system fault tolerance. It also enables Hummingbird DM metadata and content to be indexed, categorized, and searched by Hummingbird KM. From the records management standpoint, Hummingbird is one of the few ECM vendors that can boast an effective electronic records management solution a solution that can take its place as a strategic part of an organization s information management infrastructure. Hummingbird RM provides excellent records management capabilities as part of the broader ECM capabilities of Hummingbird Enterprise, delivering the business benefits associated with effective records management compliance and risk reduction. 14 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

15 The key differentiator of Hummingbird Enterprise is its ability to effectively manage the document life cycle. As shown in Figure 2, the document life cycle calls for two distinct phases of content management. First, as a document is created or captured, it goes through a relatively short-lived process of creation, review, and edit until it is published for consumption to portable document format (PDF), web sites, or print media. At that point, a document enters the second phase of content management, records management disposition a process that determines its longevity, its relevance, and its possible revisions over time. This second management phase of a document can, by its nature, span a much longer period than that of the first phase. And the criticality of this retention phase has gained increased relevance with recent world and economic events, as organizations have elevated the importance of business continuity, compliance, and risk management concerns. Enterprise organizations now recognize a clear and distinct requirement for a system that allows for the management of content throughout the complete document life cycle. Information Life Cycle Review Edit Final Version Active/ In-active Use Archive Destroy Create Capture Paper Capture Capture Knowledge Source Version Publish GroupWare Systems WWW, Corporate Portal CD ROM, Print on demand, etc. PDF Collections Document Management Records Management Cradle to Grave Figure 2 The Document Life Cycle FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

16 The fundamental principle of electronic records management is to provide for long-term access and retention over the complete document life cycle. Providing long-term access requires that every individual electronic record be searchable and retrievable, and that it be capable of rendering (processible) on a display screen or printer without loss of content or structure. Retention requirements stipulate that the integrity of records be preserved over the full life cycle, independent of changes in media technology or system obsolescence. As such, electronic records management solutions should not be predicated on a particular media or a single systems or application environment. Today, records management also requires the system to support both paper and electronic business documents and apply the proper controls when these documents become records. Since electronic documents are created and used by a number of different applications, the records management platform must communicate with these applications in one form or another and become the foundation or common point of control for all applications. Hummingbird RM creates an organized, secure environment that manages the complete life cycle of corporate knowledge assets from creation to destruction. For organizations seeking a comprehensive, single-vendor solution, Hummingbird RM transforms the Hummingbird DM product into a standards-compliant records management solution, creating an organized, secure environment that manages the complete life cycle of corporate knowledge assets, from creation to destruction. In other areas of enterprise content management notably workflow, COLD/ERM, and web content management Hummingbird has chosen to provide ECM functionality through partnerships and integrations. The current workflow functionality is DM-focused, upon the automation and management of those processes that center on the document life cycle to provide a means for document review and approval. For production workflow that is transaction centered, Hummingbird partners with such vendors as Integic, Ultimas, Staffware, and Adobe (Accelio). For COLD/ERM, Hummingbird provides integration with Maximal. For web content management, Hummingbird partners with vendors such as Red Dot, Stellent, and others. 16 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

17 Administration Hummingbird provides rapid deployment capabilities that significantly reduce the time and resources required for deployment and administration of the modules that comprise the Hummingbird Enterprise ECM suite. For example, Hummingbird offers configuration options for DM user interface components, DM extensions for application integration, and DM companion solutions. It also offers user option settings that provide the ability to customize incrementally, enabling administrators to configure deployment packages throughout the enterprise without visiting workstations, send users a URL to the DM WebTop to install the components after Login, from a CD install, or manually select from the Hummingbird DM Options page. Particularly impressive is Hummingbird s rapid repository schema customization capability, using the Hummingbird DM Designer. The Hummingbird DM Designer is a forms design tool that enables rapid customizations of repository schemas and forms; it simplifies the design of database schemas for metadata capture via a graphical design interface. It enables administrators to configure and implement different forms for different groups of users, based on their metadata requirements. Hummingbird provides localization to multiple languages and deployment in multi-lingual environments; Hummingbird SearchServer supports 20 languages for document indexing that users can search upon. The vendor supplies translated versions for several languages within three months of commercial release in English. It supports metadata (profile) storage of information, as well as searches for information, in multiple languages. Hummingbird Enterprise offers content indexing and searching for many languages and extended character sets via SearchServer. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

18 Key Strengths and Challenges The following table summarizes the key strengths and challenges of Hummingbird Enterprise. Strengths Provides solid capabilities in library functions, long-term repository management Advanced, highly secure collaboration, coupled with great usability and object management functionality Strong records management across all enterprise content, with retention/ disposition capabilities seamlessly integrated into the product Relatively strong management functionality Application integration packages for rapid configuration and deployment and reduced cost of ownership Customizable security; highly flexible to provide granular levels of control Security includes published version support Challenges Provides excellent advanced collaboration capabilities but rather basic, DM-based, workflow; insufficient for production-type applications Gaps in ECM functionality (workflow, COLD/ERM, web content management) are addressed through partnerships Companion solution for CAD is not as strong as the comparable offerings of other vendors in the ECM space Table 1 Key Strengths and Challenges of Hummingbird Enterprise 18 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

19 STRATEGIC BENEFITS Doculabs identified a number of business benefits of Hummingbird s approach to enterprise content management and its Hummingbird Enterprise product suite: Provides a common platform for all enterprise content management As a complete ECM solution, Hummingbird Enterprise allows an organization to harness and use enterprise content the information that is contained in documents, images, print streams, web pages, , and digital assets. Managing this content in a single platform maintains a higher integrity and control of the content. Supports multiple types of business applications Because ECM covers such a breadth of content types, it can benefit a wide range of applications. For example, Hummingbird Enterprise makes sense for internal content or document management applications, for publishingoriented applications, web content management, and for supporting e- commerce, portals, CRM, and customer self-service applications. Provides a single-vendor solution A single-vendor solution such as Hummingbird Enterprise reduces the costs and effort associated with acquiring, deploying, integrating, and maintaining multiple products. This also simplifies product procurement, as there is only one vendor relationship to manage, and one point of contact for product support issues. Provides a single point of entry for users For users, the single point of entry of the Hummingbird Enterprise solution eliminates the need for users to know or care where content resides, and also reduces the cost of user training on multiple systems. And because an ECM solution such as this provides a wider range of technologies, there is greater potential to appeal to a broader user base thereby standing a better chance of acceptance by all users across the enterprise and maximizing the organization s investment in the technology. Simplifies maintenance Because Hummingbird Enterprise brings all content- and process-oriented technologies into a single system, it simplifies maintenance from the administrative standpoint. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

20 Reduces integration efforts From an IT perspective, Hummingbird Enterprise is likely to significantly reduce the integration effort required to implement component-based, bestof-breed systems using technologies from multiple vendors. As such, the product can be expected to facilitate rapid application development and simplify integration with other systems, such as ERP and CRM applications. The single-vendor approach also ensures a single point of contact and support for the modules that an organization choose to deploy, potentially resulting in fewer problems with software upgrades than might otherwise be encountered in systems using products from multiple vendors. 20 DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

21 CONCLUSION The business benefits of integrated enterprise content management are quite clear. As organizations become even more cost-conscious about their IT investments, the single-vendor solution for ECM becomes the most viable option for managing the vast amounts of content used throughout an enterprise. The result is considerable market demand for ECM systems to support the major functions of document management and content management, together with collaboration and workflow capabilities and records management capabilities that can be applied to all forms of enterprise content. With its Enterprise ECM solution, Hummingbird is an early entrant in this new and growing market space. However, unlike other vendors, Hummingbird offers its solution as a modular suite, with interoperable components that can also function separately. The strength of this product approach lies in the integration of all the components a strategy that provides a wide range of advantages: a consistent platform and user experience, common user/group management, a single content repository, and a common metadata definition. Hummingbird s vision demonstrates that it has built upon its strong heritage in the EDMS market space, combining the major component technologies of ECM into a single platform. However, certain segments of functionality are currently being addressed through partnerships with other vendors. For those organizations that seek a single-vendor solution to meet all needs for managing enterprise content, including robust, production-class workflow and web content management functionality, Hummingbird Enterprise does not yet offer all of the requisite components of a total ECM solution although we expect Hummingbird will be taking steps to address these areas in the future. Overall, however, Hummingbird Enterprise is an impressive offering. It is no small accomplishment to provide a software tool that enables organizations to manage all types of enterprise content within a single content repository and from a common interface and to do so throughout all stages of the document life cycle, from creation, to presentment, to repurposing, to disposition. The company s vision is commendable: it is leveraging its heritage in EDMS, to offer a product line that addresses new business problems not just information management, but business continuity, disaster recovery, compliance, and risk management. Hummingbird Enterprise is clearly guided by a vision that addresses these new business imperatives. FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF HUMMINGBIRD ENTERPRISE

22 APPENDIX: ABOUT DOCULABS Doculabs is an independent research and consulting firm that improves the way companies plan for, select, and optimize emerging technologies through projectbased services. Our clients include the companies that purchase emerging technologies as well as the leading vendors that supply them. Based in Chicago and founded in 1993, Doculabs consulting services are grounded in research that combines hands-on evaluation of technology with realtime business knowledge gained from engagements with Fortune 1000 clients. Doculabs services help our clients deliver on their business strategies through solutions in areas such as enterprise content management, relationship management and infrastructure. Doculabs consulting services are completely objective because we have no vested interest in selling software or integration services. Thus, our analysts have no hidden agenda; they simply seek to ensure the most appropriate strategies and solutions for our customers. Leveraging our advanced and unique research through short-term consulting projects, Doculabs provides its clients with: Lowered costs associated with establishing sound strategies and making the most informed decisions Reduced risk of making misinformed decisions that cause loss in capital and missed ROI expectations Improved time-to-market that speeds ROI and creates a greater competitive advantage In addition to fixed-bid, short-term project engagements, Doculabs analysis and thought leadership is channeled through speaking engagements, interviews, and authored articles to a number of leading trade organizations and publications, including AIIM, BAI, DIA, NACHA, InformationWeek, CIO, Insurance & Technology, Transform, Energy IT, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek, among many others. For more information about Doculabs, visit the web site at or call (312) DOCULABS MARKETFOCUS REPORT

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