The mishmash of data types creates a few challenges for customers. On paper, vendors have all of the pieces needed to deliver integrated content management, but the simplicity, functionality and elegance found in the different modules can be uneven. As a result, the tools often do better managing some types of data than others.
Another consequence is companies, especially larger ones, often have more than one ECM. In some cases, firms have multiple versions of one document, so users may unwittingly work with outdated data. In other cases, employees sometimes need to complete a series of complex steps to aggregate information stored in email messages, Web reports, Microsoft Word documents and video clips.
In addition, these products have been complex and difficult to deploy. With the volume of data on the rise and the variety of data formats growing, the deployment of these products can be challenging. Integrating a firm's content represents a significant -- in some cases gargantuan -- effort.
The end result is these systems are often quite expensive. Traditionally, deployment prices have started at the $100,000 mark and often cost more than $1 million for large companies with tens or hundreds of terabytes of information.
However, pricing may come down for a couple of reasons. Microsoft shook up the market with its delivery of SharePoint. "Microsoft came in with a much lower pricing model than traditional ECM suppliers," says Pelz-Sharpe.
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