Interview: Rules spur content controls

Open Text's Tom Jenkins believes governance rules are making content management tools indispensable for many companies

The amount of data held by firms is doubling every two to four months, and in the past year the total amount of data grew to double that created in the whole previous history of computers. By providing an ability to make sense of this mass of digitised information, firms such as Open Text have built their businesses.

Open Text is the largest independent developer of what have become known as enterprise content management (ECM) systems, although as the firm's chief executive Tom Jenkins conceded in a meeting with UK press last month, the term raises as many questions as it answers. "It lends itself to an acronym, ECM, that is a play on ERP [enterprise resource planning]," he said. "But many IT leaders I meet say they don't know the difference between records management and content management."

Effectively, ECM is records management on steroids, a way of keeping track of all organisational information assets. Five years ago, content management was often discussed with reference to managing web content and ambitious IT vendors such as Vignette and Interwoven. Today, the ability to manage content, whether structured or unstructured, on the web, in the datacentre, on client hard drives or messaging servers is the goal. And, with regulatory compliance issues soaring to the top of IT chiefs' agendas, it has become very important indeed.

"Whatever you call the process, it all comes down to who wrote the email, who destroyed the email and what do I do about it," Jenkins said. "It comes down to the electronic record, whether it's Enron [or] Martha Stewart - it's [the ability to] show what happened. Compliance has made ECM a hot issue."

Adding responsibilities for regulatory compliance to their duties has also created a dichotomy for IT chiefs. "The big challenge is to not get tied up in red tape - I've got all this compliance work that's not giving me a return on investment," said Jenkins. "It's a fundamental issue in IT: firms have to somehow keep all the regulators happy but they also need to stay in business."

Thankfully, Jenkins also sees a more productive use of ECM software as a platform for collaboration. The recently released Livelink for Communities of Practice provides a forum where experts can share information and best practices. Members use a workspace to publish news, documents and blogs, and conduct online meetings over the web.

Open Text is also working with Research In Motion (RIM) to put ECM on the BlackBerry mobile device, allowing users to view and manipulate enterprise repository data and be informed of content changes. Looking further ahead, Open Text is working on a project called LivePlaces that integrates instant messaging with online presence sensing, web conferencing and collaborative workspaces.

Jenkins said he expects specialised ECM suppliers to shrink down to three or four competitors and does not believe Oracle's recently disclosed content management plans will radically change the sector. "They'll do a portal but it's just part and parcel of a trend to everyone entering content management," he said.

About Tom Jenkins

Tom Jenkins is chairman and chief executive of Open Text, the leading independent developer of enterprise content management software

The Canadian company has about 20 million users worldwide.