Day One at Momentum let me focus on Partners with a series of presentations to the partners, be they SIs, ISVs or companies with an OEM relationship. The themes from the day were:
– Solution Frameworks. Big focus for 2009 is for EMC to deliver the vertical solution frameworks which customers can exploit to really bring business benefit. A good example here is a Case Management solution framework, expected to ship in 2008! This will introduce a number of ready built objects and UI features on top of core Documentum which will move the platform nearer to the line of business applications which the customers will gain their benefit from. There will be a number of these frameworks throughout 2009 and sometimes they will be backed up by sample business applications, e.g. Legal Case Management for the Case Management option. This is definitely something for us to look at.
– Quality. Release 6.5 was a major milestone for Documentum as the number of Level 1 defects was reduced from previous releases. This was achieved through improved processes including automated testing and a more agile approach to the product development.
– Complexity. Deployment has sometimes been hard, the new model is to make this easy and tests have proven that the typical install of Documentum has been reduced from 2 hours to around 30 minutes with the introduction of a concept called Express Stacks. Basically the core platform, or essentials, is installed and then vertical stacks can be plugged into it:
Innovation. Building on the Solution Frameworks by partnering better EMC believe they can really show benefit to customers and get them to see ROI much quicker and much greater.
Some of the Technology Initiatives which were discussed during the day include (note these are in no order and when the subject came up twice, I’ve included it below twice to show the popular ones)
SaaS. EMC really see some growth here and have a good diagaram which shows the difference between the location of the Information, or the Repository, and the Application, or the Business Logic. They are actively seeking hosting partners for this and when this is sorted I would expect a new, and probably complicated, addition to the price book. I hope it is not complicated though as this could be a positive move by EMC.
CMIS. Point 1, when asked only 20% of the audience had heard of CMIS. I was a bit disappointed in this as the recent announcements were noted in a number of places. The first time this came up was very much a beginners guide, largely due to the lack of knowledge. I won’t repeat that but the interesting point is that they expect to have a release of the product which is CMIS compliant in mid 2009. They have already trialled some of this in sessions with the other contributors and this really sounds like a positive area.
Virtual Repository Management. This introduces the concept of managing other, third party repositories with Documentum policies. e.g. Content in Sharepoint being subjected to Retention Policies from Documentum.
Next Generation WDK. Moving to a Web 2.0 platform, WDK is now 10 years old and things have moved considerably in that time. The architecture will be unveiled but will be based on a Rich Content Management Platform (RCMP). Will be fully supported in the tooling, i.e. expect that to mean Composer.
Captiva. New releases to come, making it more service based. Next release is English only but multilingual to come.
Document Sciences. Will maintain the focus on the product as a standalone but will also integrate it into Documentum, as two different routes.
CMIS. More talk on CMIS, this time to say an implementation is available now for the Web Services interface. Not checked myself but something to look for on EDN.
Open SW Initiative. EMC have listened to what people have said and will make software more readily available for the techies to download and try out and possibly even provide a more collaborative approach to releases.
XML. Listened to a talk on the xDB but to be honest the information was nothing new on what is already available!
Lots there and more to come……
Observing Content Management 