Documentum – EMC World/Momentum 2012 – TSG Recap

Thanks to all subscribers for making this one of our most successful weeks with the blog.  We always get lots of feedback that our take on announcements and learning sessions at EMC World/Momentum is our most popular topic.  Also, it was great making new friends face to face who opened with “I really like your blog!!!”  This post will try to wrap-up and summarize all the other postings, as well as express the TSG opinion on the event.

Follow-up on Early Predictions  

Back in March, we tried to predict what would be presented at Momentum.

Early Predictions Post

Some thoughts:

• D2 – We had predicted that Momentum would be the coming out party for D2 and that D2 would replace the Unified Web Interface proposed at EMC World 2011, and I think we got that right.  What we missed was just how much progress IIG was making in the 4.0 release (non-ActiveX) scheduled for release early 3Q 2012.
• Mobile – We also predicted that Momentum would focus on the Mobile user.  The new release of the Documentum Mobile client (still free) and purchase of Syncplicity were the major announcements in this area.
• Cloud – IIG has made progress with OnDemand offerings with a couple of client presentations.
• D7 – We had predicted that it would be announced, but not formally released.  Not a ton of messages around D7 but it is targeted for release 4Q 2012.

Day 0 – EMC Commits to Documentum

On Sunday during the partner sessions, Joe Tucci made statements that put any concerns about EMC selling IIG to rest.

Joe Tucci Announcement at Partner Summit in regards to IIG

In discussions regarding concerns about a potential sale in our post  IIG’s 1st quarter 2012 revenues, we had predicted that EMC would stick it out with IIG.

Day 1 Morning – D2  

In a little change of pace, the first morning included sessions with Joe Tucci’s Keynote not scheduled until shortly before lunch.  We attended two D2 sessions:

Monday Morning D2 Sessions

Version 4.0 of D2 is a substantial upgrade to the 3.1 version.  Focused on configuration rather than code, the interface has a portal feel and makes extensive use of widgets with a Sencha and Google Web Toolkit infrastructure on top of the DFS.  All roadmap plans still included Webtop (we learned later that Webtop 6.5 will be certified on the new platforms including D7).

D2 might be able to replace some Webtop installations but Webtop is a separate product.  EMC stated they will continued to be support Webtop in the future.

Overall, we heard good things regarding D2 but, it’s difficult to evaluate since version 4.0 is such a major update and will not be released until 3rd Quarter.   Clients should consider D2 4.0 once it is released and be in discussions with their sales rep to discuss pricing, given other purchases.

Day 1 – Afternoon – Rick Devenuti Keynote

A big announcement was made regarding the purchase of Syncplicity by EMC/IIG.  To better explain the capabilities of Snycplicity for attendees, Jeetu later described Syncplicity as “Dropbox for the enterprise”.

Rick Devenuti Keynote

Rick presented his thoughts on D2 and Mobile.  The major theme was “End User Solutions”.  Rick brought up John O’Melia, Vice President of IIG Services, for a significant part of the keynote, as well as Nick James from CapGemini.  Rick made an announcement about coming back to Life Sciences, along with pursuit of other verticals (Public Sector, Energy, Financial Services and Healthcare) all focused on solutions.  Jeetu later identified specific consulting partners that would be delivering solutions.

Day 2 – Discussions, Keynote and Solutions

The second day was pretty active with multiple posts.  We attended Jeetu Patel and Rohit Ghai’s keynote, as well as some of the solutions presentations. We posted a discussion with IIG consultants over breakfast regarding solutions and OnDemand/Cloud offerings.

Partners and the OnDemand Cloud

Jeetu and Rohit gave their keynote in the mid-morning.  Great focus this year on “what we have done” and what we are going to do.

Jeetu and Rohit Keynote

Given Rick’s earlier push on solutions, we thought we would head to the consulting presentations to learn how consulting offerings are becoming products.  First, Ellen attended the Life Sciences Solutions session.

D2 Life Sciences Solutions

I attended the IIG Solutions with Andy Crowne and Dave Von Klemper

IIG Solutions

Day 3 – What’s Next and D2

After a great night activity with a variety of clients, Ellen and I both awoke pretty early and squeezed into the “What’s Next.  ECM Documentum Family Roadmap” session with Aaron Aubrecht.

What’s Next with Documentum Family

This included confirmation that Webtop is not going away as well as a realistic roadmap for next year’s plans with a fixed release cadence.

Ellen also attended additional D2 4.0 sessions on moving Webtop applications to D2 and working with configurations.

More on D2

Overall Thoughts – A pragmatic approach

In our discussions at the show and on the way to the airport, Ellen, clients and I thought this year’s event distinguished itself from the last two years under Rick’s tenure in that it was much more pragmatic compared to previous years.

EMC World/Momentum 2011 Recap

EMC World/Momentum 2010 Recap

All of the roadmap sessions focused on what was going to be done in the short term, and the ability to show demos gave us lots of encouragement that the dates for releases would be met.  Previous Momentums have often showcased grand plans for applications (Universal Web Interface) or alliances (SAP, Box.net) that didn’t materialize.  The attendees that we talked to liked that all of the items in the roadmaps had a solid feel and gave them confidence that products and timeframes would be met.

Some specific thoughts:

• Solutions – Clients should be expecting more product offerings along with consulting offerings from IIG Consulting.  Expect these offerings to be both internal as well as OnDemand.  Most successful solution is the SharePoint Documentum Framework that we learned has over 80 successfully deployed IIG consulting engagements.
• D2 4.0 will be a major release in 3Q 2012, and clients should consider evaluating it.  While not sold as a Webtop upgrade, it does have many of the functions with a newer architecture.
• xCP 2.0 should be released in the 4th Quarter 2012 with substantial architecture enhancements.
• D7 should be released in the 4th Quarter 2012 with substantial performance enhancements.

TSG Product Direction Alignment

We always look for the EMC World announcements to shape our own open source product strategy regarding Documentum.  We think the EMC offerings can coincide with some of our offerings specifically:

• Mobile – We have been pursuing methods to search and retrieve as well as remotely approve content with Mobile devices .  We think our solutions will work with Webtop, D2 or xCP.  Look for some R&D we are doing to extend to mobile some of the email capabilities of IMAP based on our Alfresco experience in the upcoming posts.
• D2 – We are excited about the newer development environment of D2 4.0 and, if requested by users, we could see ways to integrate with our Active Wizard for forms, HPI  and OpenAnnotate while keeping the configuration only approach.
• D7 – Lots of our work is around migrations and upgrades.  We would anticipate that our service for Health Checks and Migrations will help clients with the upgrade in 2013.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, we thought it was a great conference this year.  Some great conversations that were worth sharing included:

• Transform was the major buzzword.  Cloud and Solutions were close seconds.
• Interesting discussions regarding how Salesforce has a feedback loop for evaluating partners.  Basically, once a job is complete, the client will rate the partner on the Salesforce site.  Higher rated partners are rewarded with website placement and selective partner status.  We would love to see IIG implement this same solution for evaluating integrators.
• We all agreed that there was a lot less SharePoint this year compared to years past.  We think that confirms what we have seen at clients that SharePoint as a Documentum replacement is fading.  We think SharePoint is going through the typical software cycle, it can do everything (when new) until folks realize what it can’t do that focused tools (like Documentum) do very well.
• D2 4.0 demonstrators love the map widget!!!!  While we struggle with understanding when a Documentum user would want to know where a document was created, nevermind seeing a satellite image of the location on a map, it does show off the mash-up possibilities.  Offers some cool widget possibilities if widget development for D2 is supported.
• Applause line of the conference was “D2 4.0 will not leverage UCF”
• EMC World next year is May 6th through 9th back in Vegas (not sure what venue)

Thanks all for making it a great time.  Not many Documentum posts the next week as we are working on our Documentum Client Briefing on June 7th.  There are still some spaces available for anyone interested.

Let us know any of your thoughts or items we might have missed below.