Meridio & Northern Ireland Software

Yesterday I wrote a piece on CMS Watch regarding the acquisition of Meridio by Autonomy. This brought back a bunch of memories from the time that I consulted to Meridio (then Kainos) for Ovum. Traveling out to Belfast was always something to remember - the staggering (and unexpected) beauty of the countryside, the deeply oppressive feeling in the city, the sight of Loyalist and Republican wall murals yards from each other....things are getting better there, and if you live there then of course you see more depth and community than any visitor can imagine. However to the visitor it is a stark place to spend time in - a city that truly carries the weight of its violent past.

Kainos, as they were known then were a funded subsidiary of Fujitsu out of Queens University in Belfast, and when I first consulted they were looking for a strategic direction prior to spinning the EDM (Electronic Document Management) capabilities out to what would become Meridio. At the time they were looking to become a Documentum & FileNet rival competing in the Imaging area, my advice to them was to go more for a niche that they could own - Records Management and Compliancy. Though they took that advice and built on it considerably, I take no credit for their success, other than pointing them in a particular direction, they worked hard and built up a solid business with a global reputation, good people whom I have always liked and respected.
Yet like so many before them they hooked their wagon to Microsoft. This was never a move I feel comfortable with, except in the short term. Microsoft is the best of partners to vendors, until they are not. Then you are out in the cold - Microsoft has a well established and well earned reputation for stringing small vendors along with the carrot of a lucrative acquisition - the acquisition of course seldom ever occurs, and once Microsoft knows all they need to build their own solution you are dropped like a hot potato.
So to see Meridio acquired was bitter sweet news - good to see them find a long term home and make some money in the process ($40 Million US), but I can't help but wonder if they couldn't have gotten to a stage where they themselves were the acquirer.
Finally I will never forget looking out at the Swan and Hunter Shipyard from my Suite at the Belfast Hilton ( I had been upgraded after a previous huge row with the hotel!) - a magnificent contemporary suite that symbolized all the future hopes of Belfast, with a view of an infamous industrial workplace that had been the scene of way too many disturbing news reports on TV whilst I was growing up.
It's good to see something positive coming out of such a traumatized place, Northern Ireland has lost out to a large degree on the growth in Eire - hopefully successes like Meridio will become and inspiration for others to follow.

Bribing Bloggers.....(and Analysts?)

Joel ( a top notch New York blogger) has posted a very interesting piece on what he call's the 'bribing of bloggers' it is well worth a read.

What Joel discusses is moves by Microsoft to treat bloggers as influencers - and basically extend top bloggers with the same privileges as Industry Analysts. These privileges extend to flights and first class hotel and dining at the vendors events, plus in many cases lots of freebies (cell phones, laptops)
In reading Joel's piece he makes no mention of Analysts and I am not sure if he is aware that what he describes is everyday business for analysts at Gartner, IDC and Forrester etc.

Indeed it was my regular life for six years with Ovum (though I never accepted cellphones, laptops etc) - and now I have made the choice to work with CMS Watch, and politely refuse any offer of generosity by vendors.

I think the CMS Watch way is the right way, I think genuinely reaching out and involving the user community (buyers, integrators and consultants) is the right way to do analysis. I still speak to the vendors, and would not be able to do my job properly otherwise - but I am hopefully not in anyway compromised when I do.

I don't blame Microsoft for reaching out to Bloggers in this way, and they are not the only ones doing this - all major vendors are working out how to deal with the blogger phenomena - and some are pondering if the old Industry Analyst hegemony is as solid and important as they once thought. Its a difficult time for vendors, and Microsoft shouldn't be beaten up over this - they are simply offering to influential bloggers what they and all their competitors have offered to Analysts for years....and if this is not the right thing to do, then the bloggers should advise Microsoft and the others as to what would work, as I am sure they will get a listening ear..

No news is good news....

Apologies for the dearth of postings recently, but I have a lot going on at present - good stuff in the main (though I did strain my back travelling to Europe week or two back)...

Was contemplating writing something about the acquistion of Ovum by Datamonitor, but despite the fact that I will make a little money out of it, its just too sad to talk about.

Currently working on my keynote for the CMF2006 in Aarhus and a presentation on ECM/KM in the Oil & Gas sector - and amazingly finding the former harder than the latter! Defining and explaining the Content Management market is hard, and getting harder by the day I think....

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that WCM & ECM are convenient myths created by vendors and analysts that have little relevance in the real world....these buckets made much more sense to me when I was an analyst, than they do now as a consultant/strategist....worrying isn't it?

Will post again soon - hopefully with the Keynote done and ready to share.....