June 02, 2010, 9:57 AM — More than a third of organisations worldwide are lacking in support at senior management level for document management. That's according to the annual survey from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) also known as the association for enterprise content management.
However, the landscape is changing. The survey also found that 40% of organisations have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, an enterprise content management (ECM) system. The biggest change of all is the growth in open source ECM systems now used by 6% of all organisations, with a further 9% expected to adopt such technology in future. In fact, the survey found that 64% of organisations would consider using open source technology in future.
Open source ECM companies have been keen to build on that interest. Earlier this year, Alfresco announced record company results -despite the recession - and fellow open source vendor Nuxeo also doubled its revenue last year.
According to Nuxeo CEO, Cheryl McKinnon, the growing interest in open source ECM has been prompted by a n acceptance of open source software within the business environment. "Obviously, open source has long been recognised in IT departments but in the last few years there's been recognition by business leaders too. I think that the need to introduce cost-cutting measures has inspired this interest but I don't think that's what keeps customers interested."
McKinnon said that Nuxeo's flexible architecture was also a factor in attracting customers but pointed out the ratification of CMIS last year also helped drive business. "With a lot of a buzz around CMIS, it's the open source vendors are the ones who have been building up the applications building blocks. The open source vendors have also invested a lot in usability to ensure that users get a great out-of-the-box experience."
Nuxeo is set to build on that interest with the launch later this month of a new version of its software, removing the industry specific elements, making it easier to build applications. She said the move was inspired by a couple of the company's existing customers, one of which the French atomic regulatory agency had some very specific requirements on security which could be adopted by other industries. McKinnon said that by removing some of these industry-specific elements, organisations could greatly reduce their deployment time. "By deploying configurable tools," said McKinnon, "customers will be able to save on developer costs."
