Better than expected financial results point the way forward for a struggling WCM market, say analysts
by
Paola Di Maio
1 February 2002
Over the last few weeks, 4th quarter financial results have been posted around, and some content management companies, especially very large ones, have been showing their wounds.
Pitching a technology solution at the ‘Fortune 100’ companies, generally means
‘our technology costs at least a quarter of a million’.
But investors are opening their eyes, and fewer are prepared to buy technology at face value.
Slowly but surely technology buyers are becoming wiser, better informed, and able to choose.
The technology lifecycle is rather unpredictable, and actually, for what we have seen over the last decade or two, it is a often a question of newer, faster, less expensive and easier to manage solutions that steal the limelight.
But before that happens, some smarts will make loads of money, and some other will make lots of mistakes
A brief posted by Gartner Research, summarises the results of some companies who are not doing bad after all, and from which the industry could learn.
Mark Gilbert writes:
Gilbert comments “Although Gartner forecasts that the market’s financial troubles and consolidation will continue through 2002, Documentum’s profit and the substantial revenue growth of Percussion, Stellent and Tridion show that the worst may be over and that some WCM vendors will likely resume normal growth”
The positive reports from these vendors point the way forward for the market as a whole.
Documentum and Stellent have combined document management with WCM functions, notes the analyst.
He also predicts more partnerships among the various types of vendors and small WCM vendors to become acquisition targets.
www.gartner.com
