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Document Collaboration Vendor Landscape

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Document Collaboration Vendor Landscapeby Rob Koplowitz, May 30, 2013

For: CIOs

Key TaKeaways

Collaborative Content Holds Untapped Business ValueMore diligent management of content results in lower risk with regard to security, privacy, and compliance. It also leads to better “findability” of critical intellectual capital. These goals start with better management of content, starting with collaborative development.

Content Is Now Mobile and Cross-OrganizationalSharing content across organizational boundaries through mechanisms like email and FTP sites has given way to more elegant solutions like Dropbox that also synchronize content across PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The business benefit is quickly becoming an IT imperative.

Content Participates In Core Business ProcessesData-driven business applications like customer service, supply chain, and enterprise resource planning are increasingly making rich content a part of the overall process. Content that once lived outside the process in email and file servers is now managed within the application, as demonstrated by vendors like Oracle.

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wHy Read THIs RePORT

In 2009, Forrester produced The Forrester Wave™: Collaboration Platform to evaluate a maturing vendor landscape for document collaboration solutions. Since that report, the market has seen significant disruption from consumer-focused offerings, cloud-based entrants, as well as repositioned offerings from traditional content and collaboration vendors. At the same time, demand for mobile document collaboration has resulted in new requirements that drive users to self-provision solutions if IT is not immediately responsive. This new chaotic vendor landscape coalesces around document collaboration, but vendors have very different strategies around the role of content in a knowledge worker’s daily life. It is imperative for the CIO to understand vendor strategy in selecting the right solution.

Table of Contents

Content Is a Hot Investment area

your Content strategy Must Guide your Tool selection

The Vendor Landscape Is Chaotic And still Maturing

Vendor Capabilities Vary

Vendor summary: when They should Be On your shortlist

rECoMMENDATIoNs

address document Collaboration strategically Before Tactically

supplemental Material

Notes & resources

Forrester interviewed 26 vendors for this report.

related research Documents

Mapping The Value of social Business And CollaborationFebruary 21, 2013

sharePoint Enters Its Awkward Teenage YearsFebruary 6, 2013

The Forrester Wave: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009August 6, 2009

document Collaboration Vendor Landscapeby rob Koplowitzwith Peter Burris and Nancy Wang

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Document Collaboration Vendor Landscape 2

© 2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited May 30, 2013

CONTeNT Is a HOT INVesTMeNT aRea

Investment in content and document management represents a significant portion of overall IT spend and is expected to grow in 2013 (see Figure 1). This is consistent with Forrester’s conclusions that investment in technology solutions that support and empower knowledge workers remains a priority for organizations looking to better leverage their most expensive and valuable resources: their people.

Numerous factors drive investment in content technologies that improve employee productivity. Some of the drivers are more aligned with organizational needs and some are focused on end user functionality, but they all coalesce around a set of common goals:

■ Better access to knowledge. Content has just been hard to manage. The tools we’ve provided to workers have ranged from simple-to-use solutions like email and file servers that lack business context to richly functional document management systems that are not only expensive, but too complex for most to utilize. A new class of solutions that are delightful to use but also understand context and authority hold the promise to transform our current “digital landfills” to valuable knowledge sources.

■ Greater requirement for diligence and risk mitigation. Content represents not only opportunity, but also risk. Implications range from security, privacy, and compliance to protecting intellectual capital, and the cost of mismanagement of content assets can be high. More diligent management, beginning with collaborative content development, is a critical need for many organizations.

■ Improved collaboration. Traditional content and document systems focused on management of artifacts and not collaborative development of content. Document collaboration systems place a greater focus on tools like library services, lightweight workflow, as well as simple sharing and social functions that provide knowledge workers with the ability to work together more efficiently in content development.

■ Consumerization. The tools we use in our personal lives are making their way into the workplace, and one of the best examples is Dropbox. While it is great for storing large volumes of personal items like photos in the cloud and then sharing them across all devices, the same capabilities have great business value like sharing content critical to a sales opportunity more easily and in real time. Knowledge workers looking for an edge have brought these solutions to work and IT needs to respond with an enterprise strategy that serves this need as well as the needs of the organization.

■ Mobility. One of the primary drivers of consumerization is mobile support. Users are not only bringing their own devices to work, but they are also provisioning content on services where content is automatically synchronized across all of their devices, including smartphones and tablets. In a Q2 2012 survey of information workers, 38% responded that they use smartphones for work on a weekly basis and 15% use tablets (see Figure 2). Why? Because they are more portable, but still offer access to corporate data and applications (see Figure 3).

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Figure 1 IT Organizations Are Increasing Their Investment In Content

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.94901

“This coming year, approximately what percentage of your budget will go tostorage and content/document management operations?”

Base: IT budget decision-makers

Source: Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Tracker Survey, Q4 2011, and Forrsights Budgets And Priorities TrackerSurvey, Q4 2012

2012 (N = 2,770) 2013 (N = 2,267)

6%

8%

Figure 2 Increased Access To Smart Devices Provides New Information Delivery Channels


“Which of the following devices (work-provided or personal)do you use at least weekly for work?”

Base: 2,823 North American decision-makers

Source: Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q2 2012

Tablet (e.g., Apple iPad, Kindle Fire,Android or RIM tablet, Windows

Smartphone (e.g., BlackBerry,iPhone, Android)

Laptop/notebook computer(including netbooks and ultrabooks)

Desktop computer

15%

38%

54%

83%Traditional devicescreate

Mobile devices forreading, lightweightediting, and socialinteraction

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Figure 3 Existing Business Processes Are Extended Through Mobile Devices Today


“Why do you use a tablet for work?”

Base: 2,823 North American decision-makers

Source: Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q2 2012

It’s cool and fun to use

It’s more portable than a laptop

I can access corporate data or businessapplications from anywhere

The apps help me get my jobdone more e�ciently

I can get things done wheneverit is convenient for me

The GPS makes the appsvaluable and easy to use

I can get access to social apps likeFacebook from anywhere

Because my job requiresme to use a tablet

52%

71%

45%

48%

65%

28%

36%

26%

Currentbusinessprocesses

yOUR CONTeNT sTRaTeGy MUsT GUIde yOUR TOOL seLeCTION

Four primary types of functionality drive document collaboration buying decisions. Depending upon your overall content strategy, any one or all could be critical to your success. The following are the key functional areas (see Figure 4):

■ Integration with a system of record. In those environments where content requires diligent management, integration with the systems(s) that control that content can be critical. In general, established document management vendors like EMC, IBM, Microsoft, OpenText, and Oracle will offer collaboration extensions to their offerings, but other vendors will often offer integrations with one or more document systems of record as well.

■ Collaboration. Often referred to as “workspaces,” collaboration offers specific capabilities for teams to work together on development of content and documents. Collaboration functionality includes defined work areas for teams to work together and can extend to lightweight workflow, library services, and increasingly social capabilities. The market leader in document collaboration is Microsoft SharePoint with pressure being applied from cloud vendors like Box.

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■ Synchronization. This is the ability to store content in a network-accessible location, often, but not always, in the cloud, and seamlessly synchronize that content across multiple devices. This is perhaps the most disruptive collaboration workload with high user demand and numerous vendor offerings. The poster child for synchronization is Dropbox.

■ External sharing. Most traditional content and collaboration systems have been implemented behind a corporate firewall. External sharing has been accomplished through email attachments, difficult-to-use FTP sites, and a variety of other suboptimal approaches. Vendors like Accellion and YouSendIt have been addressing external sharing for some time, but cloud deployments and synchronization solutions, which often include externalization, have brought this requirement to the forefront.

Figure 4 Four Primary Functional Drivers For Document Collaboration


Internal External

Firewall

Document systemof record

Share

Manage

Collaborate

Document Collaboration

Sync

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The Vendor Landscape Is Chaotic and still Maturing

A market in transition almost always means opportunity for both customers and vendors, and the document collaboration market is no exception. As described above, rich and meaningful new capabilities are driving business value and a large number of vendors are jockeying to take advantage of the opportunity to better serve customers and grab market share. Chaotic markets also offer disruptive new vendors a chance to take strong, and on occasion, even leadership positions. As this market matures, several dynamics will come into play (see Figure 5):

■ Some offerings will fall out of the market. As with any crowded market, winners and losers will emerge. Some smaller vendors will unlikely disappear or get acquired by larger players. Larger vendors that have jumped in looking for new opportunities to grow and not finding success will withdraw their offerings from the market.

■ Vendors will take leadership positions as part of knowledge worker infrastructure. Established vendors like IBM and Microsoft look to maintain and grow their offerings to provide customers with new value while driving revenue opportunities at the same time. Meanwhile, new entrants like Box and Dropbox will look to take advantage of the market disruption to establish their offerings as new enterprise standards for this critical piece of knowledge worker infrastructure.

■ Vendors will provide specialized horizontal and vertical capabilities. Some vendors will avoid the battles for the standardized infrastructure opportunity, which generally favors large and/or very well-funded competitors and focus on specific vertical and horizontal opportunities. By building specialized functionality vendors can serve a prescriptive use case. Examples in document collaboration include MindTouch, which has placed a focus on document collaboration to redefine technical documentation, or Central Desktop and PBworks, both of which have chosen to provide capabilities for marketing and creative professionals as well as other horizontal groups like legal.

■ Content integration with other applications will become common. The last dynamic that will define this market will be integration with adjacent line-of-business applications. Vendors like IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle that also sell business applications can use those applications as a jumping off point to this new market by “content-enabling” their business applications and providing deep contextual integration to the underlying business processes. While this can be very compelling in the short term, it can lead to multiple solutions tied to disparate business applications and can run counter to IT’s efforts to provide a single standardized enterprise offering. Over time, these vendor-specific approaches tend to give way to market pressures to integrate with vendors that take the market leading positions in core knowledge worker infrastructure.

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Vendor Capabilities Vary

While there is value in understanding the above market dynamics, that does not preclude functional analysis. Not all vendors serve all functional needs, nor do you necessarily need your vendor to do so. Your strategy could be best served by vendors that handle one or more functional area and thus meets a critical tactical need. Additionally, your strategy could involve integration from multiple vendors. That said, the following chart summarizes the vendors evaluated in this report on the areas outlined above (see Figure 6). Note that there is a fifth column to assess if the vendors integrate with external systems of record.

Figure 5 The Dynamics Of An Emerging Market Will Drive Vendors To One Or More Strategies


Drive speci�c horizontal orvertical business value

Higher cost/targeted usage

Document collaboration Deployed with LOB systemsIntegrate content with

adjacent line-of-business systems

Lower cost/broad deployment

Provide standardizedknowledge worker

infrastructure

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Figure 6 Functional Mapping By Vendor


Alfresco

Accellion

Blue Rooster’s Madison

Box

Central Desktop

Cisco WebEx Files

Citrix ShareFile

Dropbox

EMC Documentum

Egnyte

Good Share

Google Drive

Huddle

IBM Connections

Intralinks

Microsoft SharePoint

Mindjet

MindTouch

Novell Vibe/Filr

OpenText

Oracle WebCenter

PBworks

Salesforce Chatterbox

Workshare

Xerox DocuShare

YouSendIt

CollaborationSync and

shareExternal

access

Integratedsystem

of record

Integrationwith external

system ofrecord

Deploymentmodel

On-premises Cloud Hybrid

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VeNdOR sUMMaRy: wHeN THey sHOULd Be ON yOUR sHORTLIsT

In a market as crowded and chaotic as the content space, understanding a vendor’s current and long-term strategy is as important as understanding its functional capabilities to ensure that a tool matches your long-term requirements. The following list offers insight into leading content vendor strategies and shows how each vendor’s strategy is likely to map to your success:

■ Accellion. Accellion offers a mature file-sharing solution. With its root in on-premises deployment, Accellion has maintained its strength in providing secured collaboration solution, especially to address the market that is not going to cloud. It does, in addition, offer a cloud deployment model. Accellion provides a secure and hassle-free collaboration solution that enables external and mobile access, viewing, editing, creation, and sharing of files, including files stored in SharePoint and on Windows File Servers, and in the future other enterprise content management systems. Accellion allows for external file access but puts it right back to the system of record once end users finish, so the files never leave the system of record. In addition, keeping up with the emergence of sync-and-share products, Accellion launched its own sync-and-share component that allows for external and mobile collaboration specifically from SharePoint.

When Accellion is on your shortlist: Accellion thrives where a security requirement precludes a public cloud-based solution and its on-premises private cloud solution can fill the need. Accellion also complements your SharePoint investment well by providing secure external and mobile access without logging into a VPN, but while maintaining all SharePoint access control and security. The solution also restricts the download of SharePoint content for added security.

■ Alfresco. Alfresco has long been the dominant player in open source content management. When it comes to document management, Alfresco has traditionally focused on establishing a traditional system of record more so than a document-centric collaboration solution. To facilitate collaboration, Alfresco has invested in a cloud offering that extends its traditional value proposition not only from the system of record, but also to external users that can access the cloud offering without requiring access to the data center. Where Alfresco’s investments have been most compelling is in the synchronization between the on-premises system of record and the cloud. In addition to the benefits of the cloud extensions, Alfresco has also invested in broad mobile device support and content synchronization across multiple devices.

When Alfresco is on your shortlist: If your organization has open source leanings, then certainly Alfresco needs to be on your radar screen for general document management. Assuming Alfresco is in place or under consideration for document management, then Alfresco’s document management strategy will benefit your organization in three ways: 1) providing external access through tight integration with its cloud offering, which can be used as an extranet; 2) extension to iOS and Android mobile devices; and 3) cross-platform synchronization that can be used to replace more consumer-focused offerings that workers may already be using.

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■ Blue Rooster. Blue Rooster focuses specifically on extending Microsoft SharePoint in complex enterprise settings. With success in augmenting SharePoint’s social capabilities with its Sepulveda under its belt, Blue Rooster turns its attention to adding sync-and-share capabilities to the stack. While Microsoft is already addressing this with its SkyDrive Pro offering, Blue Rooster takes a different approach that will appeal to prospects seeking greater control over the end-to-end environment by creating an instance with data isolation for each individual customer. Blue Rooster uses Microsoft Azure to create this isolated instance.

When Blue Rooster is on your shortlist: Blue Rooster has a strong history serving the needs of large complex enterprises, and Madison was built to serve the requirements of organizations that needed to externalize SharePoint content through sync and share while maintaining data isolation in the cloud.

■ Box. Box Embed powers integration with an ever-growing catalog of on-premises and SaaS apps. Using this strategy, Box will continue to strive to become the “Intel inside” of cloud content. Box Embed currently is the central content server behind apps like NetSuite and Jive. It also has a clear purpose to address enterprise collaboration; to that end, Box offers IT an enterprise-level, manageable collaboration solution, having a comprehensive set of file-sharing capabilities, from knowledge repository to storage to sync and share across any platforms.

When Box is on your shortlist: If you are interested in broad document collaboration and storage in the cloud, Box should be on your radar. It is also good for large-scale collaboration within and across organizations. Also, assess your cloud portfolio for possible integration with Box partners as this represents compelling value over the long term.

■ Central Desktop. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop was an early player in cloud-based collaboration long before the term “cloud” was popular. The original value proposition was cross-organizational collaboration and the cloud was the ideal delivery mechanism. With an emphasis on traditional aspects of collaboration like files and lightweight workflow, Central Desktop has augmented its offering with social, database, and project management capabilities, as well as highly integrated third-party functionality to provide real-time capabilities like webconferencing. As the market has become crowded and large vendors like Microsoft take a dominant position, Central Desktop is choosing a strategy to move upstream and provide specific horizontal capabilities that would differentiate it. It placed its focus where customers were traditionally getting the most value from the offering: on creative services. To that end, over the course of the last two years, Central Desktop has built specific functionality to support marketing departments, advertising agencies, and in particular the cross-organizational collaboration and workflow between the two.

When Central Desktop is on your shortlist: Anytime marketing is looking at Central Desktop, the IT department is going to carefully need to consider a build versus buy scenario. Bear in mind that Central Desktop may not be your established standard for document collaboration

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and there may be a desire to stay on the standard. That said, Central Desktop has built specific functionality for the marketing department and is leveraging cloud deployment to facilitate a process that is cross-organizational by nature. If there is no organizational standard for document collaboration and Central Desktop is providing value to the marketing department, it is perfectly reasonable to expand the footprint of that implementation beyond marketing. Advertising agencies that are looking to streamline collaboration with clients should consider Central Desktop.

■ Cisco. Cisco is introducing a facility for file synchronization and sharing that will be marketed and sold under the WebEx brand. Forrester believes that the initial value proposition will extend the critical role WebEx plays in facilitating synchronous meetings, recognizing that, in practice, the overall meeting experience is rarely fully synchronous. Asynchronous artifacts like meeting notes, agendas, and certainly documents can hold crucial value, especially when considered in the context of the original meeting. The new offering, WebEx Files, will focus on providing files in the context of meetings and will also provide sync-and-share capabilities through the global WebEx infrastructure. Cisco will provide a single sign-on across WebEx properties. Cisco has indicated that it does not intend to go into the business of providing vast document storage; it’s not in the file server replacement business. Rather, WebEx Files will be designed for more ephemeral work-in-progress content that supports meetings and in-flight processes.

When Cisco is on your shortlist: Cisco continues to venture from its core origins in voice, video, and conferencing into more synchronous collaboration with offerings like WebEx Social and WebEx Files. If you have a bet on Cisco for unified communications and are looking for a highly integrated approach to file sync and share, look at Cisco WebEx Files.

■ Citrix. In 2011, Citrix Systems acquired ShareFile, which originally aimed to be an FTP replacement. ShareFile complements Citrix’s existing offerings with integration with the XenMobile — the company’s enterprise mobility management solution, XenDesktop — app and desktop virtualization solution, Podio for social, and GoToMeeting for webconferencing. It offers agnostic storage deployment via the StrorageZones feature. The ability to access files anywhere from any devices is key, and Citrix ShareFile has a native app across all devices: from BlackBerry, iOS, and Android to Windows 7 and 8. Citrix ShareFile Enterprise offers IT extensive deployment and administrative controls. Citrix ShareFile is targeted at enterprises, including highly regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare.

When Citrix is on your shortlist: If you already have the Citrix app and desktop virtualization, mobile, or collaboration products, look to Citrix ShareFile as your sync-and-share solution. Its StorageZones feature provides deployment control (cloud and on-premises storage options) that could prove valuable to organizations with strict requirements for data location. The StorageZone Connectors feature for Network Shares and SharePoint helps IT leverage and mobilize existing investments by providing users with instant access to these data repositories on their mobile devices, even outside the corporate network.

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■ Dropbox. As an offering that comes from consumer roots, Dropbox is probably familiar to many knowledge workers. Dropbox for Business (formerly known as Dropbox for Teams) launched in 2011 and brings the great usability to the file sync-and-share tool for businesses, at the same time providing basic security, enterprise control, and dedicated customer support. Extending from its consumer offering, Dropbox for Business allows for easy collaboration across all users, both inside and outside the firewall. It also has a focus on mobile collaboration with native apps on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows. Dropbox’s recent announcement of Active Directory integration along with beefed up administration controls and security capabilities make it clear that it is not merely dabbling in the enterprise, but takes the opportunity very seriously.

When Dropbox is on your shortlist: It is possible that Dropbox is already in extensive use in your enterprise whether you know or not. In excess of 100 million users, it has gained widespread adoption among enterprise users, albeit often outside the view of IT. While popular wisdom has been to move users to a more “enterprise ready” platform, that reaction no longer need be the case. With Dropbox for Business demonstrating the aforementioned enterprise capabilities and more on the way, Dropbox will become an increasingly viable enterprise solution. Its current offering will fall short for enterprises that require more advanced functionality like extensive collaboration with workflow and forms as well as robust integration with existing back-end systems of record and native system-of-record capabilities. If Dropbox executes well in its enterprise endeavors, expect more investment on their part in these areas as well as an active partner ecosystem to help fill functional white spaces.

■ EMC. EMC was an early player in the document collaboration market with its acquisition of eRoom in 2002. While eRoom has continued to serve a large customer base, EMC Documentum signaled a change in direction with its introduction of the more social-focused CenterStage in 2010. With Documentum D2, document collaboration and social will become core capabilities of the underlying document management platform. Social capabilities will come from integration with VMware’s Socialcast enterprise social offering. In addition, EMC has acquired enterprise sync-and-share vendor Syncplicity, which already offers SharePoint integration and will also provide Documentum D2 integration.

When EMC is on your shortlist: EMC Documentum is in the business of diligent content and document management, which is at the core of its reputation. When your organization relies on EMC Documentum as a content system of record and diligent management of content under collaboration is required, it should be on your shortlist. However, the Syncplicity acquisition widens the aperture to those looking for secure sync and share regardless of whether Documentum is the system of record and is of particular interest to SharePoint shops.

■ Egnyte. Founded in 2008 and originally focused on external sharing, Egnyte has morphed into a full sync-and-share offering. Originally available only as a cloud offering, Egnyte has responded to customer requirements for on-premises capabilities with the introduction of a

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virtual appliance that can be installed behind the customer’s firewall. This will not only meet certain customer’s security requirements, but also allows Egnyte’s richer integration options to on-premises content sources. Egnyte continues to make its traditional cloud offering available to organizations that prefer a pure cloud or hybrid approach and supports configurable storage for organizations with specific requirements for data location.

When Egnyte is on your shortlist: Egnyte offers rich synchronization capabilities and strong mobile platform support. The hybrid deployment options and configurable storage allow for flexibility that can meet stringent security requirements.

■ Good Technology. Good for Enterprise is a suite of mobile apps that includes mobile email, browser, calendar, documents, contacts, etc. Good Share was an addition to the suite in October 2012; it addresses file access, synchronization, sharing, and collaboration on mobile devices. It links to the existing file repositories, such as SharePoint and File Shares, allowing employees to access work files directly from any mobile device. Providing a platform for document sharing and collaboration which supports an ecosystem of file and business applications from Box to NewsGator (Good currently has more than 20 business-productivity applications in its ecosystem), Good Share is working toward the hub of mobile file collaboration, which any application can leverage when it interacts with documents. Under the trend of BYOD, Good supports the separation of personal and business data on mobile devices using “containerization,” and focuses on its strength in mobile security, which reassures IT organization the ability to control and secure enterprise information.

When Good Technology is on your shortlist: If you are a current Good Technology customer or using solutions that have integration with Good, put them on your shortlist for evaluation. The fact that Good Share is completely back-end neutral allows for easy implementation and supports your existing eDiscovery tools. In addition, its focus on security and compliance will give you the peace of mind if your employees are often on the go and work via their smartphones and tablets.

■ Google. The first thing to know about Google Drive is that it comes in the Gmail package. Regarded as a consumer-based product, Google Drive focuses on integrating the multiple pieces of capabilities of the Google Apps for Business suite, from Gmail to Google Docs, rather than putting in too many complex features that are specifically for enterprises. That being said, one differentiator of Google Drive among other sync-and-share vendors is its integration with Google’s very own productivity suite, namely Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, which allows for lightweight document collaboration including real-time collaboration, permission assignment, and version history. This integration makes Google Drive not simply a storage, but a collaborative space. Google Drive’s mobile apps on iOS and Android also have the capability to edit directly from the app.

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When Google is on your shortlist: If Gmail is an actual or planned option for your organization, you can consider Google Drive as a collaboration tool. It would not be able to replace your system of record in the back end, but the chance is your employees will take advantage of Google Drive if they are using Gmail. With the appropriate control and administration, Google Drive will work well for lightweight collaboration and an easy access of content for your employees.

■ Huddle. Huddle, with headquarters in London and San Francisco, came into the market in 2006 and has grown tremendously as a collaboration platform. As a full-blown collaboration platform, Huddle strives to be the option to replace SharePoint. With its introduction of its intelligent recommendation technology, Huddle combines intelligent syncing of content with mature content collaboration capabilities to improve the automation of distributing relevant content to users based on their actions in Huddle. It also puts an emphasis on external collaboration. Having many European governments as customers, Huddle displays its competency in security and scalability.

When Huddle is on your shortlist: If you are looking to revamp your collaboration platform, Huddle provides a mature solution, and one-third of Huddle customers use Huddle as a SharePoint replacement. It also can act as a transition out of SharePoint as another one-third of the users have both Huddle and SharePoint — they use Huddle as the interface whereas SharePoint is used as the storage. For those who are concerned with the adoption rate of the collaboration platform, Huddle is committed to get your workforce to actually leverage the platform and has contract provision if adoption metrics aren’t met.

■ IBM. For a number of years, IBM has been offering Quickr for document collaboration, Connections for enterprise social, and FileNet for high-end document management. With the March 2013 release of Connections 4.5, it will greatly simplify its offerings. Connections will become the centerpiece of IBM’s document collaboration strategy and will front-end a fully integrated runtime instance of FileNet to manage documents in line. With a powerful document management engine on the back end and a leader in the Forrester Wave™ for enterprise social platforms as the front-end interaction layer, IBM has a compelling offering if you are in a position to take advantage of the broad capabilities.

When IBM is on your shortlist: By providing robust document collaboration directly within the Connections user experience, IBM has blurred the already arbitrary lines between social and document collaboration. Look to IBM for document collaboration if social is a key attribute. Also, if you are invested in the broad IBM portfolio, particularly FileNet, this new direction from IBM could be very compelling.

■ Intralinks. Intralinks has long been the leader in secure document collaboration, establishing the cloud as a natural DMZ for cross-organizational workflow long before the term “cloud” was in vogue. Intralinks’ strongest market has traditionally been financial services, with a focus

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on mergers and acquisitions. Intralinks now looks to take this position and move into more generalized document collaboration, with the rationale that the level of security required to broker complex mergers and acquisitions is applicable to all business content. As a part of this strategy, Intralinks has launched an enterprise file-sharing and collaboration product with sync and share called Intralinks VIA. Its strategy will include extended security, including document recall capabilities.

When Intralinks is on your shortlist: Certainly, the traditional Intralinks use cases like M&A and cross-organizational content collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry are areas of significant strength. However, as Intralinks widens its target market, look to it when enhanced security and richer document collaboration than basic sync and share are required.

■ Microsoft. With more than 135 million licenses sold, SharePoint is the leader in document collaboration. SharePoint handles document collaboration very well, but goes well beyond with portal, document, web content management, business intelligence, enterprise search, social, and application development capabilities in a single offering. It is also highly integrated with the rest of the Microsoft Office family, including Outlook and Exchange for email and calendaring; Lync for unified communications; and Office’s market dominant productivity applications. With the 2013 release of SharePoint, Microsoft has added sync-and-share capabilities with SkyDrive Pro. SharePoint is also available through Microsoft’s cloud offering, Office 365.

When Microsoft is on your shortlist: SharePoint is on your shortlist when your organization is in a position to take advantage of the broad array of capabilities that it has to offer and when Microsoft is a key strategic software vendor.

■ Mindjet. Mindjet can potentially play one or more roles in your document collaboration strategy. Mindjet’s legacy business is in information mapping, which allows the visual mapping of content from multiple sources into a consolidated visual framework. These maps are used by customers to drive brainstorming, problem solving, and content organization. This functionality can also be layered over native SharePoint content. Mindjet has augmented the core mapping capability with task management to add a structured element to the environment. Mindjet also offers a pure cloud-based solution for managing content in a more traditional manner that also includes information mapping.

When Mindjet is on your shortlist: When visual content organization is beneficial (or you’re only now finding out about information mapping), then Mindjet needs to be in your consideration set. Its task management solution adds structure to drive human-centric processes. SharePoint shops can take advantage of information mapping while maintaining SharePoint as the content system of record. Mindjet also offers file management if you do not have a solution in place.

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■ MindTouch. MindTouch has switched gears from workspace collaboration solution to providing technical documentation for high-tech software companies. This new direction heavily leverages its legacy in rich document collaboration, but layers on capabilities that are specific to the development and management of external-facing technical documentation. Not only external documentation, MindTouch also helps content to be produced in any case, even at an interdepartmental level.

When MindTouch is on your shortlist: If development of technical documentation is key to your goals, MindTouch provides a platform that takes a more social and collaborative approach than traditional documentation tools.

■ Novell. Novell has been in the business of file management since the early 1980s, when it was a pioneer and leader in networked file and print management. With a strong market position in education, local government, and healthcare, there is still a massive amount of content stored on Novell file servers. With the 2008 acquisition of SiteScape, Novell moved from basic file management to robust document collaboration and workflow. SiteScape’s product has matured into Novell Vibe, which continues to grow to include enterprise social capabilities. In addition to Vibe, Novell is adding mobile file sync-and-share capabilities with Novell Filr. Novell Filr integrates with an organization’s existing on-premises file servers to “mobilize” the data while leaving security, access rights, quotas, backup systems, and other infrastructure elements intact. Novell Filr leverages Novell’s history in file and print, but its relevance is not limited to organizations running a Novell infrastructure; it is also relevant to Windows File Server customers.

When Novell is on your shortlist: Organizations that are invested in Novell and Microsoft file servers as a primary source of file storage that would like to provide employees with sync-and-share capabilities should look at the Filr offering as a potential solution. Organizations looking for team collaboration capabilities should consider Vibe for advanced document collaboration. Organizations running Novell GroupWise for email, calendaring, and contact management will be particularly interested in Vibe, as the two products feature several points of integration.

■ OpenText. OpenText is executing an end-to-end enterprise information strategy where social collaboration supports workloads like core information management. With that in mind, OpenText takes its offering in two key directions: First, it offers deep integration with its back-end content system of record; second, it provides a structured collaborative environment that can drive prescriptive activities, both behind the firewall and externally. The core strength of OpenText is that it can support your efforts to employ social collaboration to drive specific business outcomes and then automatically place the social content output into the back-end repository for archiving, records management, etc. The product road map calls for increasing integration between content and process-centric capabilities and OpenText Tempo Social providing enterprise social capabilities.

For CIos



When OpenText is on your shortlist: OpenText social collaboration should be on your shortlist when the social collaboration process is around enterprise information that ultimately resides in the OpenText Content Server and honoring back-end permissions is critical.

■ Oracle. Oracle borders document collaboration in two critical areas: content management and line-of-business applications. Each represents a compelling starting point for tying together back-end function and front-end document collaboration. On the front end, Oracle is making a bet on its upcoming Oracle Social Network offering as primary knowledge worker environment that would be able to interact with underlying content, data, and processes. Oracle has also indicated that it will introduce sync-and-share capabilities. The base-level capability of Oracle’s document collaboration is based on its Oracle WebCenter Portal functionality, which includes not only document collaboration, but also blog wikis and communities. All underlying documents are stored in Oracle WebCenter Content.

When Oracle is on your shortlist: Organizations committed to Oracle as a strategic vendor, particularly in the area of content management, should consider Oracle’s document collaboration offerings. Oracle’s road map includes increasing integration between multiple applications and the ability to carry context between currently disparate business tools holds promise.

■ PBworks. Having started out as a wiki solution, PBworks has matured as a collaboration platform that provides many aspects of a traditional collaboration platform, such as real-time collaboration, template, workflow, and file sharing. What differentiates PBworks is its focus on providing vertical specific solutions, namely its Agency Hub, Legal Hub, Education Edition, and a few others. To focus on the needs of the industry, PBworks develops specific features, such as a visually oriented interface, and external and project management integration that complements the content collaboration core platform. It now also has a “freemium” service and is looking into providing a medical-specific collaboration solution.

When PBworks is on your shortlist: If you are looking for a down-to-earth collaboration platform, especially if you are in the creative agencies, legal, medical, or education, put PBworks on your shortlist and determine if its prebuilt vertical capabilities align with your requirements and help avoid customization of a more generic tool.

■ salesforce.com. Salesforce.com continues its quest to become a collaboration leader with Chatter’s continued success, and at Dreamforce 2012, it announced an initial move into document collaboration called Chatterbox. As the naming indicates, salesforce.com is aligning content with enterprise social capabilities and, if successful, will continue to prove its relevance to the broad population of knowledge workers rather than just sales and customer service workers. Chatterbox is being positioned as a sync-and-share solution rather than a broad document collaboration offering that would compete with SharePoint or Box. Chatterbox is highly integrated with salesforce.com’s social offering, Chatter, to provide advanced social capabilities.

For CIos



When salesforce.com is on your shortlist: It is too early whether salesforce.com has aspirations to be a more complete document collaboration vendor. It is worthwhile for organizations that have it as a strategic vendor to track it progress. For now, Chatterbox will represent an alternative to more consumer-like sync-and-share offerings, which will offer tighter integration with Salesforce CRM and Chatter.

■ Workshare. The Workshare functional value is largely focused on sync and share. Accessible from Microsoft Outlook, native PC and Mac applications, and a broad array of mobile devices, Workshare offers a secure, policy-driven alternative to more consumer-focused offerings. It offers some interesting client-side capabilities like in-line commenting that further drive value for mobile users. Policy and security can both be applied at a granular level. In general, Workshare has targeted organizations with the most rigorous security requirements, but its focus on an elegant user experience allows it to go “downstream” as well.

When Workshare is on your shortlist: Workshare should be on your shortlist when sync and share is the primary workload and security is essential, particularly when policy enforcement is a critical requirement. Additionally, if the ability to review content in virtually any client-side environment and provide feedback and commenting in line is a requirement, Workshare will fill that need.

■ Xerox. With DocuShare, Xerox aims to make complex document collaboration simple to provision, deploy, and maintain. DocuShare lives on the border of higher-end document management with advanced capabilities like image capture, workflow, and advanced template management. However, the offering also includes document collaboration functionality like workspaces, blogs wikis, and threaded discussions.

When Xerox is on your shortlist: DocuShare is primarily a document management solution and to that end takes advantage of the built-in collaboration capabilities as a natural extension of that workload. For organizations looking for that additional level of functionality on top of core DocuShare document management, consider using the integrated collaboration capabilities rather than a standalone third party. For smaller organizations or departmental implementations that already have DocuShare implemented, the document collaboration capabilities can be extended to non-document management users that require just basic collaboration.

■ YouSendIt. With roots in secure external document sharing based on email as a notification mechanism, YouSendIt has used that as a jumping off point for more robust synchronization and sharing capabilities. YouSendIt has a broad user base that places a premium on security and brings that perspective to sync and share. YouSendIt provides broad mobile platform support and flexible storage that can be configured to access its data centers in London or San Jose, or on-premises storage when required. In 2013, YouSendIt will provide integration to on-premises SharePoint instances. YouSendIt’s recent acquisition of Found significantly extends its existing value proposition with a strategy to provide broad-based integration with and search for on-premises-based content assets across a variety of document storage and management systems.

For CIos



When YouSendIt is on your shortlist: YouSendIt thrives in the areas on synchronization and external sharing with an emphasis on usability and security. Integration with SharePoint will make the offering more compelling for shops that leverage SharePoint for robust collaboration and as a system of record.

R e c o m m e n d at i o n s

addRess dOCUMeNT COLLaBORaTION sTRaTeGICaLLy BefORe TaCTICaLLy

The heat is on IT in document collaboration with end users self-provisioning sync-and-share technology that may or may not meet organizational needs. The impulse to take a tactical approach and find an “enterprise ready” solution needs to be addressed in the context of strategic goals with regard to content.

■ Assess the use of nonsanctioned IT solutions. Empowered users will find tools to help get their jobs done more effectively. In the case of document collaboration, this could include sync-and-share solutions that elegantly support mobile devices as well as external sharing. Catalog the solutions that are in use in the organization and determine if there are any immediate issues with regard to security, privacy, or compliance based on your specific organizational requirements.

■ Determine overall document collaboration requirements. Security, privacy, and compliance are only part of an overall requirements definition. In addition, assess your unique organizational requirements based on overall collaboration needs, system-of-record integration, mobile support, and external sharing requirements. Assess new technology in the context of these overall requirements.

■ Be prepared to swap out technology in the long term. Chaotic markets like document collaboration offer new exciting capabilities and IT may find itself under pressure to deliver those quickly. Over time, vendors in this market will continue to add new capabilities to their offerings, some will drop out or be acquired, and new entrants will continue to enter the market. For many, waiting for the market to shake and mature is not an option. To that end, be prepared to monitor the market and assess your technology choices for a better fit or even the need to replace a defunct offering.

sUPPLeMeNTaL MaTeRIaL

Methodology

Forrester’s Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Tracker Survey, Q4 2012, was fielded to 3,753 IT executives and technology decision-makers located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, New Zealand, Russia,

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Singapore, the UK, and the US from small and medium-size business (SMB) and enterprise companies with 100 or more employees. This survey is part of Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology and was fielded from August 2012 to November 2012. LinkedIn Research Network fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include gift certificates and research reports. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by-question basis.

Forrester’s Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Tracker Survey, Q4 2011, was fielded to 3,752 IT executives and technology decision-makers located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, the UK, and the US from small and medium-size business and enterprise companies with 100 or more employees. This survey is part of Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology and was fielded from September 2011 to December 2011. LinkedIn Research Network fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester.

Forrester’s Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q2 2012, was fielded to 4,982 information workers located in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US from SMB and enterprise companies with 20 or more employees. This survey is part of Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology and was fielded during March 2012 and April 2012. Toluna fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include points redeemable for rewards, as well as sweepstakes entries. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by-question basis.

Each calendar year, Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology fields business-to-business technology studies in more than 17 countries spanning North America, Latin America, Europe, and developed and emerging Asia. For quality control, we carefully screen respondents according to job title and function. Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology ensures that the final survey population contains only those who use a PC or smartphone at work for at least 1 hour per day. Additionally, we set quotas for company size (number of employees) and job function as a means of controlling the data distribution. Forrsights uses only superior data sources and advanced data-cleaning techniques to ensure the highest data quality.

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 13 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 29 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com. 94901

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