For those of you who may be unaware, I've served Documentum customers since the early 1990's and Documentum's earliest adopters were Life Sciences (though back then we called them Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology) firms and aerospace firms such as Boeing. And though OpenText occasionally infringed on what I considered to be "Documentum territory", for better or worse, Documentum owned the market.

So, you might imagine my surprise

when I found a Microsoft employee's blog in January of this year talking all about his attendance at the last two DIA conferences. If I remember right, he mentioned how excited he was about Zorch Software's Microsoft-based FDA submission solution.

What? I thought when I saw the post. Microsoft at the DIA? A company named ZORCH has submissions software? Do they have any customers? Who are they? Why haven't I heard of them?

I may sound a little arrogant, but actually I was shocked. Why? Because I did the early stage executive searches for the larger e-submission vendors like ESPS (now Liquent), CDC Solutions (now part of Liquent) and Qumas. I knew who owned the market and kept a pretty close eye on anyone who entered it. There were companies like ISI, Lorenz, and Octagon that won a small piece of the market,but ZORCH in Utah, so far away from Life Sciences customers, It seemed unlikely, so I called them.

The VP of Zorch assured me that they had plenty of customers. Who are they? I asked. I got no answer. Not too long after that call,Microsoft bought Zorch (and I haven't heard of Zorch since. And they haven't updated their website either.)

Why is this relevant to FCG's Trends conference? Because it provides an earlier Microsoft ECM/Life Sciences entry date.

Now I won't say that Microsoft/Sharepoint failed to make an impact just then (because they may have and I just haven't been able to find it), but I will say that none of the thirty plus Life Sciences firms I regularly speak to had ever even heard of a SharePoint-based submissions solution (apparently the booths were tiny and back in a corner at DIA.). I wondered if this was a space Microsoft could even break into.

Why do I say that? Because from working both with both Life Sciences companies and new vendors in the space, I know one thing for certain- market entry is difficult. Regulatory customers are risk-averse. Besides that, the wealthiest buyers have already made substantial investments in Documentum, CoreDossier/Liquent Insight, trained users, publishers and support personnel. I've talked to software selection decision makers at Life Sciences firms while I've conducted my searches (I even placed a number of them) and I've learned one thing that was initially somewhat surprising- the best product doesn't always win. I've heard more than one customer say, "We really think xxxx has a smart product, but will they be here five years from now?"

But those worries may go away when Microsoft is the vendor. Microsoft will be here. They'll still be supporting SharePoint. So my next question was, what does Microsoft know about Regulatory applications and compliance?

Then came FCG's announcement of FirstPoint which FCG touts as  "the industry standard Microsoft Share Point 2007-based FDA regulated solution for content management, collaboration, and electronic submission automation."

So that was how Microsoft planned to gain instant access and credibility with Life Sciences customers, by having FCG walk them in a few doors.

And though I don't know if it was Microsoft or FCG that did the knocking, at least two mutual customers showed up at TRENDS 2007. FCG is doing a Sharepoint project at Pfizer that actually seems to be enterprise-wide (users across the enterprise can create teamsite portals in 3-clicks according to Pfizer's Dave Biersach). And though the content created isn't compliant, it can eventually flow into repositories that will be. Pfizer's other ECM platform is Documentum and that's where compliant content will be stored.

What ECM vendors lose in Pfizer's new set up? Goodbye eRoom (Documentum product). Goodbye LiveLink (OpenText product.)

The other SharePoint project presentation was given by Michael Sauter of Biogen. Sauter is the Sr. Director of Regulatory Operations. He described typical content-creation, storage, organization, and management as rather chaotic (my summary) with users struggling with issues such as:

" How should I as an author create my report? Shall I use a template? Is there some content guidance? How do I insert an Excel table into Word? Does RegOps use PDFs? What is XML? Then they say to copy it into Documentum, but which one. I forgot my password. Let's use email to send it out for review. I'll work at home on it. I'll copy it into e-Room so I can easily access from home.Which copy is the latest, the one on my desktop? In e-Room? Documentum? My boss wanted to see it before it goes out, but she is traveling, I hope she can read it on her BlackBerry.".

And while Sauter stated that the above may be an exaggeration, my guess is that the scenario is common. Sauter seems sure that there's a better way.

What is it? (HINT: It's based on Microsoft Office and MOSS- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

Will it work? Sauter seems to think so.

What's the win? "A common user experience/interface," according to Sauter.

If I'm able, I'll be watching.

What would it mean to Documentum's marketshare in this area?

You tell me.

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