I have long been saying that Microsoft's entry into the ECM marketplace may NOT be good thing for established ECM vendors  (See my posts Microsoft Does It Better? , A New Kid On the Block , and  Documentum + Microsoft:The HookUp- How Does It Affect You? ) and now, finally, someone seems to concur. From what I can tell, EMC seems to be drinking co-opetition kool-aid (It was less than a month ago that I heard an EMC employee say something like "Microsoft needs us!" to a customer and to then go on and explain how they'd spent time in Redmond co-plotting shared solution strategies), while Microsoft peers over its shoulder, gathering domain knowledge, and readying itself to take flight untethered.

Take the Regulatory Life Sciences space as an example. I'm not sure Microsoft is being, or has been, all that sneaky about its intentions. They've just kept a low profile until they've had something to say. They've attended DIA/EDM conferences for a few years now, sharing a booth with the likes of Zorch Software. I caught notice almost right away; I even called Marc Deckner a few years back to ask why Microsoft was at the DIA (they had no product to offer as far as I could tell.) Though I don't remember his exact words, he pretty much said, "We're on our way". Visit the archives of his blog and see if you can't connect the dots.

Microsoft's "big" coming-out into this space- directly before Documentum's Life Sciences clients, may have been last November at FCG's Trends 2007 Conference. George Laszlo blogged all about it. I was there and so were many, many of my Documentum customers. Some of us were curious. Some of us, primarily from the business-process-owner community, hoped to be buyers. Why not? Windows screens are familiar, they seem trustworthy. You don't have to work too hard to talk users into working with them.

At that conference, a Pfizer Project Manager presented about his company's Sharepoint adoption, and it seems to have been a big success,apparently a few renegades were even exhibiting their musical tastes courtesy of Sharepoint. (How's that for user adoption?) NOTE: This is not to suggest that Pfizer won't be using Documentum, from what I know, it's a vital part of their overall ECM strategy.

Another presenter from a bsp, large Life Sciences firm showcased plans that eliminated Documentum from his company's infrastructure all together. Had I accepted everything he said without discernment, I would have come away thinking that Sharepoint was the key that unlocked the door to collaboration, creativity, user acceptance and compliance. Many of us in the audience weren't too sure about the last part, but we all thought the commercial was awesome. And there's a danger in that. As a favorite systems engineer friend of mine says, "People don't buy because something works, they buy because they think it will work."

Now with all that being said, perhaps it's time to champion what Documentum and OpenText, for that matter, do especially well. If users are going to give up pretty interfaces, what do they get in return?

I've placed two Documentum heavy-hitters in "new to Documentum" D6 installations this week- this means that plans for brand-spanking-new enterprise applications have been funded (and that EMC did a good sales job.) But I've also heard that the Infrastructure Group at one of my clients is planning to discontinue support of Documentum by 2010.

Very few user communities are willing to fund and/or make technological changes unless the anticipated win (be it moving toward pleasure or away from pain) is substantial. What does this mean to EMC software (specifically, Documentum)? That the Life Sciences space, at the moment, is more theirs to lose than it is Microsoft's to win. The window won't stay in that position forever.

The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to say that a company's aim should be to "delight its customers." I agree; delighted customers don't seek out alternatives.