In his blog (Most of the time) Cliff Reeves of Microsoft's Emerging Business Team writes about the differing approaches by Microsoft and IBM to content management and creation. Driven by IBM's recent announcement that they are acquiring Filenet for $1.6 billion, Cliff articulates that IBM still sees Content Management driven by "enterprise storage decisions" while Microsoft views it as an end user opportunity.
I couldn't agree more with Cliff that Content, and the solutions we deploy to generate, store, and re-use that content, will be driven by business professionals with end-user applications that make it easy to generate, collaborate and share with others. After all, what's the purpose of content if it's not information and knowledge for others? How good is that content if it's not created in a collaborative environment? And, what purpose will content serve if it's not easily accessible in the applications or solutions we use today to work together, as a team?
It's not to say that some organizations won't still make "platform" decisions supporting IBM's acquisition; however, in the end, valuable content is the result of great team work and collaboration. The value of that content is then defined by how we use it: how we compete better, make better products, provide better service, etc... Yes, teams (business users with business applications) will largely drive the adoption and use of good content creation and management tools, like most of the business solutions.
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