The Future of Document Management - PROJECT CONSULT Unternehmensberatung Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer GmbH
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The Future of
Document Management
Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer
PROJECT CONSULT
Unternehmensberatung Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer GmbH
Hamburg, April 1998The Future of Document Management Contents 1. Introduction............................................................................................................4 2. What is Document Management? ........................................................................5 2.1 Document Management in the Narrow Sense .......................................................5 2.2 Document Management in the Wider Sense .........................................................7 2.3 Different Perspectives............................................................................................9 2.4 The Future of Document Management ................................................................11 3. Current Trends.....................................................................................................12 3.1 Internet, Intranet, and Extranet ............................................................................13 3.2 Standards ............................................................................................................18 3.3 Security................................................................................................................22 3.4 Enterprise Document Management .....................................................................25 3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions and Partner Concepts ....................................................26 3.6 Outsourcing and Outside Support........................................................................28 3.7 Internationalization and Multilingual Systems ......................................................29 3.8 Convergence of Technologies .............................................................................30 4. Trends for the Millenium .....................................................................................31 4.1 Enabling and Engines Instead of Autonomous Applications ................................31 4.2 Split Into High- and Low-End Products ................................................................33 4.3 Integration and Interoperability ............................................................................34 4.4 New Internet Standards .......................................................................................35 4.5 Knowledge Management .....................................................................................36 4.6 Integration of Multimedia .....................................................................................37 4.7 DVD - Digital Versatile Disk .................................................................................38 4.8 DMS – A Leading Growth Market in the IT Industry ............................................39 5. Document Management After 2000 ....................................................................42 5.1 Document Management Coming Under Threat as an Independent Industry.......42 5.2 New Competition for DMS Vendors .....................................................................42 Client:: IMC Subject:: DMS Topic: Trends Author: Kff/BM File: DMS_Future_Kff_5-98 Date: 10.12.2001 Version: 1.1Sta- tus: Translation © PROJECT CONSULT GmbH 1998 Page 2 of 47
The Future of Document Management 5.3 New Ways of Capturing, Indexing, and Retrieving Information............................43 5.4 The Future of Digital Optical Storage...................................................................43 5.5 Back to the Source: Recentralization...................................................................44 5.6 New User Communities .......................................................................................44 5.7 Will Document Management Survive Only as an Organizational Service?..........45 Client:: IMC Subject:: DMS Topic: Trends Author: Kff/BM File: DMS_Future_Kff_5-98 Date: 10.12.2001 Version: 1.1Sta- tus: Translation © PROJECT CONSULT GmbH 1998 Page 3 of 47
The Future of Document Management
1. Introduction
Users and vendors alike are reporting a level of interest never before seen in
the subject of document management. The investment bottleneck caused by the
millennium changeover and the introduction of the Euro is slowly starting to
clear.
Users are preparing for new projects, with the focus on implementing modern
electronic communications both internally and with customers, improving work
procedures, offering new services, and creating a lean organization with opti-
mum technical support.
Document management solutions, including Internet and Intranet technologies,
Workflow, Groupware, and electronic archiving systems offer the ideal means to
attain these goals.
Document management systems (DMS) make possible the uniform, consistent
organization, control, and use of all documents without requiring users to deal
with the technical formats or physical locations of information.
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2. What is Document Management?
The term “document management” is used and interpreted in different ways.
Document management in the wider sense refers to the entire industry: scan-
ning, imaging, workflow, in part groupware, intranet solutions, electronic archiv-
ing, output management, etc. In the narrower sense, document management
refers to “dynamic” or “classical” document management.
2.1 Document Management in the Narrow Sense
Originally, document management technology involved monolithic systems us-
ing special clients for each application with no regard for integration. This type
of classical document management is used for the dynamic administration of
electronic documents and files within networks, with functionalities such as:
• Check-in/Check-out
• Version management
• Access protection
• Document group (container) creation
• Self-descriptive information objects
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The Future of Document Management
Figure 1 Classical Document Management
2.2 Document Management in the Wider Sense
With the increasing overlap and integration of the different document manage-
ment technologies, the term is also being applied to other systems and their in-
teraction as well as to classical document management. These other systems
are:
• Office Communication/Office Suites
Individual modules like word processing, spreadsheets, graphics, databases,
calendars, mail, and fax, with active control by the user
• Document Imaging
Scanning, displaying, printing, and managing facsimile documents
• Electronic Archiving
Archiving data, images and/or lists, with database-supported access, remote
storage, auditability
• E-Forms
Electronic forms for the entry, display, publishing, and management of vari-
able information
• Output Management
Creation, management and print output for professional printing
• Groupware
Cooperative working, database-supported data and file administration, repli-
cation, group functions such as calendar and mail, linkage and integration of
individual components
• Workflow
Structured processes, status and action monitoring, rule-based control, CI
and NCI document processing, controlled forwarding of documents and pro-
cedures
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The Future of Document Management
Figure 2 The Components of DMS Solutions
2.3 Different Perspectives
Different DMS solutions concentrate on different things. Each of the above
product groups proceeds from a different focus or perspective on the same
problem – handling unstructured information. For example:
• The “Document” Perspective
Document management systems in the classical sense are document-
oriented, i.e. access, management, and presentation are based on document
criteria. These systems originated to manage files in networks. In the classi-
cal products of this type, organizational concepts such as joint use of docu-
ments, inclusion in processes etc. are not a factor.
Electronic archive systems with digital optical storage use an approach
that is similar to the classical document management systems. Like them,
they use a database to administer information and containers. Electronic ar-
chiving systems can also administer large volumes of data online, nearline,
and offline in jukeboxes.
• The “Process” Perspective
Workflow systems proceed from a process-oriented approach, in which
documents are incorporated into the flow of work (hence the name). They
likewise use archive systems that are often directly integrated in the workflow
system. Access, which is situation and process-relevant, is less to individual
documents than to related processes from different sources and information
items.
• The “Cooperative Work” Perspective
Groupware systems take still another approach. They focus on the joint use
of program and information resources. Access can be document-oriented,
within the framework of joint document handling, or within process chains that
are not firmly defined or structured. Archiving plays only a subordinate role.
• The “Data” Perspective
Fulltext-oriented systems which store all document contents in a format that
allows processing use a “data” approach. In these systems the access and
content components are the same data. Many solutions also keep facsimile
documents directly in the database and simply treat them as a new type of
data. Data and documents are used directly in the database instead of via a
conventional electronic archive, workflow, or document management system.
These systems usually use reference databases from which individual docu-
ments are referred to a separate data storage system (repository, library, ar-
chive etc.) by means of a pointer.
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The Future of Document Management
Figure 3 Document Management Perspectives
The Document, Process, Cooperative Work, and Data perspectives are just dif-
ferent approaches to the same task – the accurate, timely, consistent, and
situation-sensitive presentation of information.
2.4 The Future of Document Management
The various document management technologies are highly interdependent.
The use of one component is generally not possible without access to other
components.
Integrated Document Management
By now most users have recognized that they do not need individual applica-
tions that usually perform just one function, but rather integrated, enterprise-
wide solutions. Distributed document management solutions therefore go far
beyond classical document management to include:
• The entire Document Life Cycle from the creation or generation of a docu-
ment through to archiving it,
• As well as the entire Document Supply Chain from generation, editing, ad-
dition, approval, and output management through to transfer and distribution
in different renditions of a single document.
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3. Current Trends
Most professional document management and archiving systems are already
mature. The most important things for users to consider in selecting a DMS so-
lution today are:
• Separating the wheat from the chaff,
• Finding a competent implementation partner, and
• Properly preparing their own organization for implementation.
In addition, there are some current trends in the document management market
that should be kept in mind:
• Internet, Intranet, and Extranet
• Standards
• Security
• Enterprise document management
• Mergers, takeovers, and partner concepts
• Outsourcing and outside support
• Internationalization and multilingual systems
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3.1 Internet, Intranet, and Extranet
The Internet capability of DMS solutions has been an important topic for a few
years now. Many users now see browsers and applets as viable alternatives to
conventional clients in large-scale solutions.
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The Future of Document Management
Figure 4 Internet, Intranet, and Extranet
Access Via Standard Browser
During the first phase of product development, interfaces and services were de-
veloped to allow access to documents with standard browsers such as Explorer
or Netscape. However, this is not viable for constant work with documents,
since documents must also be imported into the systems and office tools need
to be incorporated for working on a document.
Applet Technologies
Applets are necessary for access to a DMS using a standard browser with com-
plete document management functionality including check-in, check-out, version
management, document security etc. With platform-independent applets, any
browser can be transformed on demand into a master desktop or fat client with-
out additional proprietary document management software. The user needs only
the browser software and an authorization key.
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The Future of Document Management
Figure 5 Access to Standard Archive Systems
There is still some indecision on the market as to whether to use Java or Micro-
soft ActiveX.
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3.2 Standards
Standards are indispensable for the interoperability of different document man-
agement technologies and components from different vendors.
Figure 6 The Problem of Standards
The Problem of Standards
SGML OLE TIFF
HTML
ODA BMP
Which will EDI MIME
ISO 13446
XML prevail ? POSTSCRIPT ASCII
SWAP MODCA/
ITU IOCA
WfMC ALF
CORBA PDF
MPEG JAVABEANS
DMA
CD-I HPGL WfMC
Which
World
will
JPEG survive ? AFP
Wide
RTF ODMA COM Web
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Document Management Standards
Among the major standardization bodies in document management are:
• The ODMA Group (Open Document Management API)
ODMA has become the recognized standard for linking clients, thanks to rec-
ognition by Microsoft and support by Lotus, IBM, FileNet, Eastman Software,
Oracle and other leading companies. The ODMA standard also incluides
Intranet extensions for accessing ODMA-compliant document management
systems on an Intranet. ODMA-based programming is very simple.
Figure 7 ODMA as Client Interface
•
ODMA as Client Interface
Application
Application
Editor
Editor o.
o. a.
a.
Application
Application
Editor
Editor o.
o. a.
a. ... Application
Application
Editor
Editor o.
o. a.
a.
ODMA
ODMA
Document
Document
Manager
Manager Client
Client ... Document
Document
Manager
Manager Client
Client
API
DMA
DMA -- Middleware
Middleware Layer
Layer
SPI
Document
Document Space
Space Document
Document Space
Space
(Repository/Engine)
(Repository/Engine) #1
#1 ...... (Repository/Engine)
(Repository/Engine) #n
#n
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DMA (Document Management Alliance)
The substantially more complex DMA middleware is an important standard
for open, distributed, and enterprise-wide solutions across highly diverse plat-
forms and locations. For example, DMA-compatible middleware can be the
link between different products with proprietary repositories.
Figure 8 DMA Client/Server Model
•
DMA Client-Server Model
Client Desktop Doc-Space Vertical applications
Document
Desktop utilities
Uniform View
Document Delivered by Administration tools
Application DMA Property Companion applications
Value
Point of Access
Connectivity
DMA Coordination
DMA Middleware Point of Service
Pluggable Document Spaces
Network Servers Service ... Conversions
Content Services
Libraries, Databases,
File Systems
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WfMC (Workflow Management Coalition)
The WfMC has described five different interfaces for workflow product inter-
operability and components. These interfaces are being developed into prod-
ucts. No workflow product will be competitive without WfMC-compatibility. In-
creasingly, manufacturers like Microsoft, SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle are
adding workflow functionality to their products – and all these companies are
members of the WfMC.
Figure 9 Workflow Reference Model
Workflow Reference Model
Process
Definition
Tools
Interface 1
Workflow API and Interchange formats
Workflow
Workflow
Engine(s)
Interface 5
Interface 4
Workflow Workflow
Administration Workflow
Engine(s)
Workflow
Engine(s)
Engine(s)
& Engine(s)
Engine(s)
Monitoring Tools Other Workflow
Workflow Enactment Enactment
Service Service(s)
Interface 2 Interface 3
Workflow
Invoked
Client
Applications
Applications
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Standards Influencing DMS
Among the fundamental standards also involved in document management are:
• OLE Compound documents
• ITU Compression
• CORBA, DCOM Object models
• SGML Format description language
• HTML, XML Format description languages on the Internet
• MIME E-mail header information
• EDI Data interchange
• ISO Optical storage
• OSTA File formats for optical storage media
OLE, MPEG, CORBA / DCOM, HTML, XML, EDI and the file format UDF ISO
13446 will become especially important in the future.
3.3 Security
The booby traps of Internet solutions are becoming general knowledge. Trans-
mission security, proof of transmission of a message and its receipt by the in-
tended recipient, message integrity, encoding against reading by third parties
and other security concerns are becoming more and more important to users.
Developers need to make provision for self-descriptive information objects, dis-
tributed resource directories, firewalls, cryptographic encoding, digital signa-
tures, and other modules whose maturity is still the subject of controversy at the
present time.
Self-Descriptive Information Objects
Self-describtive information objects are made up of any kind of content compo-
nents (single object, container, list etc.) and a self-descriptive header. They
carry with them all necessary structure, identification, and administration infor-
mation. As a rule, the header component starts with a neutral description of the
characteristics and attributes that can be expected in the header proper. This
description is the basis for the self-descriptive character of these documents.
The attributes in the header of an information object can be read even when the
administrative database does not have access or the information object was
sent in an environment outside the system that produced it.
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The object-oriented approach ensures:
• Secure information distribution
• Offline processing
• Asynchronous presentation in large distributed systems
Self-Descriptive Information Object
Self-Descriptive Format and
Header Attribute Information
e.g. TIFF, WinWord File, List
Information etc.
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Figure 10 Self-Descriptive Information Object
Digital Signature
A digital signature has nothing to do with a scanned signature or an electronic
signature controlled by password or login. Instead it serves to authenticate the
originator and content of an electronic document. A digital signature is gener-
ated by the combination of a public key issued by a certification body and a se-
cret private key. The digital signature is attached to an electronic document. In
Germany the procedure is codified in the Signature Law (SigG).
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Digital signatures could be used in:
• E-Commerce
The digital signature is one of the primary prerequisites for electronic com-
merce and business transactions over the Internet. Its main purpose is the
exchange of business documents between parties who do not know each
other. At the time of transfer of a digitally signed document there is as yet no
agreement between the sender and the recipient, so identification of the
sender and the legal significance of the message is very important. A digital
signature should have the same legal character as an actual written signa-
ture.
• Legal Transactions
The Federal German Notary Association also envisions applications in which
digital signatures are used in creating and sending legal certificates, deeds,
and the like.
• Securing Industrial Property Rights and Copyrights on the Internet
The boundary between accessing information and using services requiring
payment with binding electronic agreements is shifting. This can make digital
signatures more important for spreading disseminating information and using
Internet information pools. In the future the digital signature may also contrib-
ute to the protection of industrial property rights and copyrights on the Inter-
net.
Multimedia Right Clearance Systems (MMRCS)
Copyright, payment for services, and industrial property rights are very impor-
tant for the use of information on the World Wide Web. The publication and pub-
lishing industries are therefore pushing the development of Multimedia Right
Clearance Systems (MMRCS). These systems support the approval process for
multimedia rights and serve as interfaces between the use of creative media
creations and their industrial property rights holders.
Systems for clarifying multimedia rights generally include the following func-
tions:
• Digital storage of components and descriptive data
• Component-sensitive research and display functions
• Information on legalities and licensing
• Support of different types of agreements and contracts
• Secure provision of components
• Support of different payment and security mechanisms
• Integration in the production and use environment
A comprehensive strategic study of these systems has been carried out within
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the framework of the INFO2000 program of the European Commission. The
study had three major objectives:
• Identifying the main problem areas in trading with multimedia rights within the
EU, and prioritizing the necessary steps
• Providing for the different viewpoints of the parties involved
• Recommending the necessary measures
Initial studies have identified the following problem areas:
• High costs for releasing rights
• Complex legal footing
• A lack of international standards
• A lack of information on the release process
3.4 Enterprise Document Management
The age of small-scale “tryout” solutions in the DMS environment is over. To-
day’s users demand “Enterprise Document Management.” Enterprise document
management integrates all DMS technologies as well as the world of office and
business applications. The goal of these solutions is to provide to users all of
the information within an enterprise without regard to the location, type of client,
or application that generated a given document.
In the past stand-alone solutions were common. Each application had its own
archiving system with its own user interface. Today the spotlight is on so-called
enabling technologies, which add special document management functions to
existing applications. The user does not see an autonomous DMS, workflow, or
archiving system. Instead, the functionality is integrated into the application or
groupware.
Architecture of Enterprise Document Management Solutions
True distributed document management solutions with central, local, or com-
pletely distributed components require a three-layer architecture, with the entire
functionality nestled between the actual data and the user interface.
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Enterprise-Wide DMS
Fat
Fat Client Thin
Thin Client
Client
Emulation
DMS
DMS Chicago
Chicago Central
Central
Index
Index
New
New York
York
Host
Host
Los
Los Angeles
Angeles
Library
Library
Library
Library
Web-
DMS
San
San Francisco
Francisco
Service Notebook
Notebook
Atlanta
Atlanta
Browser Library
Library
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Figure 11 Three-Layer Architecture Model
Enterprise document management also makes it possible to link up with cus-
tomers and suppliers over the Internet.
3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions and Partner Concepts
The DMS market has matured and shows all the signs of consolidation – take-
overs and mergers, the entry of large standard software vendors, and the dis-
appearance of small software manufacturers with proprietary products.
• Takeovers and Mergers
The boom in demand for DMS-related products has begun, and will peak at
some point after 2000, when the Euro and millenium conversions have been
accomplished. There is a seller’s market for qualified system consultants and
programmers, so that headhunting and poaching are rife in the DMS industry.
And if you can’t get an employee, you might just take the entire company in-
stead - many well-known names of suppliers and products have already dis-
appeared.
• Stock-Market Capitalization
Many DMS vendors are currently getting up the capital for takeovers by going
public. By doing so they also hope to get quick capital for the European mar-
ket. Some of the stock prices for new companies are rising so fast that ana-
lysts are starting to get furrowed brows.
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• Partner Concepts
Since enterprise solutions require the integration of widely diverse compo-
nents and technologies, partnerships and alliances are widespread on the
DMS scene.
• Implementation Partnerships
Proprietary software vendors are relying heavily on system integrators who
do projects based on their products. Only in this way is it possible for a com-
pany to finance its own development and gain sufficient market share. This
makes the acquisition of distribution and integration partners one of the most
important objectives for product vendors. Implementation partnerships with
system houses offer several advantages:
• Qualified expertise for the customer on-site
• Quick regional coverage
• Synergies through integration with the partner’s solutions
• Solution of the problem of building up qualified implementation and project
management staff
• Enrichment of development through partner requirements, market prox-
imity, and knowledge of the industry
The Market in Flux
Bubbles
Mobius
Bubbles
IXOS Bubbles
Bubbles
SAP
Bubbles
Oracle
Keyfile
PCDOCS
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Figure 12 The Market in Flux
Good system integrators who can carry through projects on site are not easy to
find. The software vendors with the most and the best integrators will determine
the future. Therefore, many vendors have gone over to making the integrator’s
performance and experience, and not the product, the reason-why criteria for a
solution.
3.6 Outsourcing and Outside Support
Many corporations have realized that they cannot build up their own know-how
in all areas.
Archiving and DMS From Outsourcers
Already, a lack of own resources or economic reasons lead many corporations
to outsource the capture and indexing of documents.
Once the problems of inadequate bandwidth and security mechanisms have
been solved, it may be possible to outsource entire DMS and archiving solu-
tions. In such cases payment would be “per view” for both LAN and Internet cli-
ents. The user would have no costs for administration and migration.
Outside Partners
Increasingly, jobs like the Euro-conversion, workflow, and business process op-
timization or document management and electronic archiving are being tackled
with the assistance of outside consultants. This gets the user off the hook of es-
tablishing his own specialist expertise for the implementation phase. Instead,
users can call on the experience of neutral consultants. Market research has
shown that consultants are used especially for projects in document manage-
ment, electronic archiving, Workflow, and Intranet applications.
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Importance of Outside Support
High ++
Business Standard-
Data Warehouse Process software
OLAP Redesign Euro/
Importance for Enterprise Success
MIS
Currency Union
C/S-Architectures Network and
Object Orientation Added Value
Year 2000 Workflow Services
Individual- Conversion NC/ Network
software Computer
Workgroup Computing Document
Intranet/ Management/
Application Internet Archiving
Management
Outsourcing
of IT
Low -- Importance of Outsourcing High ++
Time- ++ + 0
Criticality - --
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Figure 13 Importance of Outside Support for Various Technology Fields
3.7 Internationalization and Multilingual Systems
The Euro will transform Europe into a single economic entity. Likewise, the
document management market and large enterprise solutions do not stop at na-
tional borders.
Broadening Distribution
The DMS products left in the arena when the day is over will be the ones devel-
oped not for a national market but for the European or the international market,
and which have a certain critical mass of installations. Only they will be able to
amortize the high development and maintenance costs required for archival
software intended to keep information available for 7, 10, or 30 years. There-
fore, all German DMS vendors of any size are starting to expand their distribu-
tion networks through Europe and to the US.
In Europe, German vendors lead the market along with the Americans, some of
whom have had offices in Europe for years.
Multilingual Software
Multilingual thesauri promote standardization in classifying documents, permit
defined, structured access, and support searches for documents that are not
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available in the user’s language.
There is still no “true” multilingual software for DMS solutions. In order to serve
the international market DMS software must support numerous languages and
character sets. In addition to the linguistic requirements, there are measurement
and currency conversions to consider as well as differing spellings and formats
for dates, addresses etc.
3.8 Convergence of Technologies
Conventional divisions of products into imaging, archiving, document manage-
ment systems etc. is disappearing. This means that users are losing a primary
basis for comparison as products increasingly cover similar sets of functions.
Cooperations and mergers often start with one company wishing to add the fea-
tures of another company’s products to its own.
Extension of Classical DMS Functionality
More and more workflow products can do archiving and document manage-
ment, E-forms are turning into workflow, workflow is integrating archiving, ar-
chives are adding multimedia functions, etc. etc. The goal of all of this is to sup-
port the entire life cycle of documents, the generation, processing, and presen-
tation of all forms of documents, data, and objects and the inclusion of every
imaginable monitoring, forwarding, and control function. In this context, easy-to-
use tools for creating applications are becoming more and more important.
Integration and Incorporation of Office Functions
Functions that earlier were the province of autonomous applications, such as
fax, e-mail, text/data integration, text block administration, groupware functions
etc. are increasingly being directly integrated into DMS products. Behind this
are strategies such as “just one IN basket” for all types of applications and
documents, from conventional e-mail, Internet, fax, and voicemail to production
workflow.
Disappearance of Conventional Criteria for Evaluation and Classification
This is steadily eliminating users’ evaluation criteria, as products increasingly do
the same things. The implementation partner’s abilities and experience, i.e. “soft
criteria,” are becoming more important than pure product functionality. Future-
proofness, modularity, migration security, and simple maintenance are gaining
in importance as criteria.
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4. Trends for the Millenium
By the millenium the following changes can be expected to take place on the
DMS market:
• Enabling and engines instead of autonomous applications
• Split into high-end and low-end products
• Integration and interoperability
• New Internet standards
• From document management to knowledge management
• Integration of multimedia
• DVD will push aside other digital optical storage media
• DMS will become one of the major IT growth markets
4.1 Enabling and Engines Instead of Autonomous Applications
In the place of autonomous document management solutions, document man-
agement functionality will increasingly be controlled from other applications and
used only as a subordinate service:
• Document Management Enabling
Instead of autonomous DMS clients, document management functions will be
integrated into other applications via standard interfaces.
Client Enabling
• View
• Store
• Export
• Import
• Print DMS
DMS
• Index Enabling
Enabling
• Organize
DMS DMS DMS
Notes
Notes Enabling Enabling Enabling
SAP
SAP WORD
WORD
Client
Client
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Figure 14 Client Enabling
• Imaging
In a multimedia environment, images and scanned documents are just two
more types of data. In addition to today’s dominant black and white formats,
new compression technologies will increasingly allow color images.
• Electronic Archiving
Electronic archiving as an autonomous application is slowly retreating. Elec-
tronic archives will operate as subordinate services for other applications.
• Workflow Engines
Autonomous workflow solutions are losing ground. Workflow is increasingly
being integrated into applications as an engine.
Server Engines
• DMS
• Workflow
• Archive
DMS DMS
DMS DMS
DMS
Notes
Notes Enabling Enabling
Enabling Enabling
Enabling
SAP
SAP WORD
WORD
Client
Client
Domino
Domino SAP
SAP Exchange
Exchange
Application
Application
Workflow DMS Workflow
Workflow
DMS
Archive
Archive Link
Link
Archive
Archive Archive
Archive
Archive
Archive
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Figure 15 Server Engines
• The Use of Specialized Engines for Business Applications
In commercial applications more specialized engines are coming into use.
They allow the integration of document management services on the server
side. These include services for distribution, the index database, the commu-
nications interface between client and DMS, printing services, and more. This
means that the user no longer needs special archiving or workflow products,
but can access these services from inside existing applications. Thus, all
functions are integrated under a single user interface.
4.2 Split Into High- and Low-End Products
There are two roads to survival on the market – vertical specialization concen-
trating on high-value niches, and the cross-platform low-value strategy over-
whelmingly followed by the big vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Lotus or Netscape.
Mass Market Document Management Infrastructures
The big vendors are already including in their systems and products many of the
basic elements for managing the documents or knowledge of an organization.
These elements include retrieval functions, the joint use of information, push
strategies for filtering information in the web, and more.
• Operating Systems
Simple document management functionalities will be or already are included
in operating systems. Object-oriented document management as the basis of
modern operating systems will replace the hierarchical File Manager.
• Office Suites
Office suites will increasingly include simple document management and
workflow functionality. For the front office these extensions will in particular
comprise word processing with E-forms, fax sending, WWW browser, and
imaging viewer for viewing images and compression. For the back office
there will be functions like database-supported document management in
place of the hierarchical File Manager, cooperative document processing,
simple workflow or controlled e-mail, groupware functions, hierarchical stor-
age management (HSM) with digital optical media, fax receiving and Intranet
functionality.
• Workflow
Traditional e-mail will be replaced by controlled e-mail with ad-hoc workflow.
This will enable the tracing and control of all incoming and outgoing mail plus
the passing on of information and documents.
Workflow will in addition become a standard component in Internet, Intranet,
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and Extranet use.
• Integration of TV and Computer
The TV and the computer are coming closer and closer together, bringing
document management in information distribution into this area as well.
Professional Solutions
The utility of low-end standard products for single users and smaller workgroups
is uncontested. However, full-blown professional solutions are a necessity for
productive environments of 50 or more users with requirements such as enter-
prise document management or audit-proof archiving. In addition to the product
itself, such systems require a whole battery of services such as system consult-
ing, individual configuring, integration of existing software, implementation sup-
port, training, maintenance etc. Users expect vendors and integrators to provide
a very high level of legal admissibility, availability, and migration security for
such systems.
4.3 Integration and Interoperability
The integration requirements created by document management solutions
should not be underestimated.
Integration and Interoperability
DMS DMS
DMS DMS
DMS DMS
DMS DMS
DMS DMS
DMS
Autono-
Autono-
Notes
Notes Enabling Enabling
Enabling Enabling
Enabling Enabling
Enabling Enabling
Enabling Enabling
Enabling
SAP
SAP WORD
WORD CAD
CAD mous
mous Browser
Browser
Client
Client Client
Client
Middleware ?!
Business
Business DMS
DMS
Applications
Applications Libraries Services
Services
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Figure 16 Integration and Interoperability
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Integrated Document Management
Most of the applications used in enterprises generate documents. Enterprise
document management solutions integrate the entire knowledge base and all
applications of a company. In addition to generated documents, this includes all
transferred, sent, and received documents which must be stored. Likewise, the
accelerating addition of document management functions to other products and
platforms requires professional solutions to be compatible with these compo-
nents.
Operating Systems
Windows NT is becoming the main platform for client/server applications. Like
OS/2, UNIX as a server operating system for DMS solutions is coming under in-
creasing pressure. Two years ago UNIX derivatives and Windows NT were
about equally represented on the market, but today Windows NT solutions have
a clear lead. Plans by large-scale users for migration to Windows NT are well
under way.
Compatibility With the Big Platforms
Increasingly, DMS solutions are being installed directly with new NT backbones,
with integration with Exchange, Outlook and other Microsoft applications playing
a very important part.
It will be more and more vital for DMS products to be compatible with products
on the big platforms like Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes. Lotus is extending
Notes to become a Domino Platform, which will be an important platform-
independent basis for integration.
DCOM and CORBA Object Models
The object models COM+/DCOM and CORBA are converging. As this happens
it will give rise to a general standard for uniform middleware for document man-
agement systems.
NC – Back to Centralized Solutions
Especially now that Lotus Notes is no longer going to support the OS/2 platform,
the NC-NetClient/ThinClient variant for distributed organizations with large host
systems has lost much of its attractiveness.
4.4 New Internet Standards
Existing standards are being overtaken by standards from the Internet environ-
ment:
• XML Format Description Language
While HTML is still king of the hill on the Internet, XML is the format of the fu-
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ture. Microsoft is planning to use XML as a document format in the Office en-
vironment. In the future XML will be followed by a universal document, con-
tainer, and object standard.
• E-Commerce
There are ISO-standard EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) procedures for the
exchange of structured data between defined business partners. These pro-
cedures have different emphases for different industries.
Conventional EDI will give way to Electronic Commerce in the future. E-
commerce allows open user groups to be included in transactions. The digital
signature will become important for identifying the sender and for legal valida-
tion in the exchange of business documents between unknown parties.
• SWAP
The Simple Workflow Access Protocol (SWAP) is developing on the Internet
in competition with the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC). However, in
view of the dynamic nature of the Internet environment it is impossible to
predict which standard will have more staying power.
4.5 Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is a new trend in the US which is also gaining a foot-
hold in Europe. This is based on the long overdue recognition that it is the con-
tent of a DMS system, the stored information, that represents the primary value
of the system. New strategies that include users and processes aim to access
and increase this enterprise knowledge. Thus, knowledge management will pro-
vide the basis for an organization’s ongoing learning process, bringing the
knowledge gained into context with existing knowledge via hyperlinks created
automatically and by users.
Intelligent Information Retrieval
The knowledge possessed by an organization is made up of explicit, clearly de-
finable knowledge as well as knowledge that is not immediately recognizable,
and goes far beyond documents, web pages, and other explicit forms. While
explicit knowledge is generally easy to transfer, hidden knowledge is much
more difficult to tap, much less transfer, as it is often empirical and subjective.
However, often it is just this hidden information that forms the basis for the stra-
tegic knowledge of an organization.
The efficient retrieval of company information as knowledge is the most impor-
tant aspect of this new trend. Earlier, the decision was simple: There were full-
text databases for pulling texts and relational databases for pulling structured
data. These databases could also be used to refer to documents in document
management systems via pointers.
The situation has changed. Data warehouses make it possible to distribute,
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prepare, and compress information, while new search engines can locate data
and documents even in unstructured repositories while self-teaching agents
autonomously search for data and documents. These changes deserve the
name “knowledge management” – storage and administration are no longer in
the foreground, but rather the intelligent retrieval of information leading to more
knowledge.
The Renaissance of Expert and Knowledge-Based Systems
Knowledge management lies somewhere between document management,
data and document warehousing, expert systems, search engines, groupware,
workflow and other technologies. If databases and data warehouses are about
pulling and combining traditional data, knowledge management is about the
contentual retrieval of all types of structured and unstructured information, from
data records to incoming faxes to multimedia presentations.
Knowledge management transforms, selects, and combines important informa-
tion for a user in a given context to support the decisions and actions of an en-
terprise.
The next generation of document or knowledge management solutions will be-
come a central part of the infrastructure that makes the knowledge within an en-
terprise available and useful.
4.6 Integration of Multimedia
The integration of multimedia forms of information like structured data, text, im-
ages, graphics, audio, and video with interactive manipulation capability is be-
coming increasingly important:
• Digital Photography
For some time now compact and affordable digital cameras have been on the
market which outwardly differ little from normal compact cameras. Digital im-
age resolutions will continue to improve. As a rule digital photos are gener-
ated as TIFF, BMP, and JPEG files.
• Video Recordings
With special interface cards and software it is possible to digitize analog color
videos. And of course, more and more digital videos are being made directly
with digital camcorders. MPEG (Motion Picture Expert Group) is going to be-
come widespread for storing and compressing digital and digitized motion
pictures. As PC and ISDN-based videoconferencing becomes more common,
this multimedia standard will become an important factor for document man-
agement systems. For example, DMS could enable direct access to video
sequences during video conferences.
• Speech Recordings
With the increase in business transactions by phone, especially with call cen-
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ters, speech recordings are gaining in importance. At the same time informa-
tion volumes are falling, permitting good clarity with reasonable storage
space. Recording is software-supported, and parameters can be applied.
• Combinations of Still Pictures, Video, Audio, Text, and Data
In the future there will be more and more applications for the linking and con-
version of different types of information. Already, speech recordings can be
automatically converted into a text format that allows further processing. In
addition to storing and administering repositories, new document manage-
ment functionalities will use the intelligence and interactivity of hypermedia
formats to support business processes and increase the total knowledge of
an organization.
4.7 DVD - Digital Versatile Disk
DVD technology was developed over the last two years by several companies
primarily for the entertainment industry, like the Compact Disk before it. The big
objective with DVD was to replace the videotape recorder with a format that
would allow extremely high quality full-length recordings. For that reason DVD
originally stood for Digital Video Disk. But since DVD can also store computer
data, DVD today stands for Digital Versatile Disk.
DVD is starting to edge out digital optical media, and CD-R, both re-recordable
and conventional WORM, are going to come under pressure.
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High Capacity
According to many analysts, only DVD offers the capacity needed for multime-
dia. Currently, a DVD has 7 times the storage capacity of a CD, and still higher
capacities are under development.
DVD Surface Density
0.74 µm Interstices
DVD
0.4 µm
min.
Figure 17 DVD Surface Structure and Recording Density
DVD Drives as Standard Equipment in PCs
PC manufacturers will soon offer DVD-ROM drives as standard equipment. Ac-
cording to Hitachi, by 2000 some 70 million DVD drives will be in use, of which
30 million will be systems for write-once or re-recordable disks.
4.8 DMS – A Leading Growth Market in the IT Industry
For years observers have been predicting rapid growth for the DMS industry.
According to a market study commissioned by the IMC, Germany is currently
the largest market for DMS solutions in Europe. The VOI (Verband Optische In-
formationssysteme e.V.) estimates a 1997 market volume of about 1 billion DM
for DMS solutions in Europe and projects an annual growth of 20 to 25 percent
through to 2001. If you count the periphery (groupware, output and other ser-
vices) the market volume is many times larger.
According to the International Association for Information and Image Manage-
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ment (AIIM), DMS and Internet will be the major IT development markets for the
next ten years, and will become backbone systems in all IT solutions. The Gart-
ner Group estimates that DMS solutions will become important for all IT applica-
tions as services for superordinated access to data and document repositories.
The Delphi Consulting Group assumes in its studies a 30 to 40 percent annual
growth rate for the international DMS market. The projected American DMS
market in 1998 is $ 2.6 billion.
Cost components in DMS project budgeting are shifting. While product licenses
are less and less expensive, total project costs are rising.
More Convenient and Affordable Products
A price downturn for DMS products is leading to further growth. Simple docu-
ment management tasks can be performed by standard office suites or network
operating systems, so the linkage of professional solutions to basic systems like
E-mail components or Microsoft Exchange is turning into a major trend. There
are also many simple DMS products for single users or the home office.
Document management is becoming affordable for everyone. Low cost archiv-
ing products are already offered for as low as $40 for single users and starting
at $150 per workplace for networks. However, these simple off-the-shelf prod-
ucts are not wholly suitable for large organizations. There is always risk involved
with long-term archiving, and users are ill-advised to trust their documents to
cheap little solutions. The security and long-term availability of information have
their price!
Europe Catches Up
The DMS market in the US is only about six months ahead of the European
DMS market. The US-Europe gap in the acceptance and implementation of new
technologies has narrowed considerably. But the real boom in document man-
agement in Europe will only begin after the turn of the century, once capacities
and budgets are freed up after completion of millenium conversion and the con-
version to the Euro.
Right now experts speak of a market penetration substantially below 10 percent
for archiving, groupware, workflow, and DMS solutions. In addition to the big
firms, medium-sized firms are increasingly seen as potential customers.
The Test Phase is Over, Now Comes Investment!
In past years many installations were just small test systems or at most depart-
mental solutions. Now, big enterprise document management systems are com-
ing into use. Today, special hardware and software licenses make up only about
10 to 20 percent of the overall investment costs. What makes projects expen-
sive is the integration with other applications and customizing. In addition, the
amount of consultation in projects is increasing. The organizational component
of implementation projects is becoming more and more vital.
Document management systems are economical only when the organization is
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