Recent vendor consolidation in the enterprise content management (ECM) market will impact organizations that are considering records management. Most records management products are part of an ECM or integrated document management (IDM) suite. Users need to ask the vendors involved in recent merger and acquisitions what their product strategy and vision is. Users should also prepare for possible migration as these vendors rationalize their product portfolios, including determining which records management products will continue to be supported. Meanwhile, demand for records management continues to grow. This demand is driven by the increased industry and government regulations, the impact of legal discovery requirements, and the need to mitigate litigation risks. When considering records management vendors, look to the ability of their products to integrate with the broader content management infrastructure and to extend beyond traditional content repositories into e-mail archives and file stores.

Records management involves managing, and reducing the risks of, document retention and preservation. It includes people, processes and technology. Industry and government regulations have been early drivers for records management adoption, but discovery as well as risk mitigation are becoming more important drivers. While highly regulated industries, such as financial services, utilities and pharmaceuticals have always had records retention requirements, changes in government regulations, such as the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, will have an impact on companies across the board as they realize the need to implement records management to address new electronic discovery requirements. This ruling may be the most significant to affect records management adoption since the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The technology of records management has evolved from the preservation of paper documents, through to electronic documents, and on to a very broad range of content types including e-mail and instant messaging. Meanwhile, records management products have become an integral component of ECM suites. The ability to integrate and declare documents from these ECM products is a prerequisite for a records management product. Integration with Microsoft Office is also important, because much of the creation of future business records occurs in this work environment. As e-mail and instant messaging become staples of conducting business, records management products must be able to integrate with these infrastructure applications as well.

Standards have been established in many countries to provide local requirements for records management products. These standards include how different record types should be handled, metadata creation, security definitions and implementation guidelines. Key international records management standards include:

• Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 5015.2 — A U.S. standard and certification for records management developed by the DOD.
• The National Archives (TNA) — A U.K. standard replacing the older Public Records Office (PRO) standard.
• Document Management & Electronic Archiving (DOMEA) — A German standard for records management and document management.
• Victorian Electronic Records Standards (VERS) — An Australian standard with records management guidelines.
• Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence — A Canadian standard to ensure electronic information in IT systems is recognized as reliable and trustworthy by the Canadian legal system.
• Information & Documentation on Records Management Guidelines (ISO 15489) — The first international standard for the implementation of records management.
• Model Requirement for the Management of Electronic Records (MoReq) — An emerging European standard for records management.

These international standards also provide a foundation for the evaluation and selection of records management products. The DOD 5015.2 standard is well-established. It has a formal certification process and has become the de facto benchmark for records management products. Gartner recommends that enterprises use the DOD 5015.2 standard as a key requirement when acquiring any records management product, along with consideration of local standards.

Records management vendors are emphasizing increased integration with e-mail active archiving, compliance and e-discovery applications. As records management requirements and the diversity of applications and content repositories expand, policy-driven records management will become the preferred choice.

The records management market includes products that apply retention policies for business content, such as paper and electronic documents, and e-mail. Gartner estimates the worldwide records management market to be approximately $350 million in software license and maintenance revenue in 2006, an increase of more than 30% from 2005. This market is expected to have a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% between 2007 and 2011. Today, records management is typically packaged as a standard part of large ECM deals, with demand also increasing from midsize enterprises. Gartner surveys show a market penetration rate of 60% for companies using records management, but only 22% of these are enterprisewide deployments. Our research has shown that large enterprises have found it significantly challenging to deploy records management due to the substantial costs and organizational change management required. As a result, we have adjusted our market forecasts to reflect these slower, but still significant, adoption rates. We expect that 50% of all Global 2000 companies will implement enterprisewide records management programs by 2010, which is up from 25% in 2005.

Virtually all records management products are included as part of an ECM or integrated document management suite. These products will be increasingly integrated into the organization's content management infrastructure, rather than operating as stand-alone departmental records management systems. However, since many enterprises still have yet to standardize on a single ECM/IDM product, they will often have multiple content repositories. The ability of records management products to extend their reach through federation with other content management repositories and applications — as well as supporting compliance and discovery — is essential. This MarketScope document analyzes the leading vendors and products that meet our criteria, and rates each one based on our vendor-ratings definition. We also provide an overall market rating using the same definitions.

To be considered for this MarketScope, each records management vendor must meet the following criteria. They must have:

• Revenue of $10 million or more from records management, and ECM products and services.
• Certification for DOD 5015.2 (Chapter 2).
• Product functionality that supports records management for electronic documents, paper documents and e-mail.

Several vendors, including AXS-One, Hyland Software, Interwoven and Microsoft have been excluded from this MarketScope, because, although they may be in the current certification pipeline, their records management products are not yet DOD 5015.2-certified.

Overall Market Rating: Positive

Our outlook for companies investing in records management is positive, because these products have expanded functionality, with vendors including records management as a key component of their ECM or integrated document management suites. The overall market demand for records management and viability of vendors is good.

CA entered the records management market through its acquisition of MDY in June 2006. CA MDY FileSurf is a stand-alone records management product, but it is integrated with many of the leading ECM repositories, including EMC, Interwoven, Open Text, Oracle/Stellent and Microsoft SharePoint. Along with strong e-mail management capabilities, this product is integrated with leading e-mail archiving products from Symantec and Zantaz, so that e-mails can also be managed within the archive. CA MDY FileSurf can also extend records management to e-mail in CA Message Manager. CA was the early adopter of this integration, with its CA MDY FileSurf product. It has also taken a federated approach to records management with its Federated RM solution. CA MDY FileSurf is certified for DOD 5015.2 (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4). Because records management has become a core component of ECM suites and is typically sold as an integrated component, the challenge for CA is to be competitive in those potential opportunities using its current product set and focus on providing a suite of records management, e-mail archiving and discovery products. Combined with CA Message Manager, CA MDY FileSurf provides good compliance, discovery and retention functionality with experienced consulting services.

Rating: Positive

EMC's Documentum Records Manager v5.3 (SP3) has been rewritten and integrated with the Documentum content repository. Users can choose to deploy a formal records management product with Records Manager or an "informal" records retention solution using Retention Policy Services (RPS), which is embedded in the core Documentum Content Server. It is compliant with DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 specifications. Documentum Records Manager provides e-mail management capabilities, which can store e-mails in their native formats or as .txt files in the content repository. EMC has limited integration capabilities with other content repositories and archives outside the Documentum platform. While it offers integration with Archive Services for Email, Documentum Records Manager does not provide integration with EMC's EmailXtender product, which is more widely used for e-mail archiving. EMC provides an extensive set of product technologies to augment Documentum Records Manager — including Content Intelligence Services (CIS) for classification and Information Rights Management server for digital rights management — but all of it comes at a price. OmniRIM can also be integrated with Documentum Records Manager to provide physical records management. EMC offers a good scalable records management product with a sizable user base, but it needs to provide more standard functionality and better integration capabilities.

Rating: Strong Positive

Since its acquisition of FileNet, IBM now has two records management products, IBM Records Manager and IBM FileNet Records Manager, to support its different ECM platforms. IBM Records Manager is well-integrated with the rest of IBM's content management products, including IBM Content Manager and IBM CommonStore, enabling document and e-mail records retention. IBM Records Manager is certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, as well as TNA. IBM's Federated Records Management also provides the capability to apply records retention for third-party content repositories. IBM FileNet P8 Records Manager has achieved good penetration in its IBM FileNet customer base and is also DOD 5015.2 Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 certified. It has an easy-to-use client interface and is well-integrated with the rest of IBM FileNet's products. IBM FileNet P8 Records Crawler monitors, analyzes and processes documents in network file shares, and applies policies and classification. IBM FileNet P8 Records Crawler is integrated with IBM FileNet P8 Records Manager to enable records classification and application of retention policies to those documents. Both of IBM's records management products serve their respective ECM platforms well; however, customers should assess IBM's plans for the support of their ECM platforms and plan accordingly.

Rating: Strong Positive

Meridio provides a records management solution that is tightly integrated and ideally suited for Microsoft platforms, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Exchange. Meridio fills an important gap in Microsoft's current functionality, which does not currently offer records management. While Meridio includes document management functionality, it focuses on providing records management on top of the Microsoft platforms and leverages the Microsoft partner channel for implementations. Meridio's integration with SharePoint allows all records to be secured in Meridio, leaving "smart shortcuts" in SharePoint to retain the collaboration context of the documents. For other repositories, Meridio offers a "manage in place" option as a services-led offering. The product is certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, as well as TNA. Meridio will face increased competition from cross-platform ECM vendors, which will be extending their records management solution to Microsoft SharePoint, as well as from Microsoft which will be releasing its own records management product.

Rating: Positive

Mobius' ViewDirect Records Manager is part of the ViewDirect platform. This product provides records management and e-mail management capabilities and is certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2. ViewDirect Records Manager not only handles traditional records, but can also capture, classify and apply retention management to computer-generated records from mainframe reports such as financial reports and customer statements. Mobius Total Content Integrator (TCI) offers users the capability to search for records across multiple repositories. Mobius has repositioned itself to increase its focus on compliance, along with content archiving. While its customer base for records management is still relatively small, Gartner expects that records management will gain in importance as Mobius increases its focus on compliance and discovery.

Rating: Promising

Objective Records Management is an integral module of Objective 7, an ECM solution. It is typically installed as part of the ECM suite and provides intuitive records retention and classification for physical and electronic records, including e-mail, which are stored as objects in a repository. It also has strong taxonomy and classification capabilities with support for multiple classification libraries. Objective Records Management is certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, TNA and VERS. It has good market penetration in Asia/Pacific, with an installed base that is predominately in Asia/Pacific and Europe. Objective has limited formalized integration with other content repositories, which are delivered through application programming interfaces (APIs) and Web services. Objective provides a mature records management product with good functionality, including physical records management, but it has limited presence in North America.

Rating: Promising

Open Text has different records management products for each of its ECM Suites. Its Livelink ECM-Records Management is for Livelink ECM-Enterprise Server. It has a strong set of e-mail management, classification and archiving components, including Livelink ECM-Email Management, Livelink Classification Professional and Livelink ECM-Email Archiving, which extends its records management capabilities. Livelink ECM-Doorways also enables in-place records management for external content repositories. With the acquisition of Hummingbird, Open Text also has Livelink ECM-eDOCS RM for its Livelink ECM-eDOCS Suite and specialized records management functionality integrated into two vertical market products: LegalKEY, for the legal market, and Livelink ECM-eDOCS R/KYV for U.K. government organizations and agencies. Livelink ECM-Records Management and Livelink ECM-eDOCS RM are both certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, TNA and VERS. Livelink ECM-Records Management also has certified integration with SAP and SharePoint 2003. Open Text's records management products have a substantial installed base of users, good functionality with strong physical records management capabilities, and extensive file plan and records retention schedule development features. Its products also have good workflow capabilities to manage the records management process. Open Text intends to maintain each of its records management products to provide continued support for its suites and vertical applications. Customers should assess Open Text's product road map and plan accordingly for their specific records management requirements.

Rating: Strong Positive

Oracle's Stellent Universal Records Management (URM) provides an agent-based architecture that extends the retention and management of content into other repositories. With the latest release of URM, full physical records management capabilities are provided, along with integration into other repositories, through the use of "agents." While limited numbers of agents or connectors are available today, the architecture provides the extensibility to support broad integration into other products, such as Microsoft SharePoint and Symantec Enterprise Vault. Stellent URM is a native component of Stellent Universal Content Management, an ECM suite. Stellent Records Manager has good review and reporting capabilities, along with Web-based administration. It also has robust file plan creation and maintenance features, including an import/export facility. The Stellent Records Management and Stellent URM products are certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4. Customers considering Stellent for records management should opt for Stellent URM, rather than the Stellent Records Manager product. Oracle's Stellent URM is a good solution and may eventually be used with Oracle's application platforms, once Oracle completes the integration with Stellent.

Rating: Positive

Tower Software's records management is an integral part of TRIM Context, its ECM platform. Tower Software concentrates on providing its solutions to government organizations and regulated industries, predominately in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. TRIM Context handles a wide variety of documents and objects, including electronic documents, paper documents, e-mail and video files. Integration and application of records retention for content in other repositories requires TRIM SDK and Connectivity Toolkit for Web Services. Tower Software has good capabilities in physical records management and, in addition to DOD 5015.2 (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4), TRIM Context records management is also certified for TNA 2002 and VERS. Tower Software's geographic presence and sales channels are limited.

Rating: Promising

Vignette Records and Document (VRD) provides records management capabilities as an integrated function. It is not widely deployed, but it has good functionality for electronic records management and e-mail management, along with imaging and document management. VRD supports records in their native application using "external collections." It also has strong security features, including non-repudiation and "document fingerprinting" to assess if a document has been tampered with or changed. In addition, VRD uniquely supports the capture of Web pages through Vignette WebCapture and can be integrated with Vignette Portal through JSR 168 portlets and Vignette Collaboration. Collaborative content can be declared as records using a "replace with link" approach in which the content would be moved from Vignette Collaboration to VRD. VRD is certified for DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, and TNA standards. It provides integration with Microsoft Office applications, but requires customized integration with other content repositories. This records management solution is only suitable for organizations that have VRD already deployed.

Rating: Promising

ZyLAB's Records Management and Archiving module can be used as a stand-alone solution or included as part the ZyIMAGE Information Access Platform, its content management suite. ZyLAB is a small European content management vendor that got its start in imaging and search technologies. Its records management solution is used predominately in midmarket and government organizations, with a limited presence in the U.S. — primarily in federal government agencies. ZyLAB Records Management and Archiving is compliant with DOD 5015.2, Chapter 2 and TNA. It is ideally implemented by organizations with fewer than 250 users that are looking for ease-of-use and a cost-effective deployment, with minimal professional services. ZyLAB's E-Discovery Management, based on ZyFIND, provides discovery functionality for the records in the archives. ZyLAB Records Management and Archiving offers good flexibility, but lacks integration with other ECM products.

Rating: Promising