egal tech appears to be ‘crossing the chasm’ to use a somewhat tired cliche. All in all, that is a good thing, but with that shift comes as many challenges as it does opportunities. We will be exploring many of these over the coming months, and we very much welcome any feedback (as long as it’s polite!).
The fixed-page concept seems like one that is near eternal, but just as the world of web content management moved from fixed pages to dynamic content delivery, so too is the back office moving in that direction. We will be publishing a more detailed study shortly, but for now, let’s just say ‘stuff’ may be about to hit the fan for some.
Every technology vendor and enterprise that recognizes that humans are the essential ingredient rather than the technology itself, that more data or information is not always better, and that unraveling decades of technology and culture takes time and often a brave leap of faith will be agents of positive change. They will leave behind the hoarders, the tech-obsessed, and the unrealistic in their wake.
OCR and RPA are becoming commodities, but that does not mean the end of capture and process management vendors. Instead, it means it’s time for them to consolidate, hunker down or pivot to new markets.
It was a pretty easy prediction to make in our October 2021 report on Process and Task Mining that more mining vendors would be acquired by larger process automation vendors. And right on cue Automation Anywhere acquired process mining vendor FortressIQ just days before Christmas. FortressIQ was founded in 2017 and had completed a Series …
The most exciting deal of the quarter is not a deal at all yet, more just an expression of interest. SS&C, the financial services software firm (that bought Intralinks in 2018), has made a $1.6B bid to take over RPA vendor Blue Prism
Last week Dropbox to little fanfare announced that they had acquired San Francisco-based desktop search firm Command E.
Driven largely by the rise in popularity and similarly huge valuations of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), there is the impression that PTM and RPA technologies are tied at the hip. Indeed, RPA projects are likely to be far more successful if the business analysts involved in those projects make use of PTM tools. But that is only part of a much more complex story.
There is a boxing match this week between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. But there is another equally heavyweight match lining up between Hyland and OpenText.
That is a tough pill to swallow for many enterprise software companies, but Box appears to be committed to it. From a buyer’s standpoint, it makes the platform attractive and predictable in terms of cost. From Box’s perspective, it means a short-term hit but much stickier and longer-term relationships with its subscription base.
Salesforce has a vision; much of its work is customer-driven and reflects their needs, rather than the silicon valley norm of inventing things and finding a use for them. But it’s also a huge company, with many moving parts. Though it tells an admirable story, the reality is that so many technology parts and new acquisitions are not easy to balance, integrate, maintain, and manage.
It is worth noting, that what OpenText is doing is in stark contrast to its nearest competitor Hyland (backed by PE firm Thoma Bravo). That has over the past couple of years acquired a blockchain startup (Learning Machine), an RPA vendor (Another Monday) along with open source DAM/ECM vendors (Nuxeo & Alfresco).
Considering the sheer volume of startups and smaller legacy firms, there is no shortage to choose from, and the economies of scale can make many a target.
A cheap and straightforward to install and use blockchain add-on/plugin to systems like SharePoint and Salesforce. I rarely call out a specific vendor in an analyst note, and I only do so here to ask why it took so long?
etc.) compliant. Except this is not true. What has usually happened is that somebody within an enterprise has read an article somewhere by a legal ‘expert’ that has stated that blockchain is not GDPR compliant.
One of the reasons eSignatures are not as widely used as they could be is the cost. Though Box’s announcement this week that they are essentially bundling this functionality for free in its platform takes that barrier away, at least for Box customers. But a more significant reason appears to be the complexity of configuring and using these systems.
It’s one thing to provide corporate access to video conferencing and messaging systems; it’s another challenge entirely to provide remote and tightly managed access to all the data and files those workers need to get their job done. Hence, over the next year, we can expect more deals in the digital workplace sector
July has now kicked off with a bang or punches, depending on your viewpoint. Box put its boxing gloves on and smacked back hard at activist investor Starboard (the link here is well worth a read!), and Dutch firm IPRO acquired veteran eDiscovery vendor ZyLAB.
But one area that seems to have garnered little attention is the gritty reality of the challenge of finding information, gaining and sharing knowledge, and make informed decisions. Endless Zoom meeting, just don’t cut it. We get by, we do the best we can, but for knowledge workers, in particular, there are serious and often unacknowledged challenges ahead.
You can read more about the arcane world of file migration in our recent report, but though this Analyst Note focuses on Box Shuttle, the fact is we are seeing a surge of interest across the board in moving files to the cloud. And that shift opens up a wide range of new opportunities and challenges for firms to adapt, and to innovate in ways they could not do while keeping files on-premises.
