I've written a journal entry at eDiscoveryJournal that details my analysis of the Iron Mountain acquisition of Mimosa Systems.  Check it out at http://ediscoveryjournal.com/2010/02/iron-mountain-moves-into-software-and-buys-mimosa-systems/

There was a nice article in Mass High Tech today about how eDiscovery requires law firms to put technology in place to support their clients.  The best quote in the article was that "It’s a full time job to handle all data relative to e-discovery now."  I like attorneys are realizing just how important it is to manage information well.  In fact, Ropes and Gray has a dedicated eDiscovery attorney - Shannon Capone Kirk.  

Five years ago, many of the law firm types that I spoke with were threatened by eDiscovery technology that could allow clients to take much of the eDiscovery process in house.  Fact is, this shift meant less data for firms to review - and less revenue.  Thankfully, I hear that argument less and less now.  The good law firms recognize the need to be customer-centric.  

Many organizations ask me what the role of their law firm should be within the eDiscovery realm.  I say that a law firm should be a strategic advisor. Most have experience with eDiscovery and many litigation support managers that can advise on the right tools and solution sets.  Law firms have relationships with service providers.  Law firms have review and case management technologies that organizations need to get their data into. So, work closely with your law firm when selecting a solution, but don't ask your law firm to source it for you.

I'm doing some further research around the roles that law firms play with corporate clients when it comes to eDiscovery.  Email me with your thoughts - I'm always interested to learn more and hear different views.

Thanks!

The landscape of solutions providers in eDiscovery is broad and confusing.  I'm working to put together an RFP library or database of sorts - essentially providing a list of questions that any user should ask a solutions provider for all points throughout the eDiscovery process. 

If Microsoft, as rumored, were to buy Autonomy, there would be a seismic ripple felt through eDiscovery-related markets.  First, Microsoft would own two of the leading search products in the market (Autonomy and FAST).  Second, Microsoft would have applications to provide value on top of a SharePoint infrastructure:

 - iManage document management – which has a huge law firm and corporate legal installed base
- Meridio records management – which just so happened to be developed to provide RM functionality for SharePoint environment
- Cardiff BPM – which would give Microsoft advanced process management capabilities (all the better to build out more eDiscovery workflow, for say, legal holds?? )
- ZANTAZ archiving – which will enhance the archiving that will be native to Exchange 2010; the on-premise EAS will give Microsoft its own offering for the first time and the hosted Digital Safe will add to the Frontbridge offering Microsoft already has

And – scarily enough – that is just a smattering of the value that Autonomy would bring to Microsoft.  Not hard to see why the rumor mill has Microsoft paying a 75% premium for the Cambridge, UK-based company.

To any eDiscovery vendors out there I say, “be afraid...be very afraid.”  If Microsoft moves into the market, the following players have a lot to lose:


- Email archiving vendors – if Microsoft offers archiving natively, it almost certainly spells the beginning of the end for pure-play arching vendors; what value will they offer beyond what Microsoft will certainly offer for much less $$$? 
- eDiscovery collection vendors – Microsoft will be able to offer an infrastructure for proactive eDiscovery management; customers won’t need specialized tools to collect information in the wild (or at least won’t need them as much)…and Autonomy can offer some of the functionality necessary for managing the wild already.
- Early Case Assessment and legal hold vendors – Microsoft can turn Autonomy’s Introspect and Aungate offerings into enterprise-grade ECA and legal hold application.
- eDiscovery service providers – if customers can deploy the combined Microsoft / Autonomy product set successfully (a big if, I know), there will be less data to be processed by these service bureaus…and Microsoft will look to offer its own hosted review in the cloud. 

Interestingly, this rumor is getting almost zero play in the US, but has been discussed overseas.  I do think there would be potential anti-competitive implications, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.

If this happens, watch out world!

The good news is that we are finally at a point in the evolution of eDiscovery where virtually everyone agrees on the need for content analytics to make collection and review faster and less expensive.  This news is tempered, however, by a lack of understanding of what content analytics are and how they work.  Until there are some standard ways of understanding how analytics work from both IT and legal perspectives, they will not become ubiquitous.


Content analytics are necessary because there is simply too much digital information for human reviewers to read efficiently.  Without analytics, the cost of legal review will cripple litigious organizations.  Plus, these analytics promise to feed other use-cases, too - storage optimization, knowledge management, compliance, security, and privacy.


A good analytics tool will offer at least some of the following features:  near deduplication, conceptual clustering, automated tagging, social network analysis, vizualization, and machine learning.  As these features are put together, there are many problems that organizations can solve, such as Early Case Assessment (ECA) to make more informed legal decisions earlier so as to save significant costs.


The issue that I hear most often from end-users, though (and this is both IT and legal end-users) is that there is no prescription on analytics.  Case law is murky and no organization wants to be the pioneer in advanced use of analytics.  I'm interested in more perspectives on the use of analytics.  Email me with any thoughts that you have...and Thanks!

I've ranted a good deal about the "head in the sand" attitude that many organizations take when it comes to eDiscovery.  Even with the Amendments to the FRCPs (which squarely place the burden on organizations to be able to find and manage electronically stored information), there are an inordinate amount that simply ignore the requirement and then play dumb.  There are organizations that felt protected because they were rarely in federal court.  Well...now more and more states are adopting similar eDiscovery rules.  Really?  Didn't see that coming (insert copious amounts of sarcasm here).


The fact is that technology exists to find and manage all types of electronically stored information.  Ignorance = sanctions.  Ignorance = huge processing and review costs.  Ignorance is unacceptable.  The call to action is clear - get your information management house in order.  I know - it's not easy; information management is a long-term initiative with multiple players (IT, legal, information workers) and tons of change management.  But, it's gotten tenable.  It's possible to put in place mechanisms for more efficient information collection, legal hold, and early case assessment that provide fast ROI.  It's also possible to make long-term plans for better information management infrastructure and understand how to make the business case for it.


I hope that we don't need a daily news story to reinforce the fact that deploying eDiscovery technology is a no-brainer.  In the meantime, I'll keep my eyes on the headlines...let me know what you think.

The FRCP Amendments that essentially put the issue of eDiscovery on the map in a big way have been in effect for almost three years; so why are most organizations so ignorant about eDiscovery?  I know it's hard to effect change; I know it's hard to implement the infrastructure for information management; I know that eDiscovery tools are relatively new.  Still, the attitude toward eDiscovery smells all to familiar.


I was talking with a high-ranking member of a corporate legal department who said, "Why on earth would I want to implement a platform that would make eDiscovery easier and more efficient?  Once I do that, I'm exposed - any other party can force me to discover anything and I'll have no way to argue against doing it."


I ran this past a few friends in the legal community and all of them could sympathize.  From one POV, I suppose I can sympathize, too.  But, c'mon!  This is such a head-in-the-sand attitude.  This smells just like the attitude that brought use Enron and banking collapse.  Let's not have history repeat itself. It is just plain wrong to not implement tools that make eDiscovery easier.  The FRCPs plainly put the burden on companies to find and manage their information.  I would hate to be this legal department member in 5 years trying to justify this attitude.  Frankly, it's the kind of attitude that will eventually have someone serving time in a minimum-security prison.


Maybe I'm a little jaded, but I'd love your feedback on this to make sure I'm not alone in my thinking here.  Comment away!

I've been hearing a lot about the challenges that SharePoint will create for eDiscovery.  I say "will create" because while SharePoint content is discoverable and has come up in many cases, the true issues with collecting it have not gotten much press.  Most collection tools are only able to grab SharePoint document libraries (as they are stored on file systems).  However, there are many more content types other than document libraries (e.g. calendar items, task lists, workflows, etc).  It's only a matter of time before the legal community figures out the value of these other content items.

There’s been a lot of chatter about EMC buying Kazeon and it’s about time that I weighed in.  Most of the talk has centered on the rumored price of the acquisition – depending on who you believe, EMC paid anywhere from $55 million to over $100 million for Kazeon.  Now, Kazeon was a private company that never revealed its revenue numbers publicly.  I’m in the camp that believes revenue was less than $10 million annually.  I’m also in the camp that believes that the purchase price of Kazeon was just enough to make it funders whole (again, depending on who you believe, that is somewhere between $55 million and $75 million). 

At the end of the day, the price was high, and many people were surprised.  I think EMC can justify the high price for a few reasons:

1. EMC’s current product set for eDiscovery (documtum and eMailXtender) simply isn't getting the job done in real deployments.

2. The eDiscovery services group at EMC was likely losing revenue opportunities because the product set was not working – with Kazeon, there is a band-aid, a tool that can do some short-term good while the product set evolves.

3. In order to capitalize on eDiscovery revenue opportunities for the services group, EMC was likely giving away software for free – with Kazeon in place, they stem the tide there and don’t need to give software away.

So, even though EMC is technically overpaying for Kazeon in some ways, the company can certainly justify the price in terms of increased services revenue and ending the software-giveaway.

Now, EMC must grow Kazeon into scalable, enterprise-grade software.  What I like about the deal is that EMC has thrown down the gauntlet and proclaimed that eDiscovery is of real strategic importance; I like that because it aligns with customer pain points and I believe that customer-centric companies win in the end.  I look forward to seeing competitive responses from CA, IBM, Open Text, and Oracle.

Let me know what you think.