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!

 


Comments

Kevin

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:02:39

Interesting site Barry – I found a link to it from http://whereismydata.wordpress.com/

Just commenting on an element of the product verticals you mention.
I’m not a Microsoft naysayer as they do a lot very well, but I haven’t see them excel in the online space, despite acquiring technology like FrontBridge back in 2005

http://web.archive.org/web/20050105091455/www.frontbridge.com/services/archive.php This is FrontBridge archiving in 05 – have they added a single feature?
http://yfrog.com/6rgartnerg neither has Zantaz /Autonomy excelled online, despite their strong position in the market.

Do these vendors want to be offering cloud based solutions? I think no - it’s an afterthought and a cannibalization of their LAN based business and technology. With MS I think they will still try keep many things on the LAN, with premium feature sets that are not offered in the cloud. I could see Autonomy being used the same way. Retarding development in the cloud as they focus it back on the LAN to maintain their profitable lead there.

Or maybe I just watched Who Killed the Electric Car :)

 

Barry Murphy

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:13:00

Kevin:

Thanks for your comment. You're right, both MSFT and AUTN have had a difficult time making the online archives work. I reviewed Microsoft's online email archiving service 2 years ago and was not impressed - either with the capabilities or the strategy.

However, I do believe that the cloud is important to MSFT. And, applications that run on the cloud are therefore important. EMC and IBM are both exploring how eDiscovery can fit into and/or complement their cloud stories. And, look at Iron Mountain's VFS - they just want more and more and more data in their cloud...too bad they can't figure out how Stratify plays into that vision...

 

Ryan

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:04:38

Interesting view Barry, but I think watch out nobody-it would be a complete implosion. Two technology companies who know next to zero about the intersection of technology and the law and both to arrogant to see it.

A marriage like this I would compare to oh McDonalds buying Zappos-yes, I believe it's that idiotic.

 



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