ECM (enterprise content management) company Interwoven
has announced the acquisition of Software Intelligence, a maker of
records management technology, for $2m (£1.1m) in cash and
stock.
Previously, Interwoven offered some records management
capabilities through partnerships with third-party suppliers.
Increased pressure on enterprises to meet compliance regulations
requires Interwoven to integrate full records management
functionality into its ECM platform, according to Dan Carmel,
vice-president and general manager of legal professional services
and compliance solutions at Interwoven.
Technology assets from Software Intelligence will be renamed
Interwoven RM (Records Manager) and will allow corporate users to
manage paper documents, electronic documents, and e-mail under a
single records system.
"Customers need a way to apply [a] records retention policy at
the enterprise level, applied in touch points across all content of
business value that is a record," said Carmel.
"Now organisations can expect a single integrated approach to
managing e-mail, electronic documents, and physical paper records
in a consistent way across the enterprise. That is the key
capability we are offering," he said.
Interwoven RM, initially, will be integrated with the company's
WorkSite document management and collaboration offering. The RM can
take advantage of a metadata inheritance feature that is part of
the WorkSite platform, according to Carmel.
Rather than filling out a profile form on a document or piece of
content each time it is saved, WorkSite can define metadata
anywhere up and down a hierarchy, he said.
"With WorkSite we eliminated the need to profile individual
documents by having most of the metadata inherited automatically
based on where you file something," Carmel said. "The context or
location of content actually infers quite a bit about it, and our
system takes advantage of that to provide the correct
classification."
The first phase of the acquisition integration, offering
integrated paper and electronic records management capabilities,
will be available before 30 September. Phase two, due by early
2005, will provide tighter integration between the Software
Intelligence platform and Interwoven's WorkSite to include
functions such as complex records searches.
Cathleen Moore writes for Infoworld