Documentum strengthens KM position with Relevance acquisition

Documentum has strengthened its foothold in the knowledge management marketplace with its $36.5 million acquisition of Relevance Technologies, makers of content management technology. Relevance's "intelligent content mining" automatically encodes, warehouses and analyzes text-based information assets from multiple repositories. Adding Relevance's technology means that users of Documentum systems will be able to access information living outside the Docbase repository including E-mail, databases, and ERP and SFA applications.

The deal accelerates Documentum's evolution from a document management powerhouse to a provider of knowledge chain management solutions, according to company president and CEO Jeffrey Miller. Users will be able to "effectively discover and apply the information, expertise and insight that is buried in their enterprise, as well as scattered across the Internet." The acquisition brings together two familiar entities; Relevance received venture funding from Documentum earlier this year.

Relevance's ability to understand information in context "to provide what is relevant, not just what 'matches' for people trying to find and apply knowledge," strengthens Documentum's product offering, according to Delphi Group analyst Carl Frappaolo. He adds that Documentum is doing the right thing by not jumping ship and suddenly declaring themselves a knowledge management vendor. With the Relevance acquisition and the addition of intranet Web clients to its EDMS 98 product, Frappaolo believes Documentum is effectively unveiling its KM strategy "in parallel and as a superset to document management, not as a replacement."

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