Autonomy announced today that it plans to acquire CA Technologies’ Information Governance business. The deal, expected to close in Q3, focuses on archiving, records management, and eDiscovery. Given overlaps in the vendors' offerings, I see this as a somewhat surprising move and suggest that customers keep a close watch on how this plays out. 

With this purchase, the major offerings that Autonomy picks up are CA Records Manager (which stems from CA’s 2006 acquisition of MDY Group International) and CA Message Manager (which comes from CA’s 2005 acquistion of iLumin). In 2009, I evaluated records management offerings and rated CA Records Manager as a leader in this category. Forrester clients can access the June 23, 2009, “The Forrester Wave™: Records Management, Q2 2009” report for further details.

From its prior acquisitions of Interwoven in 2009 and Meridio in 2007, Autonomy has two existing records management applications. Largely leveraging its 2007 purchase of ZANTAZ, Autonomy also currently markets several message archiving solutions including Digital Safe (cloud-based archiving solution), Enterprise Archive Solution (on-premise archiving software), Arcpliance (on-premise archiving appliance), and more. After it completes the acquisition of CA Technologies’ Information Governance business, Autonomy will have three distinct offerings for records management and over four for message archiving.

by Brian W. Hill

This week, EMC announced that it plans to acquire privately-held eDiscovery vendor Kazeon Systems, Inc. The deal, expected to close in Q3 2009, grew from an existing EMC-Kazeon partnership and will enable EMC to provide a range of natively developed applications to support eDiscovery needs.

As enterprises work to cut eDiscovery costs, the broader market for mitigating legal risk is expanding at a rapid clip. The market, however, remains highly fragmented, with a mix of big players and a multitude of smaller providers. Over the past couple of years, the market has been going through some growing pains and continues to consolidate. In exchanges with a large number of enterprises, buyers report frustrations in integrating applications that support disparate steps of the eDiscovery process – many are also increasingly questioning the long term viability of some of the smaller providers. As larger vendors look to round out and rationalize their portfolios, this consolidation trend holds promise in potentially easing enterprise eDiscovery integration headaches.

So will this deal prove to be positive for EMC customers seeking to mitigate legal risk and drive down eDiscovery costs? My immediate reaction is that the acquisition will be good for both EMC and its customers in the long term. Here’s why:

By James Kobielus

If it’s October, it must be time for IBM’s annual Information On Demand (IOD) conference. Initiated 3 years ago, IOD has become an indispensable event for any Information and Knowledge Management (I&KM) professional who has deployed IBM’s sprawling data management solution portfolio.

And IBM doesn’t disappoint: each annual conference is jampacked with important announcements that improve the vendor’s positioning in the forefront of today’s information-driven economy. If anything, IOD has become so crowded with IBM announcements that some important events or themes can easily be overlooked or given less emphasis than they deserve.

By Rob Koplowitz

Today Google and Salesforce.com announced another step in their ongoing flirtatious relationship. Salesforce.com will now bundle Google business applications into its on-line CRM offering. Salesforce will also begin to distribute Google applications backed by Salesforce support. It's always interesting when these two make an announcement for two reasons: First, they are both 100% committed to cloud computing and they think about the future of the industry in very similar terms. Second, it is fundamentally interesting to conjecture about the potential of a Salesforce acquisition. Note the rumor mill cranking up on this topic a few weeks ago when Oracle arranged for a $2B line of credit.