Content management growing healthily

The market for enterprise content management (ECM) software will continue to grow strongly over the next three years - and there will be further mergers and acquisitions, says Meta Group.

The latest research from Meta Group forecasts compound annual growth of 15 per cent, with the market being worth $2.3bn in software and a further $7bn in services by 2007.

Lead author of the METAspectrum In Depth report on the subject, Charlie Brett, said consolidation in the market - arguably its key characteristic last year - will continue and around 60 per cent of Global 2000 organisations will have standardised on a strategic ECM framework by 2005.

The market has seen user organisations of varying types take up the software, which used to be the preserve of 'content rich' companies such as those in the media sector.

It has also seen storage vendors eyeing the market. For example, EMC bought Documentum for $1.7bn last October.

Analyst house Meta defines ECM as software for the capture, storage, retrieval and dissemination of digital content for enterprise use and life-cycle management.