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WORLDOX®
- World Software Corporation®
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For the reader who is not in the legal market, you should know that WORLDOX is a generic DMS. One-third of our customers are non-legal, and virtually all of them use a subset of WORLDOX. The legal market is one of three markets for a vendor to demonstrate leadership of their DMS. In legal, we do what we call "stress-develop" the DMS application. As a result, WORLDOX will be very effective and able to drop into and adapt itself to any other industry. |
In the past, document management in law firms has been something
of a revolving door: new players come, old players go, and WORLDOX
remains. iManage's relatively recent arrival, PC DOCS' loss of market
share, and SoftSolutions' departure continues this trend. In addition
to those mentioned here, there are other less well known document
managers and a number of law firms who wrote their own solutions,
which we will not mention herein.
A summary of the current, past and departed legal oriented Document Management Systems, that we know of, is as follows:
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The "Top Three" Legal Document Management Systems on the market today are:
WORLDOX, DOCS Open and iManage
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WORLDOX by World Software Corporation has over 1,800 law firm and legal customer installations. |
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DOCS Open is the current market leader based on the reported number of law firms and number of seats installed - approximately 2000 law firms which number they identified in a speech we attended. Three years ago, PC DOCS, the successor to SoftSolutions, and the current #1 DMS in legal, was a separate company. In June, 1999 it was acquired by Hummingbird, a non-legal, generic software company. The PC DOCS senior management departed after the acquisition. The future of PC DOCS and its performance as a legal DMS was placed in new executive hands. The apparent emphasis of DOCS Open, as part of Hummingbird, has shifted to the larger corporate computer software marketplace, where they compete with Documentum and other corporate-oriented DMS's. |
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"iManage" which is a surviving product from the discontinued M/H Manage. iManage is one of the "top three" legal DMS products in that they have between 800 to 900 law firm customers. |
TODAY PEOPLE IN THE LEGAL MARKETPLACE BELIEVE, WHEN MAKING A NEW
OR REPLACEMENT DMS DECISION, THAT THERE ARE ONLY 2 CHOICES - WORLDOX
or iMANAGE. THE TRENDS WE ARE SEEING SUPPORT THIS BELIEF
Secondary and New Players in the Legal DMS Market
GroupWise DMS (nee SoftSolutions)
Eight years ago "SoftSolutions" was #1 in legal DMS. SoftSolutions
was an independent company. It was sold to WordPerfect in 1994,
and WordPerfect was sold to Novell. SoftSolutions became the basis
for Novell's GroupWise - DMS. Novell in turn announced that it would
re-create SoftSolutions as a "true" Windows product, bring
it up to specification as a legal DMS and make it an integral component
of their groupware product GroupWise. Although some of this legal
functionality was provided in GroupWise versions 5.2 and now 5.5,
Novell/GroupWise/DMS has apparently not gained much ground in law
firms. Since Document Management is viewed by many law firms as
mandatory, many SoftSolutions and some GroupWise customers have
reconciled themselves to finding (or have found) a new document
management vendor.
Lotus/Domino.Doc - 1994/1997 - present
There were stories in the press that Lotus built a document manager
but it was never released as the project was canceled. Lotus then
reincarnated this effort with Lotus Notes - "Domino.Doc"
which shipped in 1997. Since then, our information is that relatively
few law firms have adopted the Lotus product. In the year 2000 WORLDOX
replaced Lotus Notes/Domino.Doc in a Milwaukee law firm. This firm
felt Domino.Doc was too slow and not up to the task for DMS' in
law firms.
Net Documents
Net Documents, from the former founders of SoftSolutions, has been
slow to inhabit the legal market despite being available for some
time. As we see it, the jury is still out for this product.
Microsoft SharePoint - 2001-present
In 2001 Microsoft introduced a product it calls "SharePoint."
SharePoint as described by Microsoft, is a Portal with (some)
document management capabilities. However, it is not a complete
Document Management System as it lacks important application requirements
established by the legal market. While Microsoft's entry doesn't
do it all, it has, however, initiated a broader interest in document
management as is evident in the number of new requests for information
we have received from our web site from all industries, not just
legal.
User experiences with SharePoint are posted on the listserv at
SharePoint@yahoogroups.com.
Elite Encompass
Encompass from Elite requires Microsoft's SharePoint so the comments
above on SharePoint also pertain to Encompass as a total product.
Encompass adds significant cost to SharePoint alone, is more expensive
than WORLDOX, and has less functionality and proven reliability.
Encompass is a version 1.0 product on top of another version 1.0
product, SharePoint.
Discontinued, Defunct, or Out of Legal
Wang's Profound - late 1980's
Earlier, in the second half of the 1980's, Wang dominated the
word processing market and out of that position created a document
manager named "Profound." Profound did not live up to
its auspicious name and is virtually extinct now except for the
occasional request we get to convert a law firm from Profound
to WORLDOX.
Intel's Reference Point - 1988-1992
In the 1988-1992 era, prior to the introduction of SoftSolutions,
there were other products such as Reference Point which was once
owned by Intel. Reference Point is no longer being actively marketed.
WordPerfect 1993
In 1993, WordPerfect built a document manager for DEC (Digital
Equipment) and even brought it to a beta testing phase. A WORLDOX
customer evaluated WordPerfect's beta and told WordPerfect it
would fail, demonstrating WORLDOX to them as an example of what
a document manager should be. WordPerfect never announced the
product.
DEC 1993
DEC produced a "document manager" which we saw at The
World Bank in the early 90's; but it was not purchased by the
Bank, which uses WORLDOX. We never saw the DEC product elsewhere
and assume DEC dropped it.
M/H Manage based in Chicago in the early
1990's sold a legal DMS based on SQL as a feature compatible alternative
to DOCS Open. Their theme, as we understand it, was "SQL
done better." This strategy failed in the legal market. M/H
Manage was acquired by NetRight Technologies in 1995. NetRight
changed its name to iManage in the late 1990's. NetRight/iManage
then updated the M/H product to a three-tier SQL product, which
has since captured significant market share.
Interpreter's Document Administrator ("DA")
- 1992-95
Another company, Interpreter, came out with a product called Document
Administrator ("DA"). We think DA was a good DOS document
manager. It was installed at a number of law firms and won a comparative
review by PC Week in 1992. However, we were told by their CEO
that they decided they did not want to build a Windows product,
and DA bowed out of this market in 1995.
Saros - early 1990's - present
In the early 90's, a company named SAROS and its product, Mezzanine,
was installed in some large law firms. SAROS was subsequently
sold to File Net and no longer has a sizeable presence in the
legal market.
Tapestry
Another product - Tapestry - is installed in a number of law firms,
but reportedly is not keeping up with the move to a web interface
offered by the Top 3 products.
If you have any questions about the information presented in this paper, or would like more information, please contact World Software Corporation via electronic mail at worldox@worldox.com.
World Software Corporation
124 Prospect St.
Ridgewood, NJ USA 07450
201-444-3228
www.worldox.com