WORLDOX® - World Software Corporation®
By Tom Burke

June, 2002
Version 1.0

IV. The Environment for Document Management Systems ("DMS")

The current Environment (and/or Positioning) for Document Management Systems ("DMSs") is that of add-on or complementary software and not a primary application such as a word processor or an Operating System like Windows. As an add-on product, a DMS's standalone or separate existence is frequently and closely challenged (except for law firms where a separate document management system is deemed essential or important) because users don't want an "extra" product. Instead they want the document management functionality, done very well by the operating system or by another application such as a word processor or email system. However, that hasn't happened as Microsoft has not seriously expanded Windows Explorer as a file manager or introduced an Explorer successor. Since end-users have (and will have) an insatiable desire for more disk storage (explained further in this section) and the need to manage it, there is a powerful yet ignored, rejected or failed attempts to provide an outstanding DMS.

The bar for success in Document Management is quite high, and the failures are many. See a previous section of this White Paper entitled "A History of Document Management Systems in Law Firms," Section III. Many major and minor software vendors have tried to produce a successful Document Management System but have failed. We believe they and others have missed the market for a generic document management application because they haven't been able to sustain their commitment or simply chosen the wrong path. Competitors such as DOCS Open and iManage have chosen (in our opinion) to overburden their technology solution with attention-getting but technologically unnecessary components such as SQL and three-tier software and hardware.

The Global PC Storage Market has had dramatic changes. Some of them are:

In the mid '90's, there was a decline in disk storage prices (50% annually) with a resulting growth of disk storage capacity and numbers of documents. In March 1997, TeraStor, a new company started by disk-manufacturing veterans, announced a new disk technology that was available in 1998, that caused disk storage prices to precipitously decline up to 500% per year. With downloading documents from the Internet/Intranet and increases in volume and size of document, users will unconsciously fill this newly available disk space as Parkinson's Law states. Users, therefore, are and will be further "encouraged" to grow an "electronic landfill" of documents. However, there is no product category to fully manage and control this document proliferation except a robust Document Management System.

Other Related Issues

MIS people don't have much time to deal with the managing of documents problem. They are overburdened coping with supporting and upgrading the likes of Windows 2000, XP, Office 2000, XP or Exchange 2000, SQL 2000, etc.

With the size of a simple two-word document now taking up to 19,000 bytes vs 500 to 1000 bytes a few years ago.

With the explosion of networks and intranets and the use of the Internet, especially downloading graphics documents, there is no end to the insatiable desire by end users to store and (un)manage more and more and larger documents.

Historically, the storage requirement was moving like a glacier; it is now moving faster. Yet it still is not a priority in most organizations. Our conclusion is that an application currently named a Document Management System is the only real solution for organizations today who wish to seriously and intelligently address their burgeoning "electronic landfill" and the infrastructure or cultural problems of sharing of documents.

Sharing documents must be done successfully to achieve the next level increase in productivity.

The PC has succeeded largely because it has empowered individuals to solve their own problems. For years end-users have complained and requested more help from the "central authority" - the IT department. IT has ignored, failed at, or could not get to some of their requirements.

This so-called "PC revolution" has resulted in a fiercely democratic and distributed constituency of users which makes an organization successful in the short term, but long term brings "working together" management problems usually referred to as cultural issues. The PC revolution has freed the users to do their thing; it has reduced the power of central MIS, yet it does not intrinsically foster the collegial culture necessary for an organization's long-term success. A Document Management System can begin to solve this cultural problem by establishing a common storage methodology and location for all documents, i.e., a logical "home base for each document," thus providing a central point from which users can work together. This document sharing and common storage methodology requires new, but "livable" conventions and in-house standards, "fail-safe" functionality (for document management is "mission critical" or requires 100% availability), and changes in users attitudes.

The Future of Law by Richard Susskind supports these statements. Susskind states: "Much, of course, depends on the willingness of those creating documents to provide adequate descriptions and keyword characterizations of their work. A shift in mind-set is required here, consistent with the successful implementation of most know-how systems, in that lawyers should now recognize a new duality to their work. While in the past most of their written documentation served a single advisory purpose, lawyers should now be oriented towards thinking they are not only advising clients, but they are also contributing to the central 'institutional memory' or 'corporate know-how' of the firm, so that other lawyers and clients can benefit from this initial thinking without unnecessary duplication of effort."

The Environment for WORLDOX is legal DMS and then DMS for all markets.

At World Software, our view of the legal market is that there are approximately 50,000 law firms in the United States. Only 6,000 have a DMS. Today, WORLDOX scales from a solo attorney office to law firms with at least 350 attorneys, which is the cutoff of the Top 100 law firms. WORLDOX largest single user office has over 500 users. At the largest WORLDOX installation, there are 900 users in one enterprise covering nine offices or locations.

The above metrics explain why World Software is staying with legal as our primary and only focused vertical market.

Go to Section V