Having already weathered a significant degree of consolidation in the past three years, the Documents and Records Management (DRM) market is braced for further and more radical change according to a new report. DRM is emerging as one of the fastest growing markets in the enterprise technology space.After a spate of consolidation in the last three to four years, the DRM market is now in the midst of post-consolidation blues. Most leading vendors sport multiple platforms and product lines within their DRM portfolios and are yet to come to terms with unified product strategies. The technology landscape is largely flat, with little to differentiate between major vendors in terms of product capabilities. As much as this paints a picture of transformation well in progress, shifting enterprise priorities are forcing another wave of change – quite possibly a second round of acquisitions and entry of a newer breed of players into the market.

DRM solutions, traditionally employed for compliance and retention purposes, are evolving to address the larger content management needs of the enterprise. As the workplace paradigm moves towards employee collaboration through multiple channels such as shared documents and workspaces, features like collaborative document and email frameworks and support for instant messaging environments are becoming standard. Also figuring high on the DRM technology integration list are workflow and business process management capabilities such as business rules engine, process modelling and role support.

As end-users increasingly begin to favour service capabilities, the DRM market is likely to get more competitive with the entry of new vendors from content and application services backgrounds. For instance, UK-based IT services provider Morse entered the DRM market via its acquisition of Diagonal Solutions, and HP entered the market earlier this year through its acquisition of Australia-based Tower Software.

The market for content services such as document capture and processing is experiencing accelerated growth. Consequently, the value proposition for services vendors such as Xerox and Canon in entering the DRM applications space is on the up. This trend is set to continue, with many independent DRM vendors being likely targets for acquisition in the near term.

As a result of the recent consolidation activity in the market, the technology landscape has been steadily flattening, with little or no difference between major vendors in terms of product functionality or capability. Despite the growing competition and the prospect of new market entrants, current leaders EMC and IBM are expected to remain the top choices for IT decision makers.

Related research: Decision Matrix: Selecting a Documents & Records Management Vendor