EMC Debuts 17-Syllable XML "Competitor"

I think EMC may have set a record with the name of its recently announced, embeddable edition of what was once called x-Hive/DB. The new name: EMC Documentum XML Store OEM Edition. If I'm counting correctly, that's 17 syllables.

EDXSOE, if you'll pardon the acronym, blows by my previous favorite ridiculously long product name, CA/Kiplinger's Simply Money, which weighed in at a mere 9. MarkLogic Server, by the way, comes in at a phonetically frugal 5.

Note: if you're looking at EMC Documentum XML Store OEM Edition, then you should probably be looking at MarkLogic Server as well. We, too, have an OEM program, and we think there are many advantages to embedding MarkLogic Server in an application, and many^2 advantages to embedding the combination of MarkLogic Server (for XML delivery) and Microsoft SharePoint (for CMS) in OEMed applications.

While I'm on the subject of EMC, Documentum, and x-Hive, let me take a moment to comment on the interchange between myself and Pie, author of the Word of Pie blog, regarding the nature of competition between MarkLogic and EMC/Documentum.

It started with this post where Pie said that, based on a EMC training he'd attended, that MarkLogic was [clearly] the enemy [of x-Hive].

I responded with this rather hastily written post, trying to argue four things: (1) numerous customers want to use the products together and I intend to let them, (2) I believe our ambitions for (and the reality of) MarkLogic Server are greater than those of a simple XML store, (3) I believe, in not so many words, that SharePoint is going to eat Documentum alive, particularly when it comes to basic content services (BCS) and (somewhat implicitly) that there's more value-add in XML content delivery than in BCS and (totally implicitly) that if I were a customer, I'd spend my money where it differentiated and not where it didn't,and (4) (rather implicitly) that it takes two to tango and while Documentum is free to declare MarkLogic an enemy, it only becomes a war when we declare them one back, and we are not so doing.

Pie responded with this post, expressing a bit of healthy skepticism and clarifying the issue of where the competition occurs. Here are my comments on that:

• Indeed my main point was that MarkLogic Server complements the Documentum Content Server (DCS) and I believe the DCS business is at least 50x bigger than the x-Hive business. So Mark Logic complements 98% of Documentum's business and competes with 2% of it. Hence my non-desire to declare EMC/Documentum an enemy.
  

• Indeed, I do view MarkLogic Server and x-Hive/DB -- i.e., EMC Documentum XML Store (11 syllables) -- as same-category competitors. But I believe they're both XML content servers only in the same sense that Oracle and Microsoft Access are both relational databases.
  

• Pie points out, in different words, that EMC's claims sound like the Irving Berlin number Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better. I don't doubt that they do. But I'm not talking about their claims. I'm talking about my perception of reality.

Now my last statement could easily provoke an unwinnable pissing match where the x-Hive folks tell of secret evaluation X, or private benchmark Y, and we respond with information about major government agency or publisher Z. But I won't go there. Why? Because I think such arguments:

• Are not credible. Do you really believe you're going to get an accurate picture from such a story?

• Lack integrity. If these tests are private, then why are you telling me about them ... and wait a minute .... which of my private information are you going to tell others?

• Are not relevant. Using someone else's benchmark to buy software is like kissing your date's sister to determine romantic capability. And, by extension, using a second-hand account of someone else's benchmark is like asking your brother to kiss your date's sister for the same purpose.

Were I a customer, what would I do? Three cases come to mind:

• Were I committed Documentum customer, I'd evaluate both MarkLogic Server and EDXS.

• Were I not, I'd evaluate the combination of Alfresco + MarkLogic, SharePoint + MarkLogic, and Documentum + MarkLogic. (OK, I'd probably look at Document + EDXS, too.)

• Were I a publisher, I'd look at RSuite/CMS from Really Strategies, a MarkLogic-based, fully native XML CMS built by publishers for publishers.
  

Why? Because core CMS functionality is commoditizing and I believe that most of the value in these sorts of content applications comes from the XML content server, not the CMS. Ergo, I would look to invest my money in things that differentiated and to "go commodity" on the things that don't.