In Focus: What's Hot and What's Not in ECM, Part 2In Focus: What's Hot and What's Not in ECM, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I shared my insights on what's selling in the world of content management as reflected in the financial results of leading enterprise content management vendors. Numbers have since trickled in on Hummingbird, Mobius and Stellent for the quarter ended June 30, so here's another look at what's hot and what's not.

Sales to government were significant for both Hummingbird and Stellent, where results were good and great, respectively. At Hummingbird, revenue increased 10 percent over the same quarter last year to $61.7 million. Among the 73 deals during the quarter was a major sale to the State of Queensland, Australia, where Hummingbird Enterprise ECM software was selected as the enterprisewide standard. Governments account for the largest share of Hummingbird's sales, at 35 percent, followed by law firms at 27 percent and financial services at 9 percent.

Stellent's stellar revenue increase of 26 percent over past year can be attributed in part to last year's acquisition of Optika. Yet the company also reported a 15-percent increase over the prior quarter, which points to healthy organic growth. Government sales are the largest vertical market for Stellent too, accounting for some 40 percent of its sales and 40 out of the 55 deals in the last quarter. Wins included sales to national governments in the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil and Spain, to state governments in Alaska, Washington and Minnesota, and to cities governments in Ottawa, Philadelphia, Seattle and Palm Beach, Fla.

In a conference call with financial analysts on August 8, Stellent CEO Robert Olson said the combination of multisite deployments and compliance technologies figured in half of all deals. Stellent specializes in supporting multiple Web sites, intranets and extranets from the same ECM infrastructure, and it also offers Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and records management modules aimed at meeting compliance needs. When asked how long demand for compliance-related technologies might continue, Olson said projections extend into 2009, explaining that organizations start with tactical problems such as SOX Section 404 compliance and then add general records management and risk management capabilities.

Table: Quarterly ECM Revenue and Trends