1997: The Year As We See It -Part 1of 4 (Jan., Feb, Mar.)

January 1

Respectable, not spectacular, growth

The electronic imaging market generated $3 billion in revenue in 1996, 15% more than 1995, but less than analysts expected, according to a report from Giga (Cambridge, MA).

Forty companies to watch in 1997

Market observers give readers some companies to watch in 1997. Among them, Open Text (Waterloo, Ontario), Cornerstone (San Jose), NSM Jukebox (Bensenville, IL), Imerge Consulting (Richmond, VA), World Wide Technology (St. Louis) and Infodata (Fairfax, VA).

They make a difference

IW lists the top players in the knowledge management and imaging markets. The top three: Ted Smith, FileNet (Costa Mesa, CA); Bruce Silver, Bruce Silver Associates (Aptos, CA) and Tom Koulopoulos, Delphi Consulting Group (Boston).

February 3

FileNet strengthens WorkFlo

FileNet's Q4 results disappoint, but the introduction of Visual WorkFlo 2.0, Microsoft-compatible desktop 5.0 and a new release of Greenbar COLD software are bright spots.

Insider trading alleged

A class action suit is filed in Orange County, CA, alleging that FileNet artificially inflated its stock price. The suit is later deemed groundless.

Access buys PaperClip

As part of a solutions trend, COLD systems vendor Access Solutions (North Kingston, RI) acquires workflow software vendor PaperClip.

Newcomer competes

Newcomer NetRight Technologies seems bound to stir up the document management market.

March 3

SNI betting on NT

Siemens Nixdorf's Arcis tackles U.S. market with reliance on the NT platform.

Upping the groupware ante

If 1997 is the year for the groupware war, Lotus (Cambridge, MA) looks to be the leader.

CD-R study disproves negative market perception

Doculabs (Chicago) finds no significant incompatibility between any of the recorder or writer product combinations.

March 17

IBM hits a "suite" spot

Lotus' Domino.Document Manager is integrated into what is collectively called the IBM EDMSuite.

Forums to reckon with

PC Docs' (Burlington, MA) DocSummit conference shows the emergence of the users conferences as a valuable tool and recognizes the evolution from document management to knowledge management.

Web dreams come true

Users accessing a document management repository with a browser grew from zero at the end of 1995 to more than 93,000 by the end of 1996, according to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC, Framingham, MA).

Don't shrink-wrap workflow management

Jeremy Davis of InConcert says the Xerox workflow software company wants to corner a small but profitable corner of the workflow/imaging/document management market. One area of expansion: its already strong presence in manufacturing