FileNet

FileNet was a hardware and software manufacturer founded in 1982 in Costa Mesa (CA), USA, whose original goal was the development and sale of optical storage technologies and, most recently, the market leadership in enterprise content management with its product FileNet P8held. FileNet began its business activities in Germany as early as 1988. Over the years, the company expanded its strategic direction several times, for example from hardware to software development in the early 1990s, in order to meet the changing market environment. From this point on, technological progress no longer required hardware specifically tailored to the software, so FileNet stopped producing hardware and concentrated only on the development of software in the area of document management. Since it was founded, more than 4000 companies worldwide, including more than three quarters of the Fortune 100, have chosen a FileNet-based solution for the management of their company content and processes. In August 2006, FileNet was finally acquired by IBM as part of itsInformation on Demand (IoD) initiative acquired for $ 1.6 billion.

history

The 1980s

FileNet was founded in 1982 in Costa Mesa (CA), USA by Ted Smith and Edward Miller to offer paper-intensive companies such as banks and insurance companies a technology for the storage and reuse of documents. Even then, many companies were faced with the problem of managing legally compliant copies of documents such as pay slips, personnel files and invoices. These documents had to be archived as image files because, for example, signatures would be lost with a purely text-based IT solution. At that time, however, image files required more storage space than was available on conventional computers, so that many companies either limited archiving to the management of physical copies or used microfilming to archive business-relevant documents. However, since this form of filing does not go hand in hand with digitization, there was no way to integrate the documents into the company's computerized systems. At this point, Smith and Miller recognized the potential of optical storage technologies that made it possible to increase the productivity of paper-intensive companies and to exchange such documents electronically. FileNet delivered among other things hardware that was able to manage up to 200 optical storage disks ( JukeBox ). In addition, scanners and printers specially built for FileNet were sold to bring information from the screen back onto paper. The WorkFlo software enabled the hardware, in particular the jukebox, to be operated and the documents to be displayed. In the course of time, WorkFlo developed from a software for displaying documents to a structured tool that allowed the regulation of the flow of documents in companies. In this context, the term "workflow" developed to describe this concept. This term was then quickly adapted by competing software manufacturers.

The 1990s

In 1991 FileNet introduced a new version of WorkFlo that ran on Microsoft's graphical operating systems. From this point on, the software could also be operated on computers that were not provided by FileNet, but customers still had to buy the specially manufactured scanners. This fact became more and more an obstacle, as many competitors offered systems that gave customers the option of using their existing hardware or purchasing it from any manufacturer at a lower cost. Therefore FileNet stopped a large part of its hardware production in 1992 and from then on concentrated on software production in the area of enterprise content management . In early 1998, FileNet introduced Panagon as a collection of integrated document management and workflow products. Around the year 2000, the simple archiving of documents was by no means an attractive novelty, so that Panagon already provided some Internet functionalities (such as FileNet Web Services ). The use of FileNet products has now also become attractive for other areas, for example eCommerce, where documents are often only available electronically and are signed with the help of electronic signatures.

After the turn of the millennium

Due to the sole focus on software development and the changing market environment, caused by the steadily growing influence of the Internet on this business world, a broader range of FileNet became inevitable. In this context, acquisitions of various software houses followed, as the in-house development was no longer to be carried out alone:

In 2002 FileNet acquired Bethesda , a web content management provider

In 2003 FileNet took over Shana with the aim of adding functionality to eForms.

In 2005, FileNet acquired Yaletown Technology Group to expand the ability to handle various types of content with Email Manager and Records Crawler .

In 2003, FileNet made its largest market release to date. The FileNet P8 Architecture was initially developed for the US market and consisted of components that covered the various areas of business process management, records management, document management , web content management and image management. Eventually, FileNet was acquired by IBM in late 2006 as part of its Information on Demand Initiative for $ 1.6 billion ($ 35 / share).

Takeover of FileNet by IBM

The takeover of FileNet by IBM was motivated by IBM as follows:

"[...]

FileNet's undisputed leadership in document-centric business process management suites (BPMS) fills a huge void at IBM.

The content (management) offers of both companies close gaps in both portfolios.

FileNet has an accomplished compliance framework.

IBM can better advance its vision of bringing people, processes and information together more effectively and efficiently through the integration of BPMS, enterprise content management and collaboration - all supported by its service-oriented architecture (SOA). In addition, IBM threw its main competitors off the hook and secured FileNet, especially as more and more providers are considering their next steps towards ECM and BPMS. "

- “IBM Acquires FileNet,” Forrester , 2006

IBM FileNet Enterprise Reference Architecture

With the Enterprise Reference Architecture, IBM offers a framework of company-wide scalable software services and other technical information that serves as a guide for IT planning, provision, implementation, upgrade and maintenance. This enables customers to develop IBM FileNet-based solutions and identify points of integration with technology standards that already exist in the company. IBM FileNet offers broad support for platforms from a wide variety of manufacturers, including:

User interfaces and desktop applications

Microsoft Office including Microsoft Outlook
Lotus Notes
JSR 168 compliant portal frameworks

Enterprise applications

SAP
Siebel

Single sign-on products

Computer Associates eTrust SiteMinder (formerly Netegrity SiteMinder)
IBM Tivoli Access Manager

Compliance storage subsystems from

EMC
Hitachi Data Systems
Network Appliance

High availability and disaster recovery solutions from

VERITAS
HP
Network Appliance
IBM
SunGard
Microsoft
Sun
Oracle
EMC

Operating systems

Microsoft Windows
Sun Solaris
IBM AIX
HP-UX
Linux

Databases

IBM DB2
Microsoft SQL Server
Oracle

Directory Services

Microsoft Active Directory
Amendment Directory
Sun Java System

J2EE application server

Oracle Weblogic
IBM WebSphere
JBoss

Browser

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox

development

Java
COM
XML web services

IBM FileNet P8 software

An integrated platform for content, process and compliance

IBM FileNet P8 is based on the three essential functional pillars Content, Process and Compliance. These functionalities are intended to enable companies to easily provide content, make faster decision-making and comply with legal framework conditions.

Content

The information needed to make a decision is available in various forms throughout the company. In addition to customer, financial and product data, this includes, for example, scanned images, web pages, video files, e-mails, documents as well as entire files and processes. These are managed at different locations, in different company units or even within different time zones.

Process

Business process management, i.e. the mapping, development and improvement of business processes, becomes more interesting the more complex an organization is. Classic users of business process management solutions are especially large banks and insurance companies, because there are many information-centered and repetitive processes.

Compliance

A wide range of industry-specific regulations with regard to corporate governance as well as requirements for adherence to company guidelines and legal provisions for archiving business-relevant documents pose a challenge for many companies. In order to meet these requirements, they need a compliance platform with which they can reduce the costs for the Lower compliance with corporate guidelines, reduce risks and improve responsiveness to legal and administrative requirements. This is about content or information lifecycle management (ILM) that is based on business requirements - and not primarily storage requirements.

Active content

According to the new paradigm, content and documents are no longer just passive content objects, but rather event-sensitive, active content that can trigger actions or processes on their own. Processes are initiated and executed through content from a wide variety of sources and their status changes, and information is exchanged and linked with other applications. In this way, customers, employees and partners can place orders, deliver goods, approve applications and much more in the shortest possible time with minimal effort. Active content describes the intelligent connection of business-critical content with events that trigger business processes - across application and company boundaries.

List of IBM FileNet P8 software components

Content products

IBM FileNet Content Manager
IBM FileNet Forms Manager
IBM FileNet Image Manager Active Edition
IBM FileNet Content Federation Services
IBM FileNet Team Collaboration Manager
IBM FileNet Web Site Manager
IBM FileNet Capture Desktop and IBM FileNet Capture Professional
IBM FileNet Remote Capture Services
IBM FileNet Content Services
IBM FileNet Document Publisher
IBM FileNet Fax
IBM FileNet IDM Desktop
IBM FileNet Image Services
IBM FileNet Report Manager
IBM FileNet Site Publisher
IBM FileNet Connector for Microsoft SharePoint
IBM FileNet Connector for Lotus Quickr

Process products

IBM FileNet Business Process Manager
IBM FileNet Business Activity Monitor
IBM FileNet Business Process Framework
IBM FileNet eForms
IBM FileNet eProcess
IBM FileNet Process Analyzer
IBM FileNet Process Simulator
IBM FileNet Connector for Microsoft Visio

Compliance products

IBM FileNet Email Manager
IBM FileNet Records Manager
IBM FileNet Records Crawler