WORDS from the editor

By Doug Henschen

DMA: The Answer to Integration?

Itıs no secret that systems interoperability remains a major headache and challenge for business and government alike. All too many legacy systems were designed in proprietary isolation, and all too few fit easily together. You end up choosing systems not because you like them but because theyıre compatible with what you do already. Either that or you pay for expensive integration work that may only provide band-aid-and-chewing-gum ısolutions.ı

This problem was recognized more than four years ago by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), and it was the very reason it adopted DMA 1.0 way back in December of 1997. The Document Management Alliance had the input and approval of more than 50 member companies of the Silver Spring, MD, association. It provides a consistent way to automatically locate and map common attributes across repositories, to manage multiple renditions of a document, and to search across multiple repositories simultaneously and then merge results. It supports versioning and folders; automatic discovery of document classes and properties; and the ability to access doc management systems using standard Internet browsers. With DMA compliance, you can use any doc management client to access any server-side component.

As good as DMA 1.0 sounds, itıs gaining momentum at a snailıs pace. Ushered in at last yearıs AIIM show in Anaheim, CA, the standard was made real at a ıStandards at Workı pavillion exhibiting DMA-compliant products and prototypes from Eastman, Hyland, Napersoft and Xerox. Now, nearly a year later, only two additional vendors, FileNet and Hitatchi, will exhibit DMA-compliant products at this yearıs show.

FileNet adds blue-chip support to DMA 1.0, but other heavy-weight members of the alliance have taken a wait-and-see approach. Why are they holding out?

ıIf youıre a market share leader and nothing is slowing down sales of your proprietary systems, I guess thereıs little incentive to go with something thatıs less proprietary,ı says Marilyn Wright, vice president, standards and technical services at AIIM.

While vendor progress has been slow, Wright says there has been ıtremendous interestı on the part of end users. Organizations including Boeing, Corning, Caterpillar and the Department of Justice have all joined the alliance. Several have made DMA-compliance mandatory for future purchases.

Trade associations are rarely in a position to dictate policy to member companies. The real power to shape product lies with the marketplace. AIIMıs message to end users is that vendors wonıt build to DMA 1.0 unless the buyer demands it. Theyıll highlight the end-user benefits of DMA 1.0 at this yearıs standards display.

Another powerful agent of change might be the government, which can act as a kind of super consumer. ıOne of the strategies that weıre working on this year is to see if we can get the federal government to adopt DMA as a standard,ı Wright says.

AIIM is trying to build awareness of the standard within the CIO Council (www.cio.gov), a gathering of chief information officers from federal agencies. Dan Schneider of the Department of Justice is already an advocate, and Wright recently gave a presentation on DMA 1.0 at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Will standardization stifle entrepreneurial innovation? If anything, it should stimulate creativity. The driving issues in business today -- globalization, consolidation and technological innovation -- all depend on interoperability. The sooner non-productive integration issues are put aside, the sooner we can make the most of the technology.

--Doug Henschen, Editor in Chief