Products of the Year 2001

by Penny Lunt, Doug Henschen & Lowell Rapaport

Products of the Year 2001:

"Information is vital to the survival of most businesses," points out Sue Feldman, director of content and retrieval software research at IDC. Thus content and collaboration technologies continue to thrive and develop even when the economy falters. In 2001, rather than the many all-new product rollouts you'd see in a new software category, we mostly saw enhancements to existing products and new combinations that were formerly separate technologies.

Such a maturing market brings appreciable benefits to our readers, the users of these technologies. Tried and true products are getting even better with enhancements that serve a clear purpose — providing user-requested improvements that bring business value and a higher return on investment.

To make the tough decisions as to which new and substantially upgraded products of 2001 should win our awards, we considered all our product reviews and coverage over the past year, and we solicited nominations and advice from analysts and consultants throughout the industry. This year's list of expert advisors is more extensive than ever:

Geoffrey Bock, Patricia Seybold Group
Bill Chambers, Doculabs
Guy Creese, Aberdeen Group
Gautam Desai, Doculabs
Sue Feldman, IDC
Julie Gable, records management consultant and columnist
Penny Gillespie, Giga Information Group
Avi Greenfield, Doculabs
Chris Harris-Jones, Ovum
Lou Latham, Gartner
Michael Maziarka, CAP Ventures
Connie Moore, Giga Information Group
Susan Moyse, InfoTrends Research Group
Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Ovum
Marvin Pyles, content management analyst and consultant
Karen Shegda, Gartner Datapro
Harvey Spencer, Harvey Spencer Associates
Elizabeth Sun, Meta Group
Bill Trippe, New Millennium Publishing
Patricia Turocy, Doculabs
Ray Valdes, Gartner
Scott Wildemuth, Andersen Consulting
Nick Wilkoff, Forrester
Eric Woods, Ovum

Several of our Products of the Year 2000 selections remained high on analysts' lists of leading products in 2001; however, we viewed their most significant achievements as having been recognized in 2000. Documentum, for example, made incremental improvements to its strong 4i product, bringing it closer to becoming the enterprise content management framework that many analysts have been calling for. And Stellent strengthened and added J2EE compatibility and more robust scalability to its practical, value-leading content management systems.

Some exciting announcements of 2001 weren't quite delivered as products in time for consideration. A number of new taxonomy tools fell into this category. And analysts have a keen eye on SAP — its absorption of TopTier's portal technology should result in a uniquely enterprise-ready portal to be rolled out early in 2002.

We thank these experts for their insights and guidance. The editors of Transform, however, made the final judgments and take responsibility for the final selection of award winners. In many instances, end users contributed to our decision-making by sharing their experiences with vendor technologies. We hope these selections help you in your quest to transform your business for greater efficiency, greater opportunity and greater return on innovation in 2002.

Products of the Year 2001: