Autonomy and Interwoven - a sign of things to come?

So it finally happened. Speculaors have been predicting the acquisition of Interwoven and Vignette in the ECM space for years now, and last week, UK success story and erstwhile enterprise search firm Autonomy announced it was to snap up the former in a $775 million deal. So is it a good move for the firm, and what does it say about the industry in general?
Well, it certainly makes sense for Autonomy to have plumped for Interwoven as opposed to Vignette. Interwoven's newly released fourth quarter earnings were very impressive; $69.8, or an increase of 11 per cent from total revenues of $62.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2007. And for the year ended December 31, 2008, the firm's total revenues were $260.3 million, up 15 per cent from 2007.
So financially Autonomy chose the stronger company, and if you believe chief exec Mike Lynch, the two firms' product sets and management teams are well known to each other, the vendors having shared both "customers and partnerships over the years".
So how does it fit with Autonomy's strategic vision? Pretty well, actually. The firm has been moving gradually beyond its core competence in enterprise search to become an infrastructure software provider for some time now. Its portfolio now includes video and audio analysis tools, call centre monitoring and analytics software, business process management, the hugely profitable e-discovery and archiving area, and records management. According to Ben Richmond, founder of ECM consultancy The Content Group, this latest in a long line of acquisitions is all about Autonomy becoming a mainstream ECM vendor, and with records management and BPM already under its belt, it's easy to see why.
Search and content management have always had a pretty close relationship; organisations ultimately need to be able to find the content that they have created, stored and managed, so search tools are essential to a holistic ECM platform. Now Autonomy is bringing them under one roof. It will be interesting if we see more big names getting serious about providing the other parts of the ECM stack that they have so far neglected.
But a final word of warning from Richmond: end users must "look beyond the badge" when investing in new ECM products, because if vendor 'A' buys vendor 'B', it could be years before it is able to offer truly integrated products. Microsoft and Fast, Open Text and RedDot - these are just two examples to be mindful of. Happy shopping.