Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Greg Buckles. Published: 2017-08-20 20:00:00Format, images and links may no longer function correctly.
ILTACON 2017 has wrapped up. I managed a lightning pass of briefings, meetings and socializing in Vegas. Overall, I am impressed at how ILTA has grown up and may even have stolen the crown from LNTY for best consumer legal technology event. I broke down the sponsorship number comparison in a recent blog. It will come as no surprise that ILTA’s 5 day event in a Vegas casino complex feels a lot less crowded than the 3 days of LTNY in a Manhattan hotel. Neither event really publishes attendance numbers (LTNY site claims 10k+). ILTA seems to attract the consumer/practitioner while LTNY has evolved into more of a provider/sales event. The ILTA exhibit hall had steady foot traffic and actual buyers on my forays (see pics). As one sponsor noted, tech partners and support services dominated the floor more than giant Relativity channel partners trying to snap up the dwindling supply of big cases seeking a review provider. In visual terms, blue dominated the exhibit floor instead of kCura orange. Several attendees remarked that the show was well organized with lots of opportunities to talk with other practioners instead of just being talked at by provider panels (yep, those same panels I was moderating until recently). Most of my meetings were client RFP driven, but here are some non-confidential briefing/meeting outtakes and photos:
- Ricoh/OpenAxes – Global services provider partnering with a new enterprise/cloud technology for investigation, identification, legal hold, data visualization, collection and more. Pitching it as IG-eD visibility into in place data sources. Fits into the legal triage/ECA/repository category for upstream collection management to reduce the volume/cost of Relativity hosting. Many of my clients have standardized on Relativity for review, but don’t want all of their raw custodial collections in the platform.
- kCura – I was lucky enough to get an extended briefing from kCura’s exec team. The channel seems to have grudgingly accepted RelativityOne with R1 partners ramping up from 2 to 7 since February. The big challenge for kCura is to convert their 13,500 resold customers to direct (~500 today). Four kCura key priorities:
- Grow as THE eDiscovery expert platform
- Expand direct customers on RelativityOne
- Simplify the user interface/experience
- Empower corporations from IG through production
- Fronteo – The 2016 rebranding from UBIC seems to be working as Fronteo’s acquisition of Essential Discovery has expanded their US talent pool. Like other traditional case driven providers, Fronteo is developing managed service offerings aimed at corporate prospects.
- D4 – Continues to focus on traditional processing/hosting services while trying to differentiate on quality in the consolidating market space.
- IST – Stealth Relativity/RelativityOne channel partner pushing the envelope with out of the box pricing models.
- FTI Technology – Expecting interesting innovative/disruptive developments on the horizon.
Stay skeptical my friends!
Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com. Contact him directly for a free 15 minute ‘Good Karma’ call. He solves problems and creates eDiscovery solutions for enterprise and law firm clients. His active research topics include analytics, mobile device discovery, the discovery impact of the cloud, Microsoft’s Office 365/2013 eDiscovery Center and multi-matter discovery. Recent consulting engagements include managing preservation during enterprise migrations, legacy tape eliminations, retention enablement and many more.
Greg’s blog perspectives are personal opinions and should not be interpreted as a professional judgment. Greg is no longer a journalists and all perspectives are based on best public information. Blog content is neither approved nor reviewed by any providers prior to being posted. Do you want to share your own perspective? eDJ Group is looking for practical, professional informative perspectives free of marketing fluff, hidden agendas or personal/product bias. Outside blogs will clearly indicate the author, company and any relevant affiliations.