Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Greg Buckles. Published: 2015-03-15 20:00:00Format, images and links may no longer function correctly.
Two press releases from Content Analyst caught my attention and generated discussion with CAAT OEM partners. Last week, Content Analyst announced the release of Cerebrant, a direct SaaS analytic software “designed to enable subject matter experts to create an online workbench with large collections of content from disparate sources, and navigate and explore their content sets in a matter of hours.” Digging into the details, it appears that customers will upload zipped collections of native files that will be processed/stored in AWS for triage and analysis. I did not find the term ‘review’ on any Cerebrant materials, so Content Analyst appears to be avoiding the lucrative relevance review/PC/TAR market. Although Content Analyts may not want to directly complete with their OEM partner network (which includes kCura, IPRO, iConect, Mindseye and many more), I cannot see how their partners could view this any other way. The cloud based review platform market segment in under incredible pressure to lock in customers before Microsoft can integrate Equivio and give away in-place analytics.
The follow up press release names a new chairman of the board for Content Analyst. A quick check of Mark K. Ruport’s track record shows a strong executive background in virtual, processing and SaaS companies. My take is that he falls into the classic ‘Executive in Residence’ category that venture capital firms use to transform/accelerate companies for a 3-5 year cycle. Mr. Ruport’s press release statement says it all:
“We are at a major inflection point in the Company’s evolution and growth trajectory,”
So Content Analyst is now a direct player in a market dominated by their own partners. It will be interesting to see if this move opens up some of the mature review platforms to host/integrate multiple analytic engines like Relativity does (CAAT, Equivio, Brainspace, NexLP & more).
Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com. His active research topics include analytics, mobile device discovery, the discovery impact of the cloud, Microsoft’s 2013 eDiscovery Center and multi-matter discovery. Recent consulting engagements include managing preservation during enterprise migrations, legacy tape eliminations, retention enablement and many more.
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