Autonomy Interwoven – One Year In

It’s been over a year since Autonomy completed the acquisition of Interwoven, and I was recently provided an opportunity to learn how the merger is going.

Having spent over 10 years as an Interwoven customer, including working the last several years at Interwoven Technology Partner ThoughtMatrix, I saw Interwoven expand their TeamSite product into a suite of tools to manage enterprise content. With the acquisition of Interwoven by Autonomy, it wasn’t entirely clear how the two companies would complement each other, or if TeamSite was destined to become an unsupported legacy product. I left the Autonomy Partner Training sessions more excited than I have been in years about both their business and technical directions. Autonomy has made a few key changes that have convinced me this merger was a good thing.

Sales as Customer Service

The first change I’ve seen is a renewed understanding that customer service is key to sales growth and market penetration.

Compared to desktop software products, enterprise technologies are orders of magnitude more powerful and complex. While such technologies can simplify business processes, they can also make things more difficult and more complex if poorly implemented. This is absolutely the case with the Autonomy’s WCM (Web Content Management) products.

As an early Interwoven customer, I came to feel like Interwoven was my partner. Their sales and engineering staff worked hard to help us choose the “right” products from their suite and provided best-practice guidance on the best ways to implement them for our business needs.

As Interwoven and their product line grew, Interwoven Sales lost some of its “partner” focus in the effort to drive revenue. Happily the Autonomy acquisition seems to have returned to the customer-centric focus of their sales channel.

As both a customer, and now a Technology Partner, I am very excited about the energy Autonomy is putting into pre-sales education. They are working hard to explain their product line and listen to customer needs before pushing product sales. As a Partner, this change has been a blessing because it lessens the amount of education and “myth busting” we need to do.

Investing Right

Autonomy has done more than simply throw cash at the Interwoven product development efforts. They have re-focused the strategic direction and spent their money where it was most needed.

With this acquisition, I had concerns whether Autonomy would maintain Interwoven’s solid technical development roadmap and if TeamSite would remain a strategic focus. Autonomy has WOW’d me on both fronts.

Not only has Autonomy maintained Interwoven’s Technology Roadmap, but they have also enhanced it and sped it up. Autonomy has worked to integrate its technology into the TeamSite WCM toolset and provided a roadmap for continuing this. And these are not just clumsy marketing-driven bolt-on’s but truly beneficial additions such as the already completed integration of their world-class IDOL (Intelligent Data Operating Layer) search infrastructure.

I didn’t really understand how exciting this was until I talked with the old-time Interwoven engineering folks. They are very excited because many of the improvements that they’ve had on their 3+ year roadmap now have the resources they needed to execute. Whereas many of the Interwoven 3-year items were continually pushed back, it seems very likely now that many of these things will become realities soon.

So, the financial muscle the Autonomy acquisition is good. But the way they are applying that muscle is to resolve Intewoven’s most pressing technical issues is outstanding.

Technical Synergy

Autonomy has avoided combining good technologies with bad results.

While Autonomy and Interwoven touted the “synergies” their merger would produce, they have exceeded the expectations of that cringe-inducing marketing buzzword.

Autonomy has not sought to “integrate” all of their technologies with Interwoven’s merely to create new marketing “bundles” that could be sold at premium prices. Instead they have made technology integrations that improve products even when those changes don’t add new marketable features.

The best integration example is the replacement of the Verity search used in TeamSite for years with Autonomy’s IDOL search. In the context of TeamSite, IDOL is a foundational component. From the user perspective, TeamSite search remains remarkably similar.

Autonomy can’t charge for this change, but working to rebuild the very old TeamSite foundation architecture will allow them to build taller in the future. This strategic investment is what “synergy” should mean.

The Future Is Bright

A year later, this Autonomy/Interwoven merger is looking good. The product development has strategic focus, targeted investment, and a renewed focus on customer service.