The content management market changed dramatically over the last six months. Mergers, acquisitions, and new product announcements from Microsoft and Oracle indicate that the market structure is in flux. Enterprises that are either upgrading existing systems or purchasing new content management systems must factor these trends into their buying decisions.

Documentum: The New Market Threat

Content management hit the headlines with two major acquisitions. Hummingbird accepted an offer from Open Text, arguably the largest content management vendor, worth $489 million. The second acquisition came as IBM's $1.6 billion offer for FileNet.

Both of these deals indicate the maturity and ongoing consolidation of the content management market. This trend bears some typical hallmarks. Open Text's revenue growth, for example, is stagnant and its license revenue