A great definition of ECM

 

I've just recently come across the ECM team blog that was started by Manish Sharma who is the Senior Product Manager and ECM Marketing Lead for Office SharePoint Server 2007.

 

I particularly like the way that he introduces and defines the meaning of ECM in his first article

 

"For starters, what is ECM anyway? AIIM defines it as “the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists.” Wikipedia has a lengthier description, which essentially conveys the same thing: “software technology that enables organizations to create/capture, manage/secure, store/retain/destroy, publish/distribute, search, personalize, and present/view/print digital content such as pictures/images, text, reports, video, audio, transactional data, catalog, code. ECM systems primarily focus on the capture, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of digital files for enterprise use and their life-cycle management.”

At Microsoft, we define ECM as a set of key functions enabled by Document Management, Records Management, Web Content Management, and Electronic Forms Management capabilities. Of course, any ECM solution requires a user interface, and in our model, that’s provided via a Microsoft Office client program or a Web browser. Then, there are the common services such as Search, Workflow, Collaboration, Security, Rights Management, and Auditing that all of the key functions utilize. Lastly, there are the data repositories in which content is stored. For more information on Microsoft’s approach to ECM, review our whitepaper. "

 

 

For the rest of the article click here , I definetly recommend the read.