Oracle vs. SQLServer Argument Hits eDiscovery Market

Having spent the last 20 years in the enterprise class software market I am very familiar with the age old argument about whether Oracle's DBMS or Microsoft's SQLServer is better. The Oracle bigots will tell you that SQLServer is slow, doesn't scale and just wasn't architected for true enterprise class use. SQLServer Biggots will tell you that Oracle is way too expensive. I will get in to some of the specifics later in this post. However, first I wanted to point out that the Oracle vs. SQLServer argument has now hit the eDiscovery market with CaseCentral's announcement that they have Migrated their On-Demand eDiscovery Platform to Oracle® Real Application Clusters.

Given the fact that Tom Thimot, CaseCentral President and CEO served as the vice president of central U.S. sales at Oracle, where his team grew license revenues from $50 million to more than $250 million in a two-year period and was also a key leader in the worldwide Oracle applications vertical organization that grew revenues by more than $100 million, it is no big surprise that he is an Oracle Biggot.

The Full Text of the Press Release is as follows:
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

-- CaseCentral, the leading secure SaaS platform for corporations looking to take control of eDiscovery, has migrated its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters to deliver better performance, scalability and availability, Oracle announced today.
-- CaseCentral's platform allows corporations to apply disciplined business process to litigation and regulatory matters, reducing risk and business disruption, boosting productivity, and controlling costs. CaseCentral has delivered its proven, SaaS platform to over 1,100 customers and more than 7,250 registered users.
-- CaseCentral actively manages several hundred terabytes of evidence -- 95 percent of which is unstructured data such as emails, office documents, and images -- and has hosted over 25,000 individual litigation matters.
-- San Francisco-based CaseCentral initially deployed its clustered database environment in 2007. Its purpose-built Java-based platform is deployed on a multi-node cluster of HP BladeSystem servers running Linux.
-- CaseCentral utilizes Oracle Enterprise Manager to help provide the monitoring and management necessary to meet the mission-critical needs of their clients. CaseCentral will migrate customers currently supported by Microsoft SQL Server to the clustered Oracle Database environment.

Supporting Quote
"CaseCentral offers a highly scalable, on demand software platform that allows companies to own the eDiscovery process and their law firms to own the execution," said Ted Sergott, Chief Technology Officer, CaseCentral. "At a moment's notice, a new or existing client can send us millions of documents and terabytes of data to support an eDiscovery matter and thanks to our architecture, we are fully prepared to accommodate that volume of mission-critical data. Running on Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters, CaseCentral offers customers a scaleable, secure and available platform to meet their eDiscovery needs."

Supporting Resources
About Oracle Database: http://www.oracle.com/database
About Oracle Real Application Clusters: http://www.oracle.com/clusters
About Oracle Enterprise Manager: http://www.oracle.com/enterprise_manager/index.html
To download free, evaluation versions of Oracle software, go to: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html

About CaseCentral
CaseCentral is the leader in on-demand eDiscovery software for corporations looking to take control of eDiscovery. CaseCentral enables companies to efficiently and defensibly respond to today's legal and compliance challenges, consistently, accurately and faster, while delivering overall savings of 30-60 percent and increasing earnings per share (EPS) by up to 1.1 percent. The company's on-demand eDiscovery software platform, with its secure, multi-party architecture and configurable litigation workflow engine, includes best-practice solution templates that enable companies to be operational within hours. CaseCentral is the first to provide eDiscovery business intelligence dashboards giving customers real-time insight into review rates, quality rates and costs per document by case, firm or user. CaseCentral is used by more than 25 of the Fortune 100 and 81 of the AmLaw 100. Founded in 1994, CaseCentral is consistently chosen to handle many of the most complex and highly visible litigation projects in the nation. For more information, call 1.800.714.2727 or visit http://www.casecentral.com/.

About Oracle
Oracle (ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com/.

Oracle vs. SQLServer
According to a recent whitepaper available on the Microsoft site title "Leaping Forward: SQL Server 2008 Compared to Oracle Database 11g", Microsoft SQL Server has steadily gained ground on other database systems and now surpasses the competition in terms of performance, scalability, security, developer productivity, business intelligence (BI), and compatibility with the 2007 Microsoft Office System. It achieves this at a considerably lower cost than does Oracle Database 11g.

So, Microsoft contends that Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 outperforms Oracle in the areas that matter to your business. The following summarizes some of the mission-critical areas in which SQL Server 2008 excels:

Performance and Scalability: SQL Server scales to some of the world’s largest workloads, evidenced by strong industry standard benchmark results. Customers such as Unilever, Citi, Barclays Capital, and Mediterranean Shipping Company support their most mission-critical applications on SQL Server. Customers running SQL Server 2008, including large ISVs such as Siemens and RedPrairie, report excellent experiences with the latest scalability enhancements. SQL Server is recognized as Best Seller and Top Growth Best Seller by CRN Magazine.

Security: The National Vulnerability Database (NIST) reports over 330 critical security vulnerabilities in Oracle database products over the last four years. During that same period, SQL Server 2005 experienced ZERO vulnerabilities. This result comes from secure engineering processes as part of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, comprehensive security features, and a robust Microsoft Update infrastructure. This winning combination reduces both security risks and patching downtime for customers. According to one expert, Oracle is five years behind Microsoft in patch management. Computerworld reports that two-thirds of Oracle DBAs do not apply security patches.

Developer Productivity: SQL Server works with Microsoft Visual Studio® to help provide an integrated development experience, allowing developers to work in one environment across the client, mid-tier, and data-tier. SQL Server 2008 takes a step further with new development features. In contrast, Oracle’s array of tools and SDKs, assembled via acquisition, require developers to learn and work across numerous interfaces. In fact, IDC reports that Microsoft is the number one application technology platform of choice.

Business Intelligence: SQL Server is part of the Microsoft integrated Business Intelligence platform, which spans data warehousing, analytics and reporting, score carding, planning, and budgeting. SQL Server is in the Leader’s quadrant in both Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms and Magic Quadrant for Data Warehousing. SQL Server 2008 introduces more innovation with new data warehousing and business intelligence features. According to Oracle’s latest price list, the company currently charges up to an additional 800% or more on top of their base database fees for similar functionalities.

Microsoft Office System Integration: SQL Server helps customers gain better business insight and make faster decisions through the product's tight integration with the familiar Microsoft Office System user interface. For example, add-ins such as Data Mining for Excel uses both SQL Server and Microsoft Office to provide insight into customer data. IDC recognizes Microsoft as the fastest growing BI tool vendor. Oracle has Microsoft Office Plug In, which includes subset of the functionalities that SQL Server provides, but charges an additional $30,000 per processor.

Total Cost of Ownership: SQL Server has a simple tiered SKU licensing model. Oracle, on the other hand, has a complex array of options and add-ins that are required to develop, deploy, and manage most large-scale applications. The SQL Server integrated development environment and easy-to-use development tools lead to improved Time to Solution and Time to Value for applications and business insight. SQL Server is highly successful in the areas of self-tuning and automated administration, resulting in a much simpler deployment and management profile than Oracle Database 11g. SQL Server is designed to work seamlessly with the rest of the Microsoft software stack, which can help provide smoother development and deployment experience and higher performance than Oracle.

Summary
As I started this post, I grew up in the enterprise software market and therefore learned to tow the Oracle line and bash SQLServer as a nice little departmental database that would never have what it takes to play in the big leagues. However, I believe that Microsoft has come a long way and now that I am "playing" in the legal market, I would recommend that any technologies sitting on the SQLServer platform will have to be considered just as strong as the technologies sitting on Oracle.

And, I hope that someone out there in the litigation market challenges this position so that we can rekindle some of the debate that was so much fun for so many years in the general enterprise markets. And, it is arguments / debates such as these that will help to usher the litigation market into the world of leading edge technology.

Labels: CaseCentral, DBMS, Oralce, ORT, SQLServer

posted by Charles Skamser @ 4:02 PM 0 Comments

SaaS Offers Ease-of-User, Low Cost and Less Onerous IT Demands for eDiscovery

For anyone in the Litigation Services market that is interested in learning more about Software-as-as-Service (SaaS) technology and understanding how it can have a profound impact on how you store and deliver Discovery, I recommend reading an article titled "Litigation 'Software as a Service' (SaaS) Arrives", by Gene Albert, posted on Law Technology Today.

This article will discuss why firms might want to consider using a SaaS litigation support application, benefits of the SaaS approach for small and medium-sized firms, and what a firm should expect from a SaaS provider. Pay special attention to the section on SaaS v. ASP as Mr. Albert does an excellent job describing how many vendors are "serving up" rebaked client/server applications under an ASP model and calling them SaaS.

New approach Offers Ease-of-Use, Low Cost and Less Onerous IT Demands

Software as a service, or 'SaaS', refers to web-native software that the service provider both develops and supports. Customers do not buy the software but rather pay to use it, often on a monthly basis. SaaS applications have become popular in a number of industries because of its ability to provide robust functionality while not requiring from the user an upfront investment for hardware or software, or ongoing support.

While the SaaS acronym is new, the idea is not. Lexis and Westlaw pioneered the online delivery of legal research in the 1980s. What is new about SaaS is how it's done, with new applications designed from the ground up to work over the internet. Both established and new companies have begun offering litigation SaaS applications and promise law firms the ability to manage their litigation matters anywhere from a web browser.

The Need for Computerized Litigation SupportThe continued expansion of discovery is changing the modern litigation practice. Only a few years ago computerized litigation management was needed in only a relatively small percentage of cases. Management of litigation through computerized systems has become increasingly indispensable for most litigators. While it is still possible to competently handle some small cases without computerized litigation support, the types of cases for which this still works are declining and a 'paper only' approach is increasingly anachronistic. The incredible increase in electronic documents and other media that are potentially relevant in any case is the reason for this change.

More Paper?
The computer age originally promised that the volume of paper documents would decrease, but the opposite occurred and we now deal with more paper records than ever. Many cases involve so many paper documents that they must be scanned (become electronic) and made searchable though optical character recognition (OCR), for litigation teams to be able to efficiently review them. Additionally, litigation increasingly involves vast amounts of electronic documents that have never been printed: email and other electronic documents (electronically stored information, or ESI) where much of the relevant case information resides.

Bigger Drives = More Discovery
The increase in hard disk drive capacity on personal computers is a good proxy for the explosive growth of e-discovery. When hard disk drives were first added to early personal computers and workstations in the mid-1980s, the capacity was merely 10 MB (.01 GB). This capacity has expanded 100,000-fold in the last 30 years to the 1 TB drives available today. There is no end in sight in this capacity growth. Computer manufacturers predict 4 TB drives on the desktop in 2011 and 80 TB drives in 2020.(1)

You can bet that these larger drives will mean more potentially discoverable information stored. This will include not only traditional documents and email, but new types of information including chat transcripts, text-messaging, stored voice mail and new types of stored communications. The research firm IDC predicts continued rapid growth of electronic information, estimating that the 'digital universe' (information that is either created, captured, or replicated in digital form) will expand ten-fold between 2007 and 2011.(2)

Other factors drive the need for computerized litigation management as well, including increased importance of email as often critical evidence, litigation team members who increasingly want or need to work from home or from remote locations, new federal and state procedural rules recognizing and encouraging e-Discovery, increased familiarity of judges and lawyers with electronic documents, use of remote coders, and advances in search technology.

But upfront hardware and software acquisition costs may be too overwhelming for small and mid-sized litigation firms to absorb. Worse, the computer hardware and software that must be purchased is only the beginning of the total cost of ownership that a firm will bear. These mission-critical applications need to be closely monitored to make sure they are continuously available. Members of litigation teams work odd hours and systems need to be supported when litigation team members are working. This typically requires dedicated IT support and may require hiring of additional staff. Studies in other industries have suggested that the initial cost of hardware and software may only represent 25% of the total cost of a computer application over time.(3)

High acquisition costs and upkeep requirements have been the cost of admission to sophisticated litigation systems, which is why larger law firms traditionally have enjoyed the edge over smaller firms in more rapidly implementing and offering the benefits of sophisticated applications to their attorneys and staff. SaaS promises to level the technology playing field between larger and smaller firms, and help law firms that struggle to implement the new technology and infrastructure needed to competitively conduct modern litigation.

This is where litigation SaaS applications hold promise. At its best, SaaS provides access to sophisticated litigation tools from any web-connected computer for a fraction of the total cost that a firm might spend to buy and manage a similar service itself.

SaaS v. ASP
One might question if SaaS is one more acronym that can be safely ignored for a few years until a new one displaces it. That certainly seems to be the fate of SaaS' predecessor, ASP. ASP (application service provider) is a technology from the 1990s that promised to revolutionize the way software was delivered by offering traditional software applications over the internet. An ASP provider would take a traditional desktop or LAN-based application not originally designed to operate over the internet, and make it accessible over the internet using terminal services or similar technologies. In an ASP set-up the developer of the software application is usually different from the company making the application accessible over the internet.

This can internet-enable software, but often the architecture was not true 'multiuser' and would have to be operated on a time-shared basis. Time-sharing can lead to a number of problems, including database corruption, and is not a preferred way to provide database access over the internet. This approach also can create a 'software Frankenstein' as the software and internet communication features are pieced together and operating in an environment different than originally designed. If complications ensue, the user often must look to the software provider and the ASP provider to determine who is responsible for and can fix the problem. A number of applications rolled out in the 1990s but have had problems with high cost to the user and poor end-user performance.

SaaS may be more successful than ASP. SaaS applications are developed from the ground up to be internet-based, so they are better able to operate effectively in an internet environment. For example, they are developed with 'multitenancy' to effectively work with many concurrent client organizations and users. The SaaS-based provider is also a one-stop vendor of the application: internet access, service and support. This avoids the 'he said, she said' responsibility issues that can be involved with ASP architectures. If the user has a problem, it is the SaaS providers' responsibility to fix it, without the user needing to worry about the licensing technicalities of multiple hardware, software and service vendors.

As SaaS has become popular, the term 'SaaS' has been misused by some vendors to refer to any hosted application that can be accessed through the Internet. However, this is incorrect according to Ben Pring, of Gartner research: “Some vendors are relabeling as SaaS more traditional application outsourcing approaches, and that runs the risk of both confusing and antagonizing buyers. SaaS has a distinct meaning that’s essential to understanding its buyers."(4)

Unlike traditional programs offered online with ASP, with SaaS there is just one code base for the application, known as a multi-tenant architecture. This means that any enhancements made by the SaaS provider benefit all customers. The SaaS provider therefore spends less time managing and maintaining multiple versions of the application than does a traditional software vendor, and can theoretically provide the SaaS application at a lower cost than would be required in a traditional software distribution model.

SaaS Popularity in Other Industries
SaaS has also become popular in other industries and this should encourage acceptance in the legal industry as well. The most famous SaaS application is Salesforce.com™, which has become the largest customer relationship management (CRM) application, with annual revenues of $750 Million.

SaaS applications have also become important for human resources, procurement, document management, finance and compliance in a number of industries. The popular Quickbooks™ has released a SaaS application called Quickbooks™ Online, which allows companies to manage books from a web browser, with all company financial information maintained on Quickbooks' servers.But most lawyers' and paralegals' introduction to SaaS is through web-based email from Google™, Yahoo™ or MSN™.

Additionally, Google now offers a set of office SaaS productivity applications (word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation) called Google Docs and compatible with the ubiquitous Microsoft Office™. Google offers free versions of these programs and also pay versions with higher support levels and other features.

SaaS Benefits to Small and Medium-Sized Firms
SaaS litigation support applications offer a number of benefits to small and medium firms that may be difficult or expensive to obtain in non-SaaS environments.

Fast Implementation: Firms often will find that they need a more capable litigation management application with little warning as a new case comes in, an existing case expands beyond what was originally anticipated, or remote staff access becomes paramount. Specing, buying and setting up a traditional software program on the firm's servers and end-users desktops and laptops can easily take months. SaaS applications, on the other hand, usually can be up and running in days, if not hours.

Less Onerous IT Demands: Traditional litigation support software applications require the dedicated resources of IT professionals to set-up and maintain. Lawyers and staff work at all hours, so a litigation support application needs to have continuous support, which few law firm IT departments are set up and staffed to embrace. Litigation SaaS applications allow a firm's IT staff to focus on more strategic issues.

Allow Litigation Teams to be Productive from Multiple Locations: Most law firms want to make it as easy as possible for lawyers, paralegals and staff to work on a matter. Once fixed costs of a law firm are covered, incremental revenue is almost entirely profit. Requiring that lawyers, paralegals and staff work on an ill-designed software system, or worse, only while in the office, is not conducive with good client service or with maximum profitability. A well-designed, SaaS litigation management system allows lawyers and paralegals and staff to work on files wherever and whenever they need to or want to. This increased work flexibility can enhance firm morale.

Encourage Collaboration: Modern litigation is a team endeavor, and the best results come from a working environment and firm culture that encourages collaboration. SaaS applications are usually designed with collaboration in mind and make sharing of ideas and work product easier than with other methods.

Industrial Strength Search: As the number of documents involved in litigation has increased beyond what can be easily reviewed manually, search functionality has become more important. Many firms keep files on a shared drive on their LAN. Search is often done through various desktop applications that are not designed for litigation uses and are slow. Modern SaaS litigation applications usually include specialized, indexed search tools that are designed to enable attorneys, paralegals and staff to conduct fast, accurate and comprehensive searches of litigation files.

Avoid Upfront Capital Expenses: SaaS allow firms to obtain the benefits of a sophisticated, powerful litigation support system without the substantial outlay of capital required for hardware, or the software and license fees required for traditional software systems.

Regular Upgrades without Disruption: Traditional software is usually upgraded only every 3-5 years. This means that users of traditional software may wait a long time to see new features and functionality. This 3-5 year cycle exists for traditional software vendors for a couple of reasons. First, the traditional software vendor relies on upgrade fees for a substantial part of revenue, and so must hold and bunch new features and functionality to encourage upgrade purchases. Secondly, getting customers to upgrade database systems can be complicated and require special attention. Users naturally wish to avoid the disruption of frequent upgrades. SaaS systems, on the other hand, are usually enhanced and upgraded on a more constant basis, with no user disruption. This can bring new features and functionality to users years before they are implemented in traditional software systems.

Ability to Pass Along Costs to Client: Computer hardware and traditional software can rarely be passed along to clients and must instead be absorbed as firm overhead. SaaS litigation access instead is often separately billed by case and may be passed along to clients as reimbursable expenses. Clients often are happy to see that law firms are using modern computerized systems. Most industries are more computerized than law, and hence clients often understand the gains in effectiveness and efficiencies that come from using good computerized systems better than do their lawyers.

Backup and Security Handled: Regular backups and state-of-the-art security for web-access for attorneys and staff requires investment, personnel and expertise. A litigation SaaS application enables a firm to outsource this function to a SaaS firm that specializes in maintaining continuity as part of its service.

Security
SaaS takes a firm's litigation files, notes and work-product out of the law office, holds it off-site on the SaaS provider's servers, and enables access to the firm's authorized users over the internet. Security is a valid and critical consideration in determining whether to use SaaS for litigation management and which SaaS provider to use. There are several related aspects to data security, discussed below. For all issues, a firm should also honestly assess how it is or would address these same issues with an internal non-SaaS architecture in which the firm manages security itself, and compare its infrastructure and redundancy with what a firm can obtain from a good litigation SaaS.

Physical Security: This refers to where servers are located and who has access. A SaaS provider should use only high-security datacenters, with floor access limited to authorized service technicians, and 24-7 network operating center monitoring.

Server Security: SaaS providers should make use of up-to-date firewalls, anti-virus protection, and encryption, to ensure that client data can only be seen by authorized users.

Privilege Maintenance: Litigation SaaS systems will usually include attorney-client communications and attorney work product. Precautions should be taken to ensure that a privilege is not waived. The ABA addresses confidentiality and privilege in a 1995 opinion and states that a lawyer may retain an outside service provider to maintain confidential documents so long as the lawyer takes reasonable efforts to assure that the service provider will not make unauthorized disclosures of client information. This can be established through a service provider's representation of reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality of information to which it gains access, and that the service provider understands its confidentiality obligations. The ABA suggests that an attorney obtain along with or apart from any written contract for services that might exist, a written statement of the service provider's assurance of confidentiality.(5)

A user of a litigation SaaS should check that the provider's service agreement meets the requirements of the ABA opinion or any applicable state opinions in order to maintain confidentiality and privilege.

Backup and Data Redundancy: Another security consideration is backing up files. A SaaS provider should have redundancy built into its network. It should replicate copies of client files on two geographically distinct servers to avoid consequences of a total data center failure. Backups only within one datacenter or single location is not the best practice, as it allows for data loss from a single failure event (like a fire) that can destroy both original and backed-up copies of data.It is a rare small and medium size firm that has the expertise and resources to provide this level of security. More often, lawyers in small firms live in dread that a system will crash that hasn't been backed up in a long time. Firms often handle data portability by allowing client files and work product off-site in the form of unencrypted laptops, portable hard drives and USB keys, which are taken out of the office regularly with minimal security precautions. A SaaS system run by experts in data security often provides better protection than a firm is able to do itself.

Other Things to Look For
What else should you expect from a litigation SaaS application? Different vendors have taken different approaches, so you will find significant differences in features and service philosophies. You will need to do some research to find the best fit between the user's needs and the SaaS provider's offerings. Here are some of the issues to consider:

Ubiquitous Web-Based Access: All SaaS providers will offer browser-based access to their application. For some, this means that the SaaS application will work with only a web-browser, and not require the download and installation of any other program. Other SaaS applications require some local program installation. Sometimes this is an 'Active X' component, but this effectively limits the browser to Microsoft Explorer, the only browser to natively support Active X components. Because browser support varies with SaaS providers, it's good to determine which browsers you wish to use with the application and test them.

Native File Support: With the promulgation of the new federal e-Discovery rules, and similar rules in many states, discovery productions including at least some files in native file format (e.g., Word, Excel and Outlook) have become more common. Lawyers conducting discovery often specifically request native format because of higher quality searchability and inclusion of file metadata. A modern SaaS litigation support application should include robust support for files for viewing and working with files in native format. Some older litigation support programs work best only with documents that have been converted to the older TIFF image file format.(6)

Service Level Agreement: In a SaaS environment, the user depends upon the quality of service of the SaaS provider. You should look to the provider's service level agreement (SLA) to see a high level of service provision guarantee: 99.5% or above, and understand what steps a SaaS provider takes to meet its guarantee.

Free Trial: Most litigation SaaS providers will offer a free trial so you can try the application before you commit. These trials often are fully functional, and you may be able to begin using the SaaS application immediately.

Ease of Use: Hopefully all software programs, SaaS or traditional, strive to be easy to use. A lot don't succeed and usability is in the eye of the beholder. You should seek a litigation support application in which the developer has successfully made the complex simple through good design and an understanding of the specific jobs that users will do with the application. You will benefit many times over in increased efficiency, more effective use of the software, and staff satisfaction.

Help and Training: While SaaS applications are often intuitive and easy to learn, some help or training may be helpful or required to get the most out of the application. SaaS applications should have good online help and other materials to allow the user to easily do his or her job without the need for extensive training. Training, however, is sometimes needed or helpful. Some SaaS providers provide a certain amount of training for free, and others charge for all training. Third party consultants may also offer their own training programs for popular applications.

Particular SaaS Cost Structures
SaaS is usually a less expensive way for a firm to use higher-end features of litigation support technology, as compared with traditional software. SaaS takes all the costs that would be required to maintain a software system such as hardware costs, software licensing, installation costs, software upgrade fees, software maintenance fees and IT support, and rolls them into one comprehensive monthly fee. SaaS fees are usually calculated on a 'per user per' per month basis, but may also be structured based on the amount of storage space used or the number of cases maintained, without separate user fees. When a firm totals all the costs it will incur to install, upgrade, maintain and support a litigation support application itself, a SaaS approach will often be less expensive.

SaaS pricing should be transparent and understandable. A disadvantage of traditional software purchasing of litigation databases is that pricing has often been hard to obtain and understand. SaaS providers often present their pricing on their website so you can see what an application would cost to use before you get too involved with a product that doesn't fit your needs or your client's budget.

Conclusion
More and more cases today require a computerized litigation management system to allow attorneys, paralegals and staff to competently handle the matter. When combined with the need to work on cases over the internet, a litigation SaaS may be the best solution for small and medium sized firms.

Footnotes
1) History of Hard Disk Drives, available 4/14/08, here ; Historical Notes About the Cost of Hard Drive Storage Space, available 4/14/08 here; Hitachi Scoffs Solid State, Building 4TB Hard Disk, available 4/14/08 here ; Hey, Buddy! Wanna Buy Some Storage?, available 4/14/08 here.2) IDC, The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe, An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2011 (March 2008), available April 15, 2008, here.3) Timothy Chou, The End of Software, SAMS Publishing (2005), at 6.4) Gruman, The Truth About Software as a Service (SaaS), COI Magazine (May 21, 2007), available 4/11/08, here. 5) Formal Opinion 95-398, Access of Non-lawyers to a Lawyer’s Data Base (October 27, 1995), available 4/9/08 here.6) TIFF stands for 'tagged image file format' and is an older image-based file format that does not include text as part of the file.

Labels: Litigation Support Software, Online Review Tools, ORT, Saas, Software-as-a-Service

posted by Charles Skamser @ 5:16 PM 1 Comments

Trial Solutions Offers SaaS Hosting for 5 Gigabytes for 5 Months for 5 Users for $5

As a rule, I don't often talk about Trial Solutions or its products and offerings. However, I believe that their decision to offer ImageDepot, its SaaS based Hosting and Review Platform for $1 per Gigabyte represents a true paradigm shift in the eDiscovery market and therefore warrants mention on my Blog.

Trial Solutions, which has been very quietly offering ImageDepot for a number of years to its Service Provider Alliance Network, decided to begin distributing ImageDepot earlier this year to the eDiscovery market as part of its Litigation Support Ecosystem. With this aggressive new pricing, ImageDepot, the only true SaaS based production quality ORT in the industry based upon the Microsoft Technology Stack, could very quickly become an industry standard for online review. Or, at the very least will provide a very attractive alternative to any law firm or corporate legal department that is currently paying thousands of dollars per month hosting with one of the legacy hosting platforms.

The Company reports that the new ImageDepot promotion will enable users to host and review 5 Gigabytes of data for 5 months for 5 users for $5. Or, an unlimited amount of data for 5 months for an unlimited number of users for $5 with a 12 month hosting committment. This second option is available for both new projects and for transferring existing projects from another hosting platform. The Company notes that at the end of the initial promotional term that standard monthly hosting rates will apply. Further, the company indicated that the 5 for 5 Promotional offer will only be available through authorized ImageDepot Resellers.

For more information, you can contact Trial Solutions at 877-595-6464 or visit the ImageDepot Website at http://www.imagedepot.com/.

Labels: eDiscovery, ImageDepot, Microsoft, Online Review Tools, ORT

posted by Charles Skamser @ 6:39 PM 0 Comments

Additional SaaS Players in the Litigation Market

In response to my previous post on SaaS tools in the litigation market, I was contacted by IPRO and asked why I hadn't included them in my review. After reviewing their SaaS offering, I believe should be added to the list:

IPRO eCapture
IPRO offers a diverse suite of superior litigation software tools for e-Discovery, review and production and a complete line of products for both workgroups and high-volume production environments. IPRO has thousands of systems of various sizes in law firms, corporate and government legal departments, and litigation service organizations. Millions of documents are processed using IPRO software annually. The American Lawyer Magazine recently completed a survey of the top 100 law firms in the United States and found that IPRO software is by far the most widely used litigation document software.

With IPRO’s Software as a Service licensing model (SaaS), you can use IPRO eCapture to remotely to process your electronic data on a job-by-job basis, accessing it via IPRO’s state-of-the-art data center and advanced technology infrastructure. You can process e-Discovery information, host online data for legal document review, and ultimately host databases with associated images. The ideal candidates for IPRO eCapture/SaaS are service bureaus, law firms, corporate legal departments, government agencies, and consultants that need extraordinary power to process large volumes of e-Discovery data at a reasonable cost. Since IPRO is not a service bureau, eCapture/SaaS users will need staff to monitor data processing and interface with clients. Although you will be simply renting the use of eCapture and time on the IPRO data center, IPRO offers training so new users can familiarize themselves with the details of the product.

To learn more about IPRO software tools, visit www.iprotech.com or call 888-477-6463.

Labels: IPRO, Online Review Tools, ORT, Saas, Software-as-a-Service

posted by Charles Skamser @ 9:34 AM 0 Comments

Are Legal Service & E-Discovery Providers Becoming a Commodity?

Getting back to the grind this morning, I found this really great and thought provoking post on the LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard.

All technology markets go through very similar expansion and contraction based upon a combination of buyers reacting to what Geoferry Moore calls "Crossing the Chasm" and the normal consolidation of technology and service providers after new technology and services becomes a commodity. Where we are in this cycle regarding eDiscovery and Legal Services is an interesting question and one that I would like to address. However, I will need some time to gather my thoughts and plot my pithy response. As such, stay tunned. In the mean time, Jeff's Blog post is a really great read!!!

Are Legal Service & E-Discovery Providers Becoming a Commodity?
It's funny how personal events tend to lead me into various thoughts and discussions about the legal market. Yesterday I flipped on my digital cable box to see that effective with the new year, Comcast has taken over Insight's cable business in Illinois. Knowing that Comcast has had several years of turbulent press (e.g., regarding tracking customers' web history, firing customers who used "too much" of their broadband connection, and the latest controversy over interfering with customers' BitTorrent file transfers), I did a little Googling to reacquaint myself with the latest news and blog posts.

In doing so, I found this insightful post at the Manifest Destiny blog. The gist is that broadband ISP providers are afraid to admit to themselves that they're just selling a mere commodity -- shipping bits. And, that it's virtually impossible for them to be honest with their customers if they can't first be honest with themselves. Before I relate this to the legal market, let me quote the following to help put things into clearer perspective:

"It must be pretty awful to wake up one day and suddenly realize that you're in a commodity business. As a software developer I've at least had a taste of it - it was unsettling to realize that an army of developers in Bangalore could churn out code better than I could, dollar for dollar. I had fooled myself into believing that what I was selling was so extraordinary and great that people would be begging - begging! - for me to deign to craft some SQL and PHP on their behalf. Such a rarified gift! Such a technical artiste!

When you realize that you're selling a mere commodity your ability to profit (and extract rents) from your cleverness is severely limited. It won't help to roll out an ad campaign or make the product mint-scented. You can't differentiate your product from your competitors'. It's all pretty much the same. The users can't tell the difference. All you can do is sell as much of it as you can while spending as little money as possible."Which got me to thinking, "Haven't we been experiencing this in the legal market?" Legal work is being outsourced to armies of contract reviewers both here and abroad. Some of these lawyers aren't employed directly by law firms, as e-discovery providers are quick to tout their expanding review centers and legal outsourcing companies are growing. There are more e-discovery service providers than hardly anyone can keep track of (although my friend George Socha provides great value in doing so with Tom Gelbmann). Like the constant M&As in the wired and wireless telcos, e-discovery vendors are continuously being merged, acquired, and/or creating strategic partnerships with their "coopetition".

Is "Distinguishing" Easier Spun Than Done?
At various conferences this past year, such as ILTA's and ACC's annual conferences, plus the IQPC 4th E-Discovery Conference, I've asked many e-discovery vendors -- especially the conversion and hosting providers -- what distinguishes their services from their competitors? Some were quick to mention their proprietary web-based hosting and review software, while others point to their lower-cost contract legal reviewers, high-tech review centers, high-volume capacity, and/or quick turnaround. A few also mentioned either their top Socha-Gelbman survey rankings and/or their blue chip client list. While certainly impressive factors, these last two didn't serve to distinguish what they actually do.

Very few, if any, truly offer the full soup-to-nuts range of services all by themselves (i.e., without partnering). This isn't a criticism, mind you, as it's extremely difficult to build and excel in all aspects of the EDRM model by yourself, especially in the deadline-driven high-volume and high-stakes cases. Instead, several have distinguished themselves with niche software mousetraps for litigation holds and e-mail analysis. Others have begun building litigation-readiness consulting teams to get their feet in the door. I have to say I sincerely appreciated all their candor and hospitality, and overall found it to be a very congenial group of dedicated professionals trying their best to help their clients.

But for the most part, when I speak with lawyers and e-discovery consultants (some of which are both), many feel it's difficult to see any significant differentiation from a client's perspective, at least until they've had a chance to work together on projects. It's far easier for me to speak with friends and colleagues at law firms and in-house legal departments to hear who they've had good luck with (and those who have not been so good), than in trying to determine this from the e-discovery and law firm providers themselves. In short, even their best sales and business development executives have some difficulty with this, and it's understandable.

Now don't get me wrong -- legal and e-discovery providers offer valuable and necessary services, especially in light of the wide and blindingly bright spotlight cast by the increased focus on ESI. Rather, I'm simply left wondering how many firms and providers have truly recognized the market has already shifted into a more pronounced stage of commoditization. Everyone talks about providing "value-added services" while sustaining growth and profitability. The savvier ones focus on the client value not as the lower per-unit cost (thus recognizing the commoditization and competition issues), but on the overall cost savings achieved in successfully and timely resolving the matter -- all while avoiding the costs and negative publicity of discovery sanctions.

Larger law firms have been building up their litigation support and related IT professionals, and changing focus to make them a profitable line of business rather than a cost center. Yet some are still challenged to find this magic path while being extremely cautious (and rightfully so!) in taking on the liabilities and risks associated with the more forensic aspects. In addition, corporate counsel routinely say the top large law firms generally all provide high-quality services. In my opinion, this just adds to clients' perception of commoditization and their increasing desire to receive them at reduced or fixed cost -- assuming most everything else is being perceived as nearly the same.

Where Does This Leave Us From the Client's Viewpoint?
Answer: A rapidly-changing, crowded, and confusing set of choices. All of which makes it challenging for any single provider to, well, single itself out or make a large enough splash. Of course, a top-ranked spot still helps as lawyers tend to go with whomever most others are using -- as long as their professional network confirms good results. Offering a unique niche product or service is good too, and even better when properly aligned with one's other offerings and resources. Making it onto a client's preferred provider list is still incredibly important. Getting there and staying there without cannibalizing future revenues is the challenge. To borrow Bill Engvall's tagline, "Here's your sign" of legal commoditization.

Most recently, we've seen the entré of automated document search providers. In attempting to prove their solution is significantly more accurate and perhaps less costly than manual review, they are beginning to distinguish themselves from commodity-level contract reviewers. Indeed some of us are keeping an interested eye on these developments. While still nascent, there is potential here if they can deliver on their assertions and convince legal decision-makers that it's worth a try. Only time will tell if this is sustainable or just another tech fad that didn't catch on with more conservative lawyers. And if it does prove sustainable, how long before it too becomes commoditized? Or will there be a legal market "Google" to emerge as the distinguished leader?

As recessionary concerns grow, it will be even more incumbent on corporate counsel to continue to reign in legal costs while generating positive results for their corporate client. Some types of litigation matters increase in bad economic climates. Which means, of course, that the next few years could bode well for those service providers who can distinguish themselves with their potential client base and return consistently good results at an acceptable price. I'd even say the latter is the best way to distinguish yourself in the long run. As we all know from recent cases and the press, bad news travels fast.

As these services become even more commoditized, however, there will likely be even more shakeout and consolidation among providers. Now is a good time for those looking to fill in their gaps. Corporate clients generally prefer more depth in their outside providers. Not to mention their purchasing departments likely have been minimizing the number of outside suppliers to gain better pricing advantage and to simplify (i.e., reduce) their vendor administration overhead. They will likely provide some pushback to legal departments seeking new providers. In some cases, this will extend the RFP process unless or until corporate legal puts their foot down and tells them they need someone "Now!" So while there will be growth, particularly among e-discovery providers, expect it to be rather dynamic in terms of the overall player makeup. Like Comcast above, I expect the larger players will enjoy a larger land-grab. We'll also see a number of middle and smaller players assimilated or perhaps relegated to the less complex, more localized matters, where low cost and local access for clients is very attractive. We've seen this time and time again in the scanning and coding industry.

However, there's no magic crystal ball, and only time will tell how the legal market responds. There will be some legal decision-makers who have already recognized the importance of addressing these issues early, and many who will be economically cautious, only paying as needed. Sometimes that saves money, and sometimes saving money gets very expensive on the clean-up side. That's where having a good discovery advisor-partner is worth its weight.
We'll continue to see further consolidations and partnerships among e-discovery and other technology providers. We'll see more outsourcing, even if it's only internal to that provider (think coding banks in India and China, for example), to increase their global reach and financial efficiencies. And like my cable TV, we'll be launching our browsers or RSS readers only to find that ABC provider is now part of XYZ. Stay tuned...

Labels: Crossing the Chasm, eDiscovery, ESI, Geoffrey Moore, Inside the Tornado, Litigation Service Providers, ORT

posted by Charles Skamser @ 9:35 AM 1 Comments

Will SaaS Ligitation Support Tools Change the Litigation Vendor Landscape?

In a recent article about SaaS Litigiation Support Tools on Law.com, Brett Burney writes that the new generation of online tools such as Lexbe and ImageDepot that are delivered under the new architecture called Software-as-a-Service are an appealing alternative to the standard more expensive and combursome solutions such as Summation and Concordance that have been on the market for years. real equalizer for small to medium sized law firms. In the same artilce, Cliff Shnier, an e-discovery expert and consultant who has written on this topic in the past, states, "SaaS litigation databases to be something of an equalizer for small and big litigation firms. He muses that while smaller firms may not enjoy the resources of their larger counterparts, using a SaaS litigation database could level the playing field and make the smaller firm more attractive to a big corporate client."

If you read this blog on a regulary basis, you will know that I am a big fan of SaaS technology and therefore agree with Brett's conclusions. However, I would take it a step further by pointing out that SaaS tools will quickly outpace the older competitors in the market with their inherent ability to quickly and easily add very sophistiacted features and functions and to also support very customized look and feels for every single user. This capability, referred to as extensibility is a standard feature of a true multi-teannet and self provisioning SaaS application and is literally impossible for older competitors build on client server applications and serverd up under a Citrix or similiar technology to support. There is no doubt that they can mimic these capabilities with cumbersome code fixes and write arounds. We have already seen several vendors come out with online solutions of their client server tools.

However, the very nature of their older code base is such that over time they will just flat not be able to keep up unless they undergo an expensive and client disrupting rewrite. And, once a software vendor does down this path, they open up their customer base to seek newer technologies. It's a model that has repeated itself time after time in the software industry and has spelled doom for many a software company that couldn't keep with the inevitable cycle of new technology.

As such, in the months to come, you will begin to see the new Litigation Support SaaS vendors quickly gaining marketshare and overshadow the older software players in the industry. I predictd that it will completely change the landscape of ligitaiton software vendors.

In the weeks to come, I will post a more detailed discussion of this topic along with some predictions of who will survive, who will not survive and what it will mean for Litigation Support software users.

Labels: Condordnace, iConnect, ImageDepot, Lexbe, Litigation, Litigation Support Software, Medium Markets, ORT, Saas, Small Markets, Software-as-a-Service, Summation

posted by Charles Skamser @ 8:55 AM 0 Comments

Metadata in the New eDiscovery Paradigm

As part of the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRPC), Rule 34 now provides that electronically stored information (ESI) can be produced (absent agreement or a court order) in either the form in which it was ordinarily maintained or in a "reasonably useable" form.

However, neither the rule nor the FRCP's "Advisory Committee Comments" address the circumstances under which metadata or embedded data must be produced in a particular case. Providing more guidance, Sedona Principle 12 initially provided a presumption that "[u]nless it is material to resolving the dispute, there is no obligation to preserve and produce metadata absent agreement of the parties or order of the court." After considerable discussion, Sedona Principle 12 was revised to provide a more nuanced view of the need for metadata. It now provides that the form of production should take into account "the need to produce reasonably accessible metadata that will enable the receiving party to have the same ability to access, search, and display the information as the producing party where appropriate or necessary in light of the nature of the information and the needs of the case."

The comments to Principle 12 explain the advantages and disadvantages of particular forms of production with relationship to the impact of the choices on metadata. Taking all of this into account under the assumption of quickly evolving database, application and associated intelligent ORT technology, I predict that metadata is going to evolve in its importance to the understanding of the underlying native data.

Labels: Discovery, eDiscovery, ESI, FRCP, Metadata, ORT, Sedona Conference

posted by Charles Skamser @ 8:44 PM 0 Comments