Huron Consulting set to fix Autonomy services in the wake of Microsoft search acquisitions
Reporting and analyzing from LegalTech
Microsoft® (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made great strides in the last 30 days, taking aim at Autonomy (LON:AU) and now Google with their acquisition of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO). Initially the acquisition of FAST (OSE:FAST) by Autonomy was shaken off as a minor encroachment on Autonomy. However, as I reported here the acquisition of FAST creates a significant impact for Autonomy/ZANTAZ products that use FAST/AltaVista toolkit for indexing.
Recently, I've had a few people comment to me that Autonomy/ZANTAZ has customer service issues they need resolve. In a LegalTech lobby interview with Christopher Getner, Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) Managing Director, said services and software were the drivers for Huron and Autonomy/Zantaz's recent announcement. He would not confirm any purported customer service issues Autonomy may have with clients, but did confirm that Huron has a history of offering great services, whereas Autonomy is a software company through-and-true.
Huron is poised to convince their customers and new prospects that their fixed cost electronic data discovery service V3locity is the best solution moving forward. Costs can't be the only consideration when evaluating solutions. Risk and security controls are critical elements in any business process and, as a CISSP, I know that denying access is the only sure way to avoid unintentional data destruction or privacy violations. In that vein, Huron's Getner told me they have taken great strides to address security through two-factor authentication and an explicit denial-of-access where perceived risks may exist.
Beyond data and security risks are legal risks. Legal cases, or matters, are augmented throughout their lifecycle by adding custodians, changing keywords and expanding data sets. Having a holistic approach like V3locity enables clients to re-use previously culled data without requiring another data request. V3locity clients will soon realize you'll want that holistic system on the inside of your firewall, as well.
As a V3locity user, Huron can help you implement Autonomy/ZANTAZ throughout your business. Hook. Line. Sinker. Huron Consulting Group's V3locity is shaking up the market and getting a lot of attention for fixed-price eDiscovery. The actual upside for this vendor is not in the eDiscovery, but in helping you implement in-house electronic data discovery.
If Huron approaches a client about "eDiscovery process improvements" without any product offering it typically falls on deaf ears. However fixed priced eDiscovery is sure to generate a lot of buzz and listeners. If you are buying into V3locity, Huron's next step is to deploy Autonomy/ZANTAZ into your environment as your intelligent preservation and collection system. While this is a win-win for both Huron and Autonomy, it may turn out to be a life saver for Autonomy.
After the Microsoft partner network has access to FAST Search and Transfer capabilities, multiple venues of Microsoft integration can begin. Microsoft partners are vast and many are well known for their great service. You may find yourself confronted with a whole host of friendly partners trying to help you resolve your eDisccovery business processes in 2008 and 2009. Huron and v3locity may be Autonomy's only hope against Microsoft and their partner network in this rapidly changing legal data discovery landscape.
Microsoft® (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made great strides in the last 30 days, taking aim at Autonomy (LON:AU) and now Google with their acquisition of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO). Initially the acquisition of FAST (OSE:FAST) by Autonomy was shaken off as a minor encroachment on Autonomy. However, as I reported here the acquisition of FAST creates a significant impact for Autonomy/ZANTAZ products that use FAST/AltaVista toolkit for indexing.
Recently, I've had a few people comment to me that Autonomy/ZANTAZ has customer service issues they need resolve. In a LegalTech lobby interview with Christopher Getner, Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ:HURN) Managing Director, said services and software were the drivers for Huron and Autonomy/Zantaz's recent announcement. He would not confirm any purported customer service issues Autonomy may have with clients, but did confirm that Huron has a history of offering great services, whereas Autonomy is a software company through-and-true.
Huron is poised to convince their customers and new prospects that their fixed cost electronic data discovery service V3locity is the best solution moving forward. Costs can't be the only consideration when evaluating solutions. Risk and security controls are critical elements in any business process and, as a CISSP, I know that denying access is the only sure way to avoid unintentional data destruction or privacy violations. In that vein, Huron's Getner told me they have taken great strides to address security through two-factor authentication and an explicit denial-of-access where perceived risks may exist.
Beyond data and security risks are legal risks. Legal cases, or matters, are augmented throughout their lifecycle by adding custodians, changing keywords and expanding data sets. Having a holistic approach like V3locity enables clients to re-use previously culled data without requiring another data request. V3locity clients will soon realize you'll want that holistic system on the inside of your firewall, as well.
As a V3locity user, Huron can help you implement Autonomy/ZANTAZ throughout your business. Hook. Line. Sinker. Huron Consulting Group's V3locity is shaking up the market and getting a lot of attention for fixed-price eDiscovery. The actual upside for this vendor is not in the eDiscovery, but in helping you implement in-house electronic data discovery.
If Huron approaches a client about "eDiscovery process improvements" without any product offering it typically falls on deaf ears. However fixed priced eDiscovery is sure to generate a lot of buzz and listeners. If you are buying into V3locity, Huron's next step is to deploy Autonomy/ZANTAZ into your environment as your intelligent preservation and collection system. While this is a win-win for both Huron and Autonomy, it may turn out to be a life saver for Autonomy.
After the Microsoft partner network has access to FAST Search and Transfer capabilities, multiple venues of Microsoft integration can begin. Microsoft partners are vast and many are well known for their great service. You may find yourself confronted with a whole host of friendly partners trying to help you resolve your eDisccovery business processes in 2008 and 2009. Huron and v3locity may be Autonomy's only hope against Microsoft and their partner network in this rapidly changing legal data discovery landscape.
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