Enterprise content management solutions are industry specific and may span several different product sets. Market growth of the content management market segment is tied to the transfer of the paper-based enterprise to an enterprise that manages all information electronically. Publishing information to the Web is a small part of the total content management markets.

Content management relates to being able to move documents, media, and images around on the network in a manner that is easy. Content management is the management of unstructured information that complements the structured transaction content that has been the entire focus of enterprise computing systems.

IT has mastered transaction management of structured records in files and fields. Now it is at the cusp of learning how to manage unstructured imaging content as they have been doing for paper-based documents for millenniums.

The difference is that by making unstructured content available electronically, much more can be done with the information. It can be sorted and searched to find trends. Work efficiently is improved by quantum amounts.

The market for enterprise content solutions relates to management of unstructured information. The ability to control enterprise content is central to IT. 90% of information transmitted on the network is unstructured. Content management offers a range of capabilities. Digital asset management, lifecycle management collaboration, web content management, storage management, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and document process management are aspects of the content management markets.

Content management market analysis indicates that the combined software license markets at $1.3 billion in 2004 are anticipated to reach $4.5 billion by 2011. The trend is for enterprises to depend on content management software to achieve more efficient business process operation.