logo_springcm[1].gif  A new partnership between cloud content management provider SpringCM (news, site) and technology consulting company Acumen will bring cloud-based solutions to government agencies, particularly document management and workflow solutions.

The move towards cloud computing follows plans in the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget of the United States Government to introduce pilot software projects that will cut the cost of content, information and records management, and introduce on-demand case management and workflow management.

SpringCM already offers these solutions, but with the experience brought by Acumen Solutions, which already advises Federal agencies on commercial content management best practices, Steve Maier, SpringCM VP and general manager of government solutions says they should be able to align their document management solutions with government needs.

Government Cloud Adoption Difficult

However, Maier doesn’t expect the move to the cloud by government organizations to be an easy one. In an audio interview on the Fed Cloud Blog last month, he said the technology purchasing pattern of government departments, which are inextricably linked with procurement processes, will make cloud adoption difficult.

“The government is interesting because, given the size of their procurements and the things that they do, they’re a little hamstrung by the procurement process. I don’t think there’s a shortfall in desire, but the procurement process is very much tuned to the status quo,” he said.

He says that because with SaaS, users are buying services rather than assets, the procurement process will have to be reprogrammed and that this could take up to two year to do.SpringCM Platform.jpg
SpringCM Platform
 

SpringCM 5.4

Late last year, SpringCM released v5.4 of its SaaS-based enterprise content management system, which did much to upgrade its ability to provide secure records management.

It took records management a few steps further with several new capabilities including:

  • Setting retention period of a document using a date field inside the document
  • Automatic classification through a SpringCM Advanced Workflow

It also took reporting and dashboards two steps further with more out of the box reports and more options for dashboard customization.

On top of that users can design and deploy their own ECM applications by accessing these core services through web services, email and fax, web client and other approaches.

There is no indication of when the first results of this partnership will be visible, but there is considerable pressure across government agencies to cut IT costs so it will probably be sooner than the 24 months that Maier predicts.