What major advancements have been made in document management since my book was publsihed in 1996,?

The basic functionality and tools we saw in many applications by the year 2000 have not been extended much since 1996, when my book, Document Management for the Enterprise, was publsihed by Wiley & Sons.

If nothing else the scalability of an EDMS has become much more robust and reliable. However, the cost/seat to acquire a software application for a document management initiative has been reduced from over $5,000/seat to less than $25/seat. However, that is not the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Many organizations will still have to spend $2K-3K/person to educate, train, and convert existing users to any new application. Of course, in a period of recession, many organizations will not see the ROI for efficiency and increased performance capability, since this is often considered an intangible benefit for an EDMS/ECMS. Of course, they are wrong, but why try to change the mind of someone who still thinks that a filename of 8 characters is a parsimonious way of saving computer storage.

At the time I wrote the text the Internet had not yet reached critical mass and substantial use. At that time the World Wide Web was gaining in popularity, but not in corporate penetration. Document objects were a significant challenge in most organizations, but folks were just beginning to experience the flood of email, (which we initially called computer-based messaging systems—CBMSs, in the 1980s). I could forecast the critical need for the emerging knowledge workers to try and solve this evolving corporate challenge.
 
Since I had significant experience in information centres, libraries, documentation centres and document management systems, I hoped the lessons learned that I had accumulated could be valuable and passed onto those embarking upon new initiatives. Then, in the late 1990s, the Internet exploded onto the scene and most business decision-makers could not make a decision as to the best EDMS (Enterprise Document Management Systems) to use, especially since the costs were very expensive at that time.

Here we are almost 15 years later and most organizations are still paralyzed by indecision, while the volume of document objects, images, and emails, has grown logarithmically. I was hoping to make specialists and executives aware of the need for the PROD Manifesto ALONG WITH the related courage required to launch a successful initiative. Regretfully, I would have to say I failed, as recent surveys show that a critical mass of firms has still not been achieved, and only a small percentage of the overall firms have their digital documents and archives properly managed.