How important is the 80% of unstructured data - Gartner ends their Magic Quadrant chart

I wanted to give this moment a change to air-out as it is both interesting and predictable. Watching the trend lines of all the vendors in the 'Content Services' MQ shows a clear winner - Microsoft.

It is a clear winner for a few reasons:

• Consolidation: The private equity form who owns Hyland went and purchases Nuxeo and Alfresco to bring them together

• The great have fallen: Even in the Gartner report last year IBM and OpenText lost so much traction it was embarrassing. Neither can spell 'cloud'.

• They brought the price down: The moment Microsoft bundled SharePoint, OneDrive and some fundamental workflow capabilities in Office365, the beginning of the end began. With it, Microsoft has also added capabilities with their Syntex add-ons.

• It was always about the process - not the content: FileNet was successful because of their BPM capabilities, Documentum because of their user-experience and workflow engine. Add to this the dysfunctional acquisitions by the likes of IBM and OpenText. There is not much more to add to a repository from a capabilities perspective.

Probably why Gartner ended the Magic Quadrant Chart. From HERE you can hear it all come together like watching a water balloon pop.

In attending the AIIM event in Denver, it was clear the 'laggard' status of the market. Kept hearing the same recycling of topics from 10 years ago with very little innovation. As I heard at the healthcare conference (HIMSS) with a 'document spin' -- "1995 called, they want their paper and scanners back".