Evernote 5 is here

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 12, 2013 at 06:01 AM

dan7000 wrote:
>While it’s true that corporations have
>traditionally used file folders for documents, that is only because
>legacy operating systems, originally built for personal computers with
>floppy discs, used folders. Corporations have largely realized this
>doesn’t work for large collections of documents in the enterprise, which
>is why we now have “Enterprise Document Management” or “Enterprise
>Content Management,” which use relational databases, not hierarchies.
>I’ve used a number of these EDM-type systems in my work, involving
>collections of hundreds of thousands or millions of documents. These
>systems usually have lots of different views on your data, some of which
>involve very shallow hierarchies - like a tree of saved searches, a tree
>of tags, and a single-level tree of “binders” or “folders”. EN is
>probably the most convenient version of this for personal use, but there
>will be a lot better tools in the future, based on these EDM systems.

Dan, can you mention some EDM systems that you believe eventually might be scaled-down and re-packaged for small business or even personal use? Are you talking about the likes of Alfresco and Liferay, or something like Sharepoint?

My view does not necessarily contradict yours, but I personally see ICT developments in recent decades having been led by the consumer market, even if the original technologies were developed for the high-end markets—including the military in the case of communications. In this context, I expect that the next widespread knowledge- or content-management system is more likely to be launched first as a personal / small team solution and then scaled up. It could be Evernote or Onenote for all I know—not to mention some cloud product currently being developed at a college dormitory.

Without having followed TheBrain story closely, I seem to recall that after version 1.5 they had withdrawn the Development Kit and the ability to publish brains in the personal versions, focusing on their EKP—Enterprise Knowledge Platform—offering instead. More recently, publishing has been brought back in the personal version, a Team version is being developed based on the personal, and Harlan Hugh—inventor of TheBrain and former CTO—is now CEO. It seems to me that they have shifted from a top-down to a bottom-up strategy.

Another example is Microsoft’s evolution of Office to the 365 version, as a full solution for businesses. Again, I see a bottom-up approach: take the products that most knowledge workers are already familiar with and scale them up / interconnect them to cover the needs of the business.

I’m the co-owner of a 7-person service oriented business. On the average working day, I receive more than 50 business related email messages. Not counting the replies, we are talking about more than 10,000 interrelated ‘documents’ a year, and I know that some of my collaborators receive a lot more. Add to these the attachments which take on a life of their own and you can realise that the needs of even an individual knowledge worker nowadays are (un)reasonably close to those of a corporation in the not-so-distant past. The market is here, now.