Gartner just published its third annual MarketScope For E-Discovery Product Vendors report. It provides an excellent scan of the current e-discovery software landscape.  However, it must be noted that “the criteria for vendor inclusion in this year’s MarketScope have changed because the market has changed. The emerging nature of the market justified inclusion of smaller vendors in 2008, but this year’s revenue cutoff of $15 million reflects the growing maturity of the players, as well as their consolidation and growing revenue bases.” [our underlinings] While I can understand the rationale behind such a decision, I think it negatively impacts the impressions that buyers might have of this still developing market. Our experiences over the last years is that the best technologies often come from small players in the market. Even if we agree that, generally, consolidations will benefit the already big players, many smaller players we deal with are broadening their reach on a yearly basis.

What comes out strongly from this report is the fact that corporations are currently internalizing e-discovery by developing policies, protocols and processes complemented with software and hardware to reduce their dependence on third parties, namely forensic shops and service bureaus. This conclusion is confirmed by our experience in the Canadian and International markets: ”Enterprises purchasing e-discovery software can reduce the costs of litigation by improving their control over unstructured content, and semistructured content, most notably e-mail. Our client references consistently report that they have cut costs and risks by taking control of litigation hold, litigation hold-tracking, file collection, file processing and legal review, instead of outsourcing these functions. [our underlinings]

One of the reasons why some legal and IT departments are having troubles developing a clear business case for an E-Discovery Readiness Assessment (”ERA”) is “because the work of legal and regulatory response is spread over different departments, and legal matters can span multiple years, traditional cost accounting does not do a good job of tracking the cost of litigation and regulation.” This is a reality we have seen at most of our clients’. However, certain market and in-house metrics can help organisations make the case for e-discovery readiness.

Ledjit is currently reviewing the report and will further post about it over the coming days. In the mean time, you can buy the report or get a complimentary copy.

Hat tip to Clearwell Systems for the complimentary copy!

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