Can AccessData Halt Summation’s Death Spiral in Electronic Discovery?

When I first started working in the electronic discovery industry, I quickly learned two things about Summation: it has a huge installed base of law firm customers, and they all dislike using Summation’s products. It was feedback from these unhappy customers that led companies like Clearwell and kCura/Relativity to enter the review market, and the results are plain to see. While Clearwell and kCura/Relativity are both growing rapidly, Summation has suffered years of declining revenue.

Several people have pointed to poor marketing as the problem, and it’s true most customers are confused. Summation’s products all have different names (iBlaze, Discovery Cracker, CaseVault, CaseVantage), and it is unclear how they relate to one another. But the problem is more fundamental than just marketing. There has been no innovation from Summation for years; its products are difficult to use; and, they don’t integrate with each other. So, naturally, customers switch to more compelling solutions, revenue declines, management cuts costs, talented people leave, service levels deteriorate, more customers defect, and the cycle repeats.

As the management teams at Silicon Graphics, Siebel, or Yahoo! can tell you, once a technology company faces this death spiral, it’s very, very hard to turn things around. But that’s exactly what AccessData must do for its recent acquisition of Summation to work.

On the face of it, you would not expect AccessData to be capable of addressing Summation’s problems. As the #2 player in the forensics market to Guidance Software, it has no experience in legal review. Its customers are enterprises and government agencies, not law firms or litigation support service providers. Its headquarters is in Lindon (Utah), whereas Summation based is in San Francisco. But AccessData has a capable team, and must have some plan in mind. What is it likely to do? My guess is as follows

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Source: eDiscovery 2.0
By: Aaref Hilaly