VENDORiQ: Objective Corporation Acquires Simflofy

The Latest

22 March 2022: Knowledge management application software developer Objective Corporation (Objective) has acquired US Cloud-based content management system firm Simflofy. With the acquisition, Objective’s governance extends beyond a focus on regulated and public sectors to accommodate organisations struggling to govern Microsoft365 suite. Through a combined enterprise federated governance and single source of truth (SSOT), users can expect the features of the integration to be introduced in its newest tool, Objective 3Sixty.

Why it’s Important

The Australian public sector’s content management solution vendors are dominated by Micro Focus Content Manager (formerly known as TRIM) and Objective. However, both solutions providers lack the technology to fully address the demand for federated knowledge management due to the effect of disruptive collaboration, and the adoption of Microsoft Office 365 by many enterprises. 

However, the acquisition of Simflofy will be a game changer for Objective.” to avoid it seeming like Simflofy has acquired Objective. The integration of Simpflofy’s federated information management capabilities to Objective’s strength in knowledge management in compliance rich environments, has the potential to balance a unified view of organisation wide content from disparate sources of information, with rigorous information lifecycle management.

At the very least, the acquisition signals that Objective is now committed to federated knowledge management, instead of the traditional record-keeping system that it is known for.

Who’s impacted

• CMO
• Sales/marketing teams

What’s Next?

Objective customers should monitor the vendor’s progress with Objective 3Sixty’s features such as SSOT through consolidating various sources across multiple information repositories and managing it all in one place.

In addition, public sector organisations that use Objective as well as SharePoint without appropriate governance and compliance add-on solutions (such as RecordPoint’s Records365), should start exploring how the new Objective plans and acquisition may impact discussions on where and how knowledge is stored in a compliant manner.

Likewise, Micro Focus Content Manager’s customers must raise inquiries to the vendor on the progress of the service provider’s plans for filling in the gaps of federated content management capabilities for Content Manager, in particular Control Point. 

Related IBRS Advisory

1. The Challenge of Disruptive Collaboration and the Future of Enterprise Knowledge Management Solutions
2. Does IBRS have a framework which describes the capabilities of Knowledge Management?