Unify is a database tools company that acquired archiving software vendor AXS-One in June 2009. On June 22, 2010, Unify announced it would merge with Daegis, an e-discovery review firm:
- Daegis has a matter review SaaS that culls down a corpus of ESI. It also provides manpower to plan the initial collection process and the actual review/culling.
- Unify's AXS-One archiving software will be integrated tightly with Daegis' DocHunter eDiscovery system.
- Unify's archiving and e-discovery group will adopt the Daegis name.
Today, ESI archives are wholly separate from e-discovery systems. Data is extracted from the archive and put into an e-discovery system. Thus, the following types of information are normally not included in the archive:
- How valuable the material is for e-discovery.
- Who has reviewed the material.
- Who is the custodian of the material.
- Cases that have used the material.
In a novel step, Unify/Daegis plans to change all this. The archive will be enhanced so that it now contains e-discovery information.
Comments:
- Unify will now be able to offer technology plus a proven professional services team that produces relevant e-discovery material, all in one organization. That's a significant differentiator in the archiving world.
- Unify will also be able to let general counsel bring much of the e-discovery work in-house. This would be extremely attractive to many organizations, due to the significant cost of outsourcing this work.
- The idea of building case management data into an archive is very interesting. E-discovery is now the major driver for archiving purchases, and e-discovery is very expensive. Adding case management information to the archive should, in principle, translate to substantially better searches, and substantial reductions in legal costs.
- On the other hand, e-discovery is simply one application of an archive. You could argue that an archive should be more application-independent.
- It makes sense to use the Daegis name. Daegis is known in the legal world, and e-discovery is a major driver for archiving; Unify's name is only known in the database tools world.
- Integrating the AXS-One and Daegis code sets and data structures will be challenging, all the more so because Daegis' system is hosted, while Unify's software resides on the customer's premises. Many organizations fail at such integration. The roadmap should be viewed with appropriate caution.
- Daegis staff have a lot of experience extracting material from archiving solutions. However, they have relatively little experience with AXS-One archiving. That may be a problem.
- It's good to see Unify investing further in its AXS-One acquisition.
... David Ferris