F.A.Q.

• So where did the E-Discovery Application Matrix come from?

As I guided clients, investors and newcomers through the three levels of the 2008 LegalTech NY conference, I marveled at the number of booths and the rampant confusion. "It's just too big.", said one of my clients. She was right. There are so many applications on the market that I decided that I needed a giant spreadsheet to track them. That spreadsheet quickly became unreadable. I realized that this was just too much for any one person to compile or keep up to date. That was the inspiration for this site.

• How are an application's features determined?

As they say, "It takes a community." No one knows everything about every application on the market. Where I have had direct experience with an application or have found clear public information about the features promoted for an application, I have added those features to that application. Once added to the Application Matrix, I make an effort to contact the company and give them administrative acces to the application profile and features. In the end, it is up to all of us to speak up when we spot a feature that needs to be added or removed from an application.

• So who makes money off of the E-Dicovery Application Matrix?

At this time, no one. The Matrix is provided to the public without any compensation. If I can work out ways to cover some of the cost and time associated with keeping the Matrix up to date and growing without violating the spirit of independent content and open access, I may well consider adding sponsored ads or paid access to detailed application reports. The driving force in creating this site was to provide a public resource to aid the community in at least being able to find all the known applications that provide common features.

• So what if a company has several applications?

The software providers have the option to create multiple listings as long as the software applications are stand alone and serve distinctly different roles. However, the purpose of the site is to let the public find applications and get detailed information from the actual provider site. With this in mind, most providers have elected to combine their applications into one primary listing so that their entire suite of features are represented in one place.

• So what about service providers?

This version of the system is limited to actual software that is available for direct purchase, hosted, SaaS or through a professional service delivery model. The later can be confusing, but it is intended to cover some of the consulting firms that have written software that can be used on-site under their direction, but they are not actually licensing or hosting the software. Actual service providers are primarily differentiated via quality, price and customer service. All of these factors are relatively subjective and thus not part of the Application Matrix.

• How often are the listings updated?

Once the software provider has been given administrative access to check/edit their listing, it is published to the site. I monitor for new version announcements and email the contact person to update their listing(s). There is a scheduled system under construction that will send a full profile to the provider contact every quarter and highlight new features that have been added to the matrix since the last quarter. In the end, the system relies on feedback from the public to catch inaccuracies. Luckily for us, the litigation technology field is both sharp and competitive, so software competitors are some of the best checks and balances against inaccurate content.