Some of Steve Adamson’s clients initially thought his company’s enterprise content management software was priced too low.

Adamson, who co-founded DocuMesh with partner Bill Adamowski of Blue Ocean Ventures, said potential customers say, ‘At that price, there must be something missing.’”

The start-up technology company is the latest spin-off business to be formed internally by Blue Ocean, a technology incubator company based in Urbandale. DocuMesh is targeting small to medium-sized businesses that may not have considered implementing an enterprise content management system because of its price, Adamson said.

“We’re trying to come up with a very low barrier in terms of getting them up and running,” Adamowski said, “as opposed to traditional document management solutions, which can take months or years in terms of getting a system up and running, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s one of the things we’re trying to change in the marketplace – why does it have to be so hard?”

Demand for enterprise content management and business process management systems, which assist companies in redesigning and streamlining their workflows, documents and processes, is becoming increasingly important as regulatory agencies focus more scrutiny on companies’ records and how they’re managed. A study by Gartner Inc. estimates that 75 percent of Global 2000 companies will have adopted a process-focused enterprise content management system by 2008.

DocuMesh, which has already attracted about 5,000 users to its new system, says it can provide a server with preloaded software that can be installed for $20,000 or less. It’s particularly targeting businesses that have a need to share files with outside clients, such as banks, health-care and construction companies.

“The big (enterprise content management) companies like FileNet and Documentum aren’t targeting the medium- to small-company niche yet,” Adamson said. “So right now we are far ahead of the curve.”

That curve may be growing flatter, however. Another Urbandale-based ECM provider, Silicon Plains Technologies, says it has seen prices for ECM software come down substantially within the past three years. Silicon Plains, which in August merged with Automated Workflow Pvt. Ltd., specializes in selling IBM Content Manager and business management software.

“We saw three deals come in this year for about $11,000 for a 25-user company,” said Cara McFarlane, Silicon Plains’ director of marketing. “(IBM) changed their pricing model to make it easier for customers to understand, but it also led to lower pricing for smaller companies.”

Increased government regulation is getting more companies to consider implementing ECM systems, “whether they want to do it or not,” McFarlane said. “I think the smaller price points have made it an easier decision, and it makes it go faster.”

photo – DocuMesh co-founder Steve Adamson, and Chris Lang, business development manager, demonstrate how Documesh’s enterprise content management software is used.