Product information is one of the few remaining strategic information assets
within an enterprise that does not have a dedicated system of record. This is
not surprising when one considers the complexities of product information
management (PIM). Specifically, a comprehensive product information
management application must be able to handle structured and unstructured
information, share data, accommodate a variety of constantly changing data
models, manage multiple inter-relationships, and enable multiple hierarchies,
all without duplication of data. While enterprises and vendors alike have
turned to content management and relational database architectures to address
the challenges of product information management, these approaches have
proven to be very limited and far less than satisfactory.
Recognizing the shortcomings of traditional approaches, several leading ... (more)