Linked – kCura: UK War with Hosting Partners?

To date partners that provide data hosting have had to buy, install and maintain their own infrastructure – charging a premium to companies that need eDiscovery services as a result.

Going forward the hardware and software are all available within RelativityOne, prompting one adviser to say shortly after Relativity Fest: “kCura doesn’t see this as a war with its hosting partners but it is. The small ones exist on hosting but kCura is hosting its own data centres and I expect it will be able to do it more cheaply and pass on those savings.”

Asked if kCura is entering into competition with its partners, vice president of international, Steve Couling said unequivocally: “No, we’re not. e-Discovery is a complex industry, and software and services will always go hand-in-hand.”

The article is about UK providers, but it’s the same issue US based eDiscovery providers are dealing with too. Relativity hosting has been the big piece of the puzzle that has made quite a few vendors wealthy. If customers can get that directly from kCura, why not?

Well, since I’m on the law firm side now, I have a bit of a different perspective on this, and I will agree that if a vendor is counting on Relativity hosting being their bread and butter, they are in for a challenge. You can’t compete with the company that makes the software.

But, you can compete by being flexible. kCura is Relativity. Hosting directly with them is buying into the entire infrastructure, and nothing else, really. Providers have the opportunity to be more flexible, providing not just Relativity hosting, but also other processing tools, case management tools etc. They can offer a variety of solutions, for a variety of clients.

For the small firm, they could offer complete project management and eDiscovery services. For mid-size or large firms they could provide a plethora of hosted tools for their Litigation Support teams to make use of, picking and choosing the ones that make the most sense for them.

I don’t believe RelativityOne is ever going to also give you access to LAW, Nuix, CaseMap, etc. Other vendors could, and should.

What do you think? Are you considering RelativityOne? If so why? If not, why not?

https://www.complexdiscovery.com/info/2017/05/25/kcura-hosting-uk/?utm_content=buffera3a4a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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