Comments on 3 Geeks and a Law Blog: Lexis Gets the 'Cloud'

We can't forget that Lexis had a partnership d...

2009-10-27T11:36:49.095-05:00

We can't forget that Lexis had a partnership distribution partnership with NetDocuments (SaaS Document Management) and NetDocuments still hosts its data at the Lexis data center.

To Tom's comment/question - what's surpris...

2009-10-27T06:31:20.630-05:00

To Tom's comment/question - what's surprising is Lexis hosting competitors' software. It's not that surprising that Lexis would move their own applications into the cloud, but enabling competitors by hosting their software is not the normal course of business for them. As explained to me, they are even integrating third party applications with their own.

To Matt's comment - yes those other providers do host applications. The difference as I see it is 1) you don't always know where your data is, and 2) although these providers are known and deep pockets, they have not been hosting mission critical law firm data on the scale Lexis and other legal research providers have. That existing level of trust brings a unique value.

I am curious ... why would you be surprised that L...

2009-10-26T22:18:17.085-05:00

I am curious ... why would you be surprised that LexisNexis is interested in the Cloud? They've been offering online services long before the Cloud was cool. They have one of the largest data center operations in the US. Many of the their recent acquisitions like Accurint have involved highly secure online services. With the exception of the relatively small desktop software applications they recently acquired (Time Matters, PCLaw, Juris) almost everything they do is in the Cloud. What's to be surprised about?

Sounds like Lexis is offering services already pro...

2009-10-26T15:53:36.441-05:00

Sounds like Lexis is offering services already provided by Amazon (http://aws.amazon.com/) and other market leaders Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.