Predictions 2010: Second Post

In 2010 one of the major issues will be whether the big consolidators in the legal software vendors’ arena – the LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and IRIS Groups of this world – find the legal IT market turning into their own corporate Afghanistans? Getting involved may have seemed a good idea at the time, but now they’ve made their investments they are finding the sector a lot more complex – and far less profitable – than they first thought. But what should they do? Throw in more troops (sorry senior managers) money and resources in one last surge to try to fix the problem? Or, pull out altogether and write-off the whole venture as a mistake? Either way the ‘natives’ – their shareholders and their customers – are growing restless.