The conventional view has been that there is no room for new players in the eDiscovery market, and that we are moving to a period of consolidation, in which there will be far fewer players.

That conventional wisdom has been upset recently by the arrival of some new and agile players offering eDiscovery software and services. They are distinguished by two things in particular – inventive approaches to pricing and astute use of modern media methods to get their products out to the market.

Few have been as successful at this than Cicayda which appeared, apparently from nowhere, earlier this year. It caught my eye on Twitter before I realised that I knew its CEO, Roe Frazer and its CTO, Jason Cox, from years back when they ran Case Logistix (which is now owned by Thomson Reuters). I wondered from time to time when (not if) they would resurface. Now I know. I missed the opportunity to see Roe Frazer when he came to London a few months ago (I was abroad) and caught up with him at ILTA in Las Vegas. The near-instant consequence is that Cicayda has become the most recent addition to the list of those who sponsor the eDisclosure Information Project.

Cicayda puts a set of tools in a private cloud – staccato for early case assessment, drone for search, fermata for litigation hold and cicayda review. The applications are mobile and tablet compatible, and Cicayda summarises the complete package like this:

Market disruption, in price and performance, is our governing philosophy, with all our deliverables embracing a consumer-friendly look, feel, and functionality. We also offer expertly managed ediscovery services and consulting in a smart, professional manner. All of our pricing is transparent.

The website looks very different from most – and “different” is a compliment in a market where originality is not much prized. Pastel colours, lower-case product names, minimal and widely-spaced words, and music analogies replace the traditional rectangles crammed with as many words as possible. In addition, as I have said, Cicayda is maximising the opportunities offered by new forms of media to get its message out, backed by good old-fashioned networking and more conventional marketing methods. It puts its people at the front of the business. It all looks great to me.

The pricing appears on a published page here, with the headline No upfront fees – No tack-on fees – No long-term contracts. The full package is designed to be attractive, both for those interested in transparent pricing and for those bored with conventional websites – which means pretty well everybody.

Consistent with this unconventional approach, Cicayda is holding what they call RELEvent the un-conference in Nashville on 6 to 8 october. Speakers include Casey Flaherty of Kia Motors America who has appeared in my blog as one determined to shake up the market from his position as a buyer. Other speakers known to me include Babs Deacon of eDJ Group, Ari Kaplan, Steven Bennett of Jones Day and our own Charles Christian of Legal Technology Insider. Oh – and I will be taking part as well. There is more information, and registration details, here.

Cicayda has a distribution agreement with Legastat in the UK, and I very much look forward to being involved in spreading the Cicayda word on my home patch, within the US and wherever else its energetic marketing takes it.

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