A new era of e-discovery service delivery is upon us. The goals of the e-discovery process remain relatively constant: win the case at the least possible cost while mitigating risk. The change will be in how corporations and law firms procure services. Until recently, the e-discovery battle has been primarily a “feature war.” Service companies built their own software and competed based on the notion that “our tool can do something other tools can’t.” Buyers spent their time evaluating software capabilities. Robust, market-leading software is now ubiquitous and freely available – and more is coming. Now the game is: “Who can build the most effective, defensible process around best-in-class software?” – in order to maximize the potential efficiencies. The winning service companies are going to be the ones who best define processes and who invest intelligently in people and infrastructure. Just as with ERP implementation and management, it will generally not make sense for law firms and corporations to make these investments – though of course some will try, and most will fail. Rather, the current market conditions and trends suggest the next three to five years will be characterized by both corporations and law firms outsourcing the e-discovery function via managed services and retaining relatively lean teams in-house to provide oversight. The e-discovery equivalents of Accenture, EDS and Perot Systems will be born.