Archive for the ‘alfresco’ Category

Hints of change at Alfresco

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

I am beginning to see hints at serious changes happening within Alfresco. Historically the company has essentially operated as a commercial software company with a closed development model (that is, an internal opaque development team) and an open source version that was treated like shareware (“start using it and, if you like it, pay for the real product.”). Gradually, Alfresco has been opening up to be more transparent and developer friendly. For example, now you can get the source of the Enterprise Edition. You just need to pay an annual subscription to use the compiled version if you want to get support.

Recent blog posts by Matt Asay (Alfresco’s VP of Business Development) and John Newton (CTO) make me think there is more change to come. First, in April Matt wrote this post on how the (very permissive) Apache Software License is better than the GPL. That had me scratching my head because Alfresco uses the GPL license which is very strong at protecting IP. Alfresco had already loosened up a bit by providing a “FLOSS Exception” where a developer working on another project with another OSI approved license can incorporate Alfresco under that license. But the full Apache Software License goes much further. If Alfresco was Apache licensed, Oracle could embed Alfresco in one of their commercial software products for free.

Then John Newton wrote a post talking about the virtues of professional open source and described Alfresco as a company that made money entirely from support. At the time, I didn’t really believe him because the terms felt like you needed to pay to use supportable software rather than pay for the support itself. I know this is a minor distinction but a support contract seems easier to walk away from than an annual subscription to use software. Still, I guess it would be possible to downgrade to a version of the Enterprise Edition that you compiled yourself.

More recently, Matt comes up with this article that is critical of “fauxpen source:” products that come out of a closed development process but are distributed under an open source license. He writes:

In the future, I think we’ll see this “fauxpen-ness” fade as companies clearly separate their open-source efforts from their revenue models. Open source can provide a platform for monetization, but it isn’t the best way to actually generate cash. Not for most companies, anyway.

I take this to mean that software companies will start to leverage the open source development model and get their revenue from sources other than renting out the IP of the software. Matt doesn’t mention Day Software but that is clearly what Day is doing. Day sells commercial software products (CQ5 and the CRX) but heavily invests in components (JackRabbit and Sling) that they have donated to the Apache Software foundation for open development. They use these Apache components in their products and encourage their competitors to do so too. Similarly, IBM invests in lots of Apache projects and Eclipse. Ex-Alfrescan Kevin Cochrane now works at Day and I am wondering if he is convincing his former co-workers on this strategy. I wonder if, now that there is a sufficient developer community, Alfresco will start to put development of some of their components (like their CIFS implementation or their Surf framework) out in the open where more people can contribute to it.

If this is what is happening, (and now I am really speculating) it could mean one of two things. One, Alfresco has reached a size and level of profitability that it can afford to let go of some immediate revenue to fuel some longer term growth. Two, Alfresco is less focused on creating a company with a tight grip on IP that it can quickly sell. Either way, I am very interested in how this plays out and will be watching for Alfresco components being released into an active development community.

Disclosure I do not have any inside information on Alfresco and am speculating based on what I read on the web. I may be (and probably am) totally wrong.

New Alfresco Review

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I am pleased to announce an updated version of my Open Source Web Content Management in Alfresco report. The report evaluates Alfresco Enterprise 3.1’s WCM capabilities for both traditional web publishing and as a framework for building dynamic web applications. Like all Content Here reports, Open Source Web Content Management in Alfresco is highly technical and gets into details that a potential buyer should know. In writing the update, I interviewed systems integrators and technology managers from customer companies for their candid opinions of the product and the software vendor. I have also personally evaluated Alfresco, supporting documentation, and third party books. I can safely say that you are not going to get a more thorough and unbiased evaluation of Alfresco anywhere — not even if you pay several times the $200 price.

Long time readers know that Open Source Web Content Management Alfresco was originally published in February 2008 as part of a larger report called Open Source Web Content Management in Java. Because all of the products reviewed in that report have undergone significant upgrades, I have been selling it at a deep discount. The front matter that explains the marketplace and significant portions of the evaluations are still accurate and relevant so I have decided to offer a bundled product consisting of the original report plus the updated Alfresco review for $400 — that is still 50% off of the original list price. As I complete updates to the different reviews, I will add them to the bundle and incrementally raise the price to the original full price.

If you are evaluating Alfresco for web content management, save yourself time and reduce your risk buy purchasing Open Source Web Content Management in Alfresco. If you work for a Java shop and are starting to consider open source alternatives to commercially licensed web content management software, consider the Open Source Web Content Management in Java bundle.

Jeff Potts explains the difference between Alfresco’s DM and AVM Repositories

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Jeff Potts has written an excellent article explaining the functional differences between Alfresco’s two different repositories (the original DM and the WCM). The enclosed chart is a useful cheat sheet that belongs on any Alfresco developers cubicle. Nice work Jeff!

For those of you who are new to Alfresco, the WCM repository (or AVM: Advanced Versioning Model) was introduced to the platform when Alfresco added web content management. The AVM is designed for managing structured XML content and does very cool things like snapshots and contributor “sandboxes.” But the AVM is slower than the original DM repository and has less powerful metadata capabilities. Typically, web content will be managed as XML in the AVM and then pushed over to a cluster of DM repositories to power a dynamic website.

Alfrescal

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

alfrescal

Jeff Potts recently announced the general availability of an integration between Drupal and Alfresco. The integration uses CMIS and could potentially connect Drupal to any CMIS compliant repository. While I would call this type of Drupal configuration experimental (that is, don’t try to run The Onion on it), it does show potential. Alfresco’s focus on web content management has been as an extension of internal collaboration (i.e. publishing internal knowledge assets out onto the web). Alfresco doesn’t have a strong vision on pure web publishing or hosting community websites. The front end delivery part of Alfresco is just emerging through its Surf framework. Drupal, conversely, is all about the front end. There is a similar Alfresco integration available for Joomla!, which provides a menu set that reads from an Alfresco repository. This integration also uses CMIS as an interface.

My main hesitation with recommending this configuration (or the Joomla! one for that matter) to my clients right now is that the Alfresco repository is not fast enough to be the runtime behind a high traffic website – certainly not the AVM and probably not the DM either right now. Most Alfresco powered websites publish flat HTML pages or push out the content as XML to be rendered by a de-coupled delivery tier (see deployment patterns). There is an integration that puts OpenCMS in front of Alfresco, but that works by replicating a folder in the repository over to the OpenCMS repository (see my write up here). That seems more scalable from a traffic perspective.

In the near term, I think that the best use for this integration is for customers who use Alfresco for their Intranet and want to publish some of their internally-managed documents out to low-traffic pages on their website (perhaps some PDFs of investor relations documents or job application forms). In the longer term, performance and scalability of the Alfresco repository are expected to improve. Performance is a key focus for the next releases (3.1 and 3.2). In particular, they are building the infrastructure for improved load testing so they can optimize for intensive concurrent access by thousands of users. These improvements will certainly make a fully Alfresco-backed, high traffic Drupal or Joomla! site more viable.

ECM Interview with Jean Marie Pascal

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Jean Marie Pascal, from Going to an OpenSource ECM World recently interviewed me about my thoughts on ECM and Open Source. JM has also done interviews with Jeff Potts from Optaros, Eric Barroca from Nuxeo, and Nancy Garrity from Alfresco. All of the interviews are rich with information about ECM and the unique perspectives of each of these individuals. Great idea Jean Marie!

Is it open source? Does it matter?

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Picture 4.png
Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

As potential customers start to evaluate open source software in the hopes of reducing costs, some are surprised to find the savings is not what they expected. This is not a “free puppy” scenario where the software is so “needy” that it costs you more to maintain it. Rather, this is a case of the products that commercial buyers are most likely to recognize and consider, operate and behave like commercial software companies. These high profile open source vendors are typically established with a substantial venture capital investment and have obligations to grow revenue quickly. They are building infrastructure (sales and marketing organizations, documentation, customer support) to compete with commercial products. They are careful about protecting their intellectual property. They pay salaries to people who don’t code.

The screen shot above shows part of the Alfresco registration screen that you need to fill out to get access to a trial download and various information about the product. Because they collect this information, they probably have the sales and marketing staff to contact the people who register. Not all commercial open source companies operate in this way. Many just put their stuff out there with the hopes that potential customers qualify themselves and come forward if they have a need that a business relationship (support, custom development, training, implementation resources, etc.) that the vendor can satisfy. Open source software companies are spread across a spectrum ranging from the classic commercial software model to something that more closely resembles community open source.

It is not surprising that commercial open source companies that behave like traditional software companies need to monetize their customers like traditional commercial software companies do. In many cases, these companies depend on selling commercially licensed versions of their software products. These products can be cheaper than their commercial competitors but they don’t have to be. In theory, the open source development model saves money by reusing free, externally developed components rather than building everything yourself. But this strategy is not exclusive to open source software vendors. Just look at the number of closed source web content management companies that use the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor or the Velocity template engine.

I have written blog posts (here and here) and reports describing the different twists on open source business models. These concepts are important to understand because they frame your role as a prospect and customer. The most common strategy is to sell a commercially licensed “Enterprise Edition” that you need to pay an annual subscription fee to use. The absence of an up front license cost is nice but, like with SaaS, the annual fees can add up. It is up to the vendor to decide what happens if you stop paying for the subscription.

Offering a free, open source licensed version of the software is what qualifies the vendor as an “open source software company.” But, depending on the company, this product (often called Community Edition), may either range from window dressing to a core part of their strategy. Some open source companies generate revenue by using their community edition to penetrate the market and create opportunities for other services such as training, support, or up-sell. Other companies actively discourage the use of their community edition products. How viable the community edition is for your business depends on both your requirements and how the software vendor treats the product.

If a software product has a commercial license or is otherwise identical to traditional commercial software, it doesn’t really matter that it is marketed as open source; it is commercial software. By extension, if a software vendor only really supports the commercial version of its product, it is a commercial software vendor regardless of how it markets itself. The industry is confusing this way because it classifies software not by the license of the software itself but by the claimed business model of the vendor. I have to admit that I am as guilty of this as the next guy.

If you have been looking for a traditionally licensed (closed-source) software product (with all of the benefits and costs that normally go along with a software purchase), why not consider the commercially licensed products from open source vendors? There is no reason why the services supporting the product would not be comparable to a similarly priced traditional commercial software product. From a sales support perspective, you can expect an experience that is comparable with a low-to-medium price ($30,000-$70,000) commercial application. You won’t get any Super Bowl tickets but you will get the attention of a sales engineer to help show you the benefits of the platform – at least over WebEx, in person if they are local or the deal is big enough.

If you are looking for an open source product that you can save money by self-supporting (with the help of a community), there may be some commercial open source products worth considering. Be aware of the positioning of the open source community edition. In some cases the community edition is intentionally unstable and unsupported but, in many cases, the community edition is production quality software that benefits from the investment in its commercial brother. Just don’t expect a commercial software sales experience.

Magnolia has a nice program for helping prospective customers evaluate their software. They have a commercially (visible source) licensed Enterprise Edition (EE) and a GPL licensed Community Edition (CE). Because CE is on the same code line and is tested the same as the more feature-rich EE, it is a legitimate option for real websites. Under Magnolia’s evaluation agreement, Magnolia staff will perform the role of a software sales organization by doing demonstrations and answering questions. In return the prospective customer agrees that, if they choose Magnolia, they purchase EE. This saves Magnolia the potential risk of investing a sale and having the customer turn around and go with the free version. Potential customers that are looking for a commercial software sales experience get one and are sold a commercial product. Customers who want to invest their time and explore the different options get supported through open source avenues (mailing lists, issue tracker, etc.).

Being branded and marketed as “open source” doesn’t make software inexpensive or good or bad. Open source business models simply create opportunities to unbundle the various aspects of a solution and package them in different ways. Open source vendors are experimenting with ways to package and charge for their solutions. Some companies are generating revenue from their free products, others are basing their businesses solely on their commercial products. These nuances may seem confusing to someone who is accustomed to simple comparisons of features and price in an otherwise homogenous marketplace. However, an understanding of these options is becoming increasing important to today’s software buyer.

Plone vs. MOSS

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Francesco Ciriaci has started a series comparing Plone and MOSS in response to a trend of companies choosing between these two platforms. This first article focuses on general features and licensing. Key differences are the obvious Microsoft dependency of MOSS (which could be a good or bad thing depending on your technology strategy), licensing costs, and the availability of modules.

Another usual suspect in a selection for an Intranet collaboration platform with some web publishing capabilities is Alfresco. The Alfresco marketing and engineering department have been beating on Microsoft’s door with their Share product. Alfresco also integrates with SharePoint by supporting the SharePoint Protocols.

While there is considerable functional overlap between these solutions, the pricing systems of these products are very different. Alfresco is sold through a per-CPU commercial licensing scheme (customers are advised not to use the free open source Community Edition). Typically this will work out to roughly 40K per year for a medium size company that actively uses the system. MOSS is sold on a per user basis. This is good for small to medium size companies but gets very expensive when MOSS spreads virally across very large companies (as it typically does). Plone is totally GPL licensed and has no recurring support fees (it can be somewhat difficult to find a commercial-style support program for Plone. Email me if you are looking for one. I know some people).

Review: Alfresco Developer Guide

Friday, December 12th, 2008

I just finished reading Jeff Pott’s new book Alfresco Developer Guide. If you have been looking for a technical book on how to develop applications on top of the Alfresco platform, this is it. Jeff wastes little time introducing abstract content management concepts or explaining the user interface, he digs right into setting up your local development environment. I like this approach but it assumes a solid foundation in both ECM and Java – if you don’t have one, there are plenty of other books to start with. The expectation of some baseline knowledge saves the book from getting bogged down with introducing Spring, jBPM, and many of the other popular Java frameworks and components that make up Alfresco.

The book is written with a bias toward the document management end of the ECM spectrum but that makes sense for a book about Alfresco. Only one chapter (out of 9) is devoted to Alfresco’s WCM component. The core strength of book is how it teaches developer to build dynamic web applications and services that access documents from the Alfresco repository (which may be the core strength of Alfresco too). There is great coverage on Alfresco’s Web Scripts framework with plenty of interesting examples that showcase the flexibility of the platform. For example, there is a nice description of how to create an AJAX document rating widget you could put on another website.

Jeff’s writing style is both thorough and readable. He has a nice technique of pulling up and explaining details in “What Just Happened?” sections. This allows him to run cleanly through a topic and then summarize and discuss some of the nuances of the steps.

Unfortunately for Jeff, his book (which covers 2.2 of the Enterprise Edition) came out right around the time version 3.0 was released. However, since he writes mainly about the API level, the book will stay relevant and accurate longer (Luckily API’s can’t change as fast as user interfaces). So, if you are a Java developer and are considering using Alfresco for building a “document centric web application,” this book will help.

Alfresco 3.0 Enterprise is Out

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

It looks like the much anticipated version 3.0 of Alfresco Enterprise Edition is out. I have been looking forward to this release after seeing so much promise in the Community “lab” version. I’m going to register for a 30 day free trial as soon as I get back from Denmark.

Kevin Cochrane Joins Day

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

I was just on the Day Software site and noticed that Kevin Cochrane (who had left Interwoven to join Alfresco) joined Day as their Chief Marketing Officer. This seems like a great fit. Kevin can contribute to Day’s already very strong commercial open source strategy (Day is a primary contributor to Apache JackRabbit) and will probably help Day build a U.S. presence. Day’s focus on web content management is much greater than Alfresco’s so Kevin will probably enjoy more influence in the Day culture. The big question is whether Kevin will bring with him some of his other Interwoven/Alfresco team. Day already has a star-studded technology team and a very strong, standards based content repository.

I am looking forward to seeing Kevin’s contributions at Day.