Jan 27, 2009
I talk to a lot of web content management software vendors and open source project leaders and it seems like most of them are working on some kind of "knowledge worker collaboration portal" - a SharePoint killer. At first they avoid this comparison (nobody likes to openly challenge Microsoft on its home turf; even now in the era of "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac"). But eventually, they admit that is exactly what they are doing.
To be honest, I don't blame them. There is something very compelling about building a knowledge worker collaboration portal. Portal technology has been a solution looking for a problem [1]. Knowledge worker information management ("knowledge management") has been a business problem that has confounded technology for ages and only seems to get worse as the sea of unmanaged information grows. A "knowledge sharing portal" is a logical union of solution and problem and the success of SharePoint practically proves it. Who doesn't want a piece of that action?
Ingeniux's new Cartella product
Still, this does not mean that information management problems are on the verge of extinction. Even SharePoint's most ardent advocates concede that companies cannot cleanly codify all of its corporate intelligence with SharePoint alone. That takes governance, discipline, and investment beyond technology. But since implementing technology is always easier than affecting profound organizational change, there will always be a market for tools that promise miraculous results - just as there is always a market for easy weight loss programs and pills. These false promises of quick fixes have kept technology companies in business for years.
Even though market demand is huge, competing against SharePoint is not easy. For small to medium size companies and (especially) non-profits, it is hard to beat SharePoint on price. It is also hard to make the case about proprietary technology and lock-in to a potential customer that lives in Microsoft Office (as most knowledge workers do). Right now, alternatives to SharePoint are most attractive to companies that want to avoid building competencies in managing Microsoft servers and .NET development. It is going to take some bigger disruptions to minimize Microsoft's competitive advantage as a collaboration tool for the mass market. The big thing to look out for is a reduced supremacy of Microsoft Office file formats. This could be from an increased adoption of the Open Document format or it could be through a transition to "file-less" server side information storage like wikis or Google Docs. Until that happens, SharePoint killers will have the biggest success with companies that are reducing their use of Microsoft technologies on principle and with very large companies that are punished by Microsoft's per user licensing model. This is still a sizable market but hardly a threat to MOSS's core territory.
Notes:
[1] I can't even count the times that clients have initially used the word "portal" to describe their projects and later find that what they are looking for is just a regular informational website. Not a portal.
Jan 26, 2009
It's official. Version 7, a near-total rewrite of Hippo CMS, is now GA. Hippo CMS 7, formerly called ECM 1.0, is based on newer technologies Apache Wicket and JackRabbit. This new architecture gets Hippo off of the complicated, difficult to learn Cocoon framework and the retired Apache Slide project.
One thing that I particularly like is that they have achieved a compromise between the JCR's inherent hierarchical organization and a more free form faceted navigation. Hippo CMS 7 is designed for high content volume websites and shows a lot of thinking in this area. The faceted filters can be used at the API level by developers building websites on the platform. Unfortunately, this functionality has not yet been surfaced in the user interface.
As with earlier versions of Hippo, version 7's architecture has a clean separation between the repository, the management application and the front end delivery tier. Hippo CMS 7 gives developers a bit more of a starting point for building a front end website by shipping with a JSP tag library refers to display components managed in the CMS. Developers are still free to roll their own delivery tier using whatever display technology they choose. The standards-based Java Content Repository, plus frameworks like Sling, will make custom Hippo powered websites easier to build.
Hippo CMS 7 has a plugins framework that facilitates adding new functionality to the platform. There Hippo Forge site will be a place for the community to share their components and tools. These plugins surface on the dashboard and in other areas of UI and are better encapsulated than Hippo 6.x customizations.
On the UI side, Hippo CMS 7 shares some basic concepts with earlier versions of the platform. Version 6.x users will recognize the stateful tabs but will appreciate a new three column layout that allows a user to browse the repository and edit multiple content items at once (see screenshot). There are several other AJAX-enabled goodies like type-ahead search and linking and image placement through drag and drop. If you have seen Day's new CQ5 UI, there are some similarities there. In fact, an alpha of Hippo CMS 7 won second place in the Web Idol demo competition at the jboye08 conference last November. Hippo has plans to create specialized versions of the user interface to optimize the usability for specific user segments. For example, they are working on a user interface view that is optimized for power users on wide-screen displays that will maximize the use of the multi-column layout.
Being a new product, there only 2 customers live on Hippo CMS 7. Two more implementations are in progress. The documentation is not going to win Pulitzer but I have found the mailing lists to be very helpful. If you like what you see, I would recommend setting up some kind of arrangement with the Hippo team where they work closely with your implementation and they can submit fixes/improvements back into the core. Current 6.x customers will be supported by a dedicated V6 team who will maintain the platform with fixes and minor enhancements. No new support contracts will be sold for V6.
This is a big release for Hippo CMS. Usability-wise, there are significant improvements - particularly for power users managing large content repositories. Architecturally, CMS 7 offers a more modern technology stack that flattens the learning curve and enables more efficient development of the product. With a couple of successful implementations on the 7.x series, Hippo CMS may get it some deserved attention (particularly in North America where it is not widely known).
Jan 26, 2009
Angie Byron, has wonderful post on approaches to contributing to an open source project. She makes her point in parallel stories of an outgoing developer who puts a lot of intermediate versions of her code for public review and a perfectionist who holds back code that is not finished. Through the narratives, Angie shows how submitting lots of code helps leverage the collective knowledge of the community to learn better programming skills. Submitting code and interacting with the community also helps a developer build relationships with other developers who will be more likely to help her out.
With all of the focus on cost savings and intellectual property, the educational aspect of open source software is frequently overlooked - at least by business decision makers who have no idea how poorly written their in-house developed code is. Open source software has advantages over in-house software that extend beyond simply having more programmers eyes on the code; the ability to interact with similarly inspired developers across corporate boundaries can be a huge benefit that translates into professional development and job satisfaction. Of course, this value does not come for free. Like any other activity that builds skills, working on open source takes time. A manager should consider the educational aspects of open source software when developing a professional development program for his/her technology team. If you think of the time and expense of going to a traditional conference where a developer will, at best sit passively through conference sessions, working collaboratively on a real project either remotely or with developers at a sprint. This does not have to be limited to open source software but the open source licensing model certainly helps. There are some commercial products with active developer communities modeled after open source communities that share code and interact. If you have a large in-house development team, consider practices like pair programming, commit mailing lists, and code reviews that help turn programming into more of an open, collaborative effort.
A tale of two developers belongs on my "all time" open source reading list. Thanks Angie!
Jan 23, 2009
While I was heads down working yesterday Autonomy announced that it will be acquiring Intwerwoven. I must say that for the past year or so Interwoven has been behaving like a company that wants to get acquired (little investment in the product, super-aggressive sales to existing and new customers) but I didn't expect Autonomy to be the buyer. I guess I expected one of the middleware or hardware vendors to step in - one of those "up the stack" plays.
From a philosophical point of view, having a search vendor own a CMS feels a bit strange - a little like the tail wagging the dog. It used to be that the search vendors were the acquisition targets. How does an independent search vendor continue to partner (and integrate) with CMS vendors after they become a competitor? I wonder what this means to Autonomy's OEM business. For a while Verity (since acquired by Autonomy) depended heavily on OEM deals. I would expect that the OEM market for search components is in decline with the widespread use Apache Lucene. But I am sure that there are other partnerships and business opportunities that this acquisition would risk. This probably creates opportunities for the middle tier search companies to step into partnerships that Autonomy has walked out of.
Jan 20, 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!
Jan 19, 2009
Janus Boye has a great post on negotiating contracts with vendors. I usually try to keep myself out of contract negotiation but occasionally I am asked advice. I agree with everything Janus says and would only add that if you try (and are able) to take advantage of a vendor, it does not bode well for your future relationship. Like I have heard Graham Oakes say, if you don't try to make the deal a win-win, you will probably wind up being on the losing end of the deal. Hopefully, if you have gotten to the negotiation stage, you have found that you can work with vendor and can mutually benefit from doing business together. Work collaboratively to construct a deal that benefits both parties.
Jan 19, 2009
The Drupal 7 Usability Team is doing usability tests at the University of Baltimore. Drupal is one of the few open source content management projects that does formal usability testing and is so public about the results. Here is a nice short vlog showing Dries' reaction to usability testing done last year on Drupal 6 at the University of Minnesota. It shows how he took in the information, his surprise, and how he resolved to make adjustments. Also nice heatmap diagram of where the users looked.
Jan 15, 2009
The Plone Foundation, the non-profit that owns the Plone copyright and manages the Plone project, has initiated a program where Plone consultancies can sponsor the Plone project. In return for a $500 sponsorship fee, a sponsor will get its company logo placed on the Plone.net site (Plone.net is targeted at business people evaluating and using Plone) and the ability to place a Plone sponsor badge on its site. Premium sponsors will be placed on the top of the plone.net search results.
I think this is a good move for the Plone Foundation. It accomplishes the goals of helping Plone consultancies become more visible and it provides funding for all the great work that the Plone Foundation does. The $500 sponsorship fee is modest enough for individual practitioners to handle - especially considering all the benefit they get from being part of the Plone community.
Jan 13, 2009
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.
Jan 11, 2009
Nuxeo's Ian Smith has a great post about what it takes to be successful in open source software. The general premise is that most of the "analysis", "algorithms" and "design" skills that one learns in computer science programs are less relevant now that you can assemble applications out of various components. To be a good open source developer, Ian writes, one has to excel at interpreting information about software, understanding what components are likely to work nicely together, communicating, and knowing the landscape of different open source sources. Ian has a great picture showing the dependencies of 100's of components and makes the point that selecting and managing these disparate technologies is a real challenge for a modern software vendor.
The argument reminds me of a theme that I have been hearing since I entered the industry: how much technical understanding of the underlying technology is required to be an effective user of that technology. When I started, purists were skeptical of computer science degrees. They wanted hard core electrical engineers that understood computer design and function at the most primitive levels. Later, computer science degrees were considered a requirement. Of course, with my undergraduate education in English Literature and Economics and my graduate work in Environmental Management, I kept pretty quiet on the subject[1]. My current feeling is that, to be effective, you always need to more than what was included in the formal education of your curriculum. Ian probably takes for granted all of the "'analysis,' 'algorithms,' and 'design'" skills that he learned in school as he struggled up the learning curve of his job as an open source developer. Someone without Ian's computer science training (like me) would have to pay his dues getting a computer science degree equivalency on the job. As a technologist that assembles components, you do need to dip into the code and understand how things work. Sometimes the glue that holds things together requires some well conceived engineering too.
The big idea in this post is not about the training of the individual but about how companies compete. When the parts are freely available, the competitive advantage hinges on what components and frameworks to use and how to manage the un-synchronized life-cycles of all that software. Configuration and release management becomes immensely complicated with all those moving parts and the companies that can manage that complexity will have a clear advantage. As companies shift their emphasis from developing to assembling, this challenge will become a more visible issue in the industry.
[1] My journey from those disciplines to my current career is a long story.
