alfresco: the story of how open source disrupted the ecm market
DESCRIPTION
The early 90's saw the rise of powerful, inexpensive team collaboration software on one hand and huge document management systems on the other. Open source and cloud have brought us full circle. Today's businesses can implement extremely powerful productivity enhancing solutions quickly and easily. Alfresco capitalized on this trend. It used open source to get to the market quickly. It delivered functionality on par with legacy ECM as open source. Today, however, it is not just an open source alternative to things like Documentum and SharePoint, it is a visionary in the ECM market. This presentation tells that story, putting into context the things happening in ECM, collaboration, open source, and cloud from the 1990's to present day.TRANSCRIPT
Alfresco: The Story of How Open Source Disrupted the ECM MarketJeff Potts, Chief Community Officer
Alfresco is the second largest, privately held, pure play, open source company in the world after Red Hat.
The Roaring 1990’sHoward Shao & John Newton create Documentum
“Groupware” and team collaboration software is hot
Linus Torvalds open sources the kernel
Aggressively goes after Pharma
Re-branding of Free Software as Open Source
EDMS released in 1993
DCTM goes public in 1996
Lotus buys Iris Associates for $84 millionIBM buys Lotus for $3.5 billion
Quick & easy dev, without IT
Apache Web ServerNetscape goes open source
No one realizes at the time, but these three threads are on a collision course that would disrupt an entire industry.
The first half of the 2000’s
Documentum 4i is web-native
Team collab software starts to be used for low-end DM needs, WCM
IBM embraces Linux
Documentum 5 adds extensible content types, BPM
EMC acquires Documentum for $1.7 billion in 2003
Documentum acquires eRoom
Intranets
SharePoint Recession focuses IT on value
Basecamp launches, 2004
Salesforce.com IPO, 2004
Sun Java Web Server becomes Tomcat
Red Hat goes public
They threw great parties
But, there were a few problems…
Problem #1: Cost
$X,XXX,XXX Up-front license
$XXX,XXX Maintenance
$X,XXX,XXX Services
Too Much!And it still doesn’t do exactly what we need it to do
Problem #2: Transparency
Problem #3: No source code
Meanwhile, back in the lab…
Where are you, ECM?
What client conversations about Open Source felt like in the early 2000’s
One fine day, a blog post
Alfresco: Open Source ECMBuilt with open source, shipped as
open sourceA “real” software companyFounders had major ECM and
commercial software credExample of open source “moving up
the stack”Set to commoditize the ECM industry
Second half of the 2000’s
Facebook opens to everyone, 2006
Android unveiled
Alfresco 1.0 released in 2005
Reaches 1 million downloads
1.4 adds jBPM in 2006
Twitter tipping point
Andrew McAfee coins “Enterprise 2.0”
John Newton & John Powell create Alfresco
John Newton clarifies Open Source strategy
Ubuntu FoundationAmazon Web Services launches, 2006Open Source web frameworks
Alfresco Founders
John Newton, CTO & Chairman John Powell, Board Member & Co-Founder
The 2010’s, thus farAlfresco launches iOS client as OSS
Dropbox has 50 million users, $240 million in revenue in 2011
Rackspace and NASA launch OpenStack, 2010
Alfresco launches SaaS offering, 2012
Simple file sharing warsSharePoint 2013 upgrades look tricky
Alfresco 4.0
Alfresco acquires WeWebU
Red Hat OpenShift, 2011
Github gets bigQuick & easy dev, without IT
Perfect timing
The market wants• Openness• Ease of integration• Friendly, modern interfaces on any
device• RESTful APIs• Social features• File sharing• Cloud• Scale
That’s n
ot
Legacy
ECM!
Today’s Open Culture…
Makes proprietary seem out-of-touchOld School Proprietary… Alfresco…
Reinvents the wheel Leverages “upstream” open source components to build our products
Limits early exposure to their products Releases early and often to get as much feedback as possible
Hides bugs, roadmap, & documentation
Manages issues in the open, updates the roadmap, provides public access to docs
Holds customers hostage, using lock-in to extort obscene profits
Earns customers’ business every year, shows confidence by providing a free alternative, flexible in how we’re deployed
Treats source code as a closely-held secret
Shares all source code openly to promote collaboration, quality, integration, and innovation
Market forces
Collaboration
Open Source
SharePoint
Consum
erizationC
ompliance
Recessions
Government Regulation
Ope
n C
ultu
re
Cloud Mobile Workplace
Alfresco todayMillions of downloads & installationsThousands of paying customersPartners & customers defecting from
legacy ECMAlfresco leading the way on industry-
wide ECM standard (CMIS)
Annualized Revenue
Consistent Quarter-over-Quarter Growth
Book
ings
in U
SD
Visionary ECMGartner Magic Quadrant for ECM (2010)Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM (2012)
Some challenges
Early accusations of not being “true” open source
Community Edition versus Enterprise Edition differentiation
Shift in sales mentality from inbound to outbound model
Open source no longer a compelling go-to-market message on its own
Cloud as the preferred trial mechanism
Enterprise Edition IncludesClusteringSupport for Enterprise databasesSupport for Enterprise app serversJMXStorage policiesJOD ConnectorTransformation Server
Where do we go from here?
Worldwide excitement
Active Alfresco forum users by location, November 2012
You Could be a Star
An engaged community…
Fighting against software tyranny!
• Helping out in the forums• Editing the wiki• Writing blog posts• Listing Add-Ons• Becoming Registered
Developers• Starting open source projects
• Downloading Community & Enterprise Trials
• Reporting bugs• Organizing meetups• Hanging out in #alfresco• Sticking it to the man
As our platform evolves, so too will our communityMore SaaS
• Alfresco in the Cloud
• Hybrid ECM
More mobileMore APIs
More Solutions
More end-users
New developersNew programming
languages & frameworks
More outreach to business users
Alfresco bridges the gap
Legacy ECM
(On-Premise)
Simple File Sharing Startups
(Cloud)AlfrescoHybrid ECM
Before I wrap-up, two quick plugs
CMIS: Important ECM standard for interoperabilityEverything you need
to know about CMIS 1.0 & 1.1
Lots of Groovy and Java examples
Also covers Python, Android, & iOS
Now on MEAP!37%-off: 12cmisal
Alfresco Summit
Barcelona, Nov 4 - Nov 7Boston, Nov 12 - Nov 15
The mission of the Alfresco Summit is to be a key enabler of success for anyone doing anything with our software products by facilitating discussion, collaboration, and discovery around both technical and non-technical topics related to Enterprise Content Management.
Summary
The democratization of IT began with desktops and groupware and today is realized through open source and cloud
Alfresco capitalized on this trend by• Getting to market quickly by leveraging
open source• Backing open source innovation with
commercial software know-how/drive• Undermining legacy vendor positions
with heavy price pressure
Thank You!
Jeff PottsBlog: http://ecmarchitect.comTwitter: @jeffpotts01