Open Source entering the ECM Market

Trends in the software market

In the last couple of years, Open Source has become more widely adopted then ever before. Open Source has been popular with non-profit organisations for budgetary reasons, and in the governmental segment for philosophical reasons. We now see that also in the enterprise market, the Open Source movement has found some traction.

One of the reasons is that Open Source fits nicely with the new delivery and adoption model enabled by the Internet. People are able to discover software through blogs, search engines, keyword-based advertising and word of mouth. They can download the software for free and try it out. If it's easy to use and meets their needs, they might use it. If not, they won't.

Another reason is the fact that specific Open Source projects are being embraced by organisations who deliver the much needed and necessary support foundations: documentation, installation procedures and enterprise grade support.

There are two models for these organizations: non-profit (and really adhere the 'Volunteer model' like the Apache Software foundation) or commercial. Especially the commercial model seems to be gaining attention during the last couple of years. When a commercial company like RedHat started to offer support services for the Linux OS, this fuelled the major acceptance of Linux within the Enterprise market. The same model was quickly copied by companies like MySQL and JBoss. Sure, these still offer a free version of their software where you can see and alter the source code but if you want to have enterprise grade support, you need to buy a support subscription. These new 'commercial open source' players have brought in a viable model which can be considered as a hybrid between open source and traditional licensed software. This will certainly have its effect on the whole software market in the years to come.

Open Source within Enterprise Content Management?

What about Open Source within the content management space? Well, just like there are hundreds of commercial content management software products, there are numerous open source content management projects. On the whole, most of these projects are geared primarily for Web Content Management, rather than for more general Enterprise Content Management (ECM). But that is starting to change. In October 2005, Alfresco was launched as "the first open source ECM" product. Alfresco immediately got massive attention: not the least because the founders of the company were John Newton, the co-founder of Documentum (now part of EMC) and former COO of Business Objects, John Powell. The initial product release focuses on document management but other disciplines like web content management, records management, collaboration and imaging are also planned. Alfresco clearly falls in the category of 'commercial open source'. There is a free version available but most organizations will prefer the Enterprise version which requires a CPU-based annual subscription.

Is open source ECM a viable long-term solution? The currently available platforms lack the highly advanced features of some high-end ECM platforms, but maybe you don't need these features? Or maybe you want to have access to the source code and be able to modify and customize it to your specific needs? And there are the specific market segments - like government - which clearly favour open source.

So yes, one may assume that open source ECM is here to stay. Especially the 'commercial open source' model seems to be getting popular. And with more traditional software vendors starting to offer rental-like license agreements, one can wonder if the 2 models are just not going to converge one day?

Amplexor Webwatch - Useful ECM resources on the Web

Four modes of seeking information

The concepts of "known-item" and "exploratory information seeking" are common in the library and information science literature. Information architect Donna Maurer identified two additional modes which didn't fit into the two previous concepts: "don't know what you need to know" and "re-finding".
(Source: Boxes and Arrows by Donna Maurer)

ECM + Enterprise Search + Business Intelligence: convergence on it's way?

ECM's ability to handle semi-structured data in diverse document formats, team collaboration, support for ad hoc working groups, and knowledge management are of growing interest in the world of Business Intelligence.
Business intelligence tools also support structured queries into known information sources such as a company database. Enterprise search tools, in contrast, are more free-form. Users may not know exactly what they're looking for--the process of discovery, in fact, can be just as important as getting the final answer--and the data source may not be known.
These 2 elements might point to a convergence between the different worlds.
(Source: Intelligent Enterprise by Jacques Surveyer and id. by Rick Whiting)

The people who could sabotage your ECM project

ECM project teams are mostly focusing on properly selecting ECM tooling and on other technical aspects of the project. But the team should also guard itself against the people lurking in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to sabotage its project.
Some important tips for Enterprise Content Management Project Success.
(Source: comments on The Content Wrangler, by Brian Buehling)