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