Good (and Busy) Times Ahead
As the sun sets on my (lucky?) 13th week at Alfresco, I find myself reflecting on what has been and what will be. Things have been going phenomenally well here, and I must confess that I haven’t been this busy since the early days of my first startup, Epicentric. The best part is that I haven’t had this much fun in a very long time. I’m gratified to publicly say that I LOVE MY JOB!
The last few years I had grown very disappointed (and perhaps embittered) by my previous employers’ inability to fully integrate the different ECM products they had acquired over the years. They suffered from what I call the “too many repositories” problem; a situation where every technology they bought, although based on a seemingly common platform (Java/J2EE) had its own repository and offered a varied mix of APIs that proved a challenge to integrate. To this, we add a growing list of dissatisfied customers, some of which are being forced to upgrade to a completely new architecture of the because the version they were currently using was being retired. I honestly felt guilty having to sit in front of these customers and tell them they would most likely have to engage in very expensive professional services (conveniently provided by my former employer) to “successfully” accomplish an upgrade/migration. Considering these customers paid anything between $300,000 and $2,000,000 in licenses (not including 20% in maintenance), one would expect a little more, wouldn’t you?
Why am I sharing all this? The answer is rather simple; I feel Alfresco is different. The product benefits from a modern architecture developed by a group of brilliant people who have been through this before and understand what the customer pain points are. Also, Alfresco is designed with the intent of obviating the need for different (and incompatible) repositories.
I’ve lost count of the number of customers and prospects who have complimented our product and the way we do business. That’s really the best part! It is truly refreshing to work in such a transparent way. No secrets, no hiding the facts, it’s all out there. My job is to listen to our customers and work with them to determine if Alfresco is well suited to solve their problems.
Of course, there’s always the possibility things might change, but I highly doubt it. Although we’re here to make money, we’re also committed to the success of our customers and partners. Open source affords us a means to trim the fat off the “traditional” enterprise software model and focus on delivering a solution that works. This may sound like a bunch of marketing baloney, but I speak from the heart. I’m glad I can once again look at my customers straight in the eye comforted in the fact that I have nothing to hide.
To my friends and former colleagues in the”other” ECM companies, I have to say “You don’t know what you’re missing!”
Your thoughts and comments are always welcome.
