I’m Befuddled…
I just got back from a business trip where I chatted with the technical team from a prospect about their product selection process for a content repository and although they’re very interested in Alfresco, the business users opted for a “traditional”/”closed source” CMS instead of Alfresco. It seems that there’s an impression that Alfresco, being open source, is somehow more risky than a basic content repository from “big red“…
Suffice it to say that I’m confused…
October 17th, 2006 at 7:38 am
I’ve heard the same where I am. We asked if they had looked at Alfresco and they said that they are only looking at commercial products!?!
October 17th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Indeed… This is an example of a common misconception that Open Source somehow equates to poor quality, lack of support, etc. Given that Alfresco was designed by the former co-founder of Documentum and developed by a core team for former Documentum and Interwoven engineers, we need to dispel any myths related to this. Having worked at other ECM companies, I know full-well that Alfresco offers the same core capabilities and reliability as the “other guys”.
I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we need to continue working on this and show that commercial open source products are just as reliable (if not more so) than more “traditional” proprietary companies/products.
I don’t mind being dinged a little on company viability (we’re still a startup after all) but being open source is a badge of pride, not shame.