FUD
Sitecore FUD
Recently Sitecore, a vendor of a proprietary CMS, published a white paper called "The Siren Song of Open Source CMS". It has some good old Open Source FUD.
"In Greek mythology, the Sirens were seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices, only to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. In the world of enterprise software, Open Source applications have an appeal that many companies find hard to resist, but if heeded, can lead to similarly disastrous results: runaway development costs, unpredictable delays, frustratingly slow responses to urgent support issues, and exponential growth in downstream upgrade and enhancement costs."
In this case they enrolled the CEO of a digital agency to say all the FUD, as if that would either lend additional credibility to the FUD, or behind which they could hide their own feelings:
"As it happened, after several successful experiences using WordPress (an open blogging platform) and Drupal (an Open Source CMS application) in small-scale deployments, agencyQ experimented with using Drupal for larger, enterprise-caliber sites. … We quickly discovered that Drupal's capabilities were a mile wide and an inch deep."
Attempting a complex implementation with any platform with only limited experience in simple sites really just reveals the inexperience of the implementer rather than the limits of Drupal. The whitehouse.gov site shows all by itself that Drupal can scale to high-profile, high-function, high-volume websites.
"Lack of support has a ripple effect across an Open Source CMS project", Breen says. "Because you are starting with a blank slate, in terms of your system's functionality, anything can happen. And when issues arise, the absence of responsive support means that deadlines slip. As a service-driven agency, that is simply not good for business. … It all comes down to accountability, about which Breen jokes, "In high tech there is an old saying that salespeople invoke when they want to be your sole-source provider: 'You want one throat to choke.' While that's pretty graphic, it gets to the point: When something's not working with software, I need one number to call, one person to speak to who's going to help me."
I take offense to the notion that there is no good support for an Open Source CMS. With Drupal, enterprises can look to Acquia for the "one throat to choke", or can tap into a community of 600,000 developers if they want breadth.
"After making a concerted effort to work with an Open Source CMS, non-existent support was the last straw with what Breen found to be Open Source's extremely expensive total cost of ownership (TCO). In website development projects, CMS software costs typically comprise 5% of the total implementation costs. "But by saving 5% in software costs by choosing an Open Source CMS, you drive up the 95% of the 'other' costs significantly. That's not a good value equation, by any measure", he says."
The numbers in their own white paper don't add up. They suggest that Sitecore licenses only represent 5% of the project's total implementation cost. We know from analyst firm Real Story Group that the Sitecore license component of a deal is $100,000 on average. That means that the average Sitecore project costs $2 million? That is much more than the average Drupal project.
Where have you seen this kind of FUD before? From any proprietary software vendor that is starting to feel competitive blows from an Open Source alternative. I see this white paper as a victory for Open Source and Drupal as they are being forced to call us out. Drupal is hurting them. Sitecore has reasons to be afraid.
Maybe the Siren that Sitecore is hearing is from the ambulance they've called for help? ;-)
Clickability FUD on Open Source versus SaaS
Clickability, a proprietary SaaS platform for content management, has compared SaaS to Open Source. Not only is the comparison inaccurate, it omits the downsides of SaaS and frankly, they are comparing apples to oranges. Open Source is a licensing and development model, SaaS is a software delivery model. Either they are distorting things on purpose, or they don't understand Open Source at all. In other words, time to look at some good ol' FUD and to share my take on Open Source versus SaaS.
To give you a sample of their comparison, take Clickability's take on integration:
Screenshot taken from Clickability's SaaS vs Open Source comparison.
One of the biggest advantages of using Open Source software is that there are no limits on what services you are "allowed" to integrate it with. Given the number of sites that Drupal powers and the size and strength of the Drupal project, official integrations with other software and service vendors are abundant for Drupal. If you need integration, for example, with a highly specialized, niche product or web service, it may already exist among the 6,000 contributed modules for Drupal. If it doesn't, you are free to create it yourself. The same is true for other Open Source projects. Good luck getting that into the development cycle of a proprietary SaaS platform.
In many ways, Open Source is actually less risky than putting all your eggs in a single proprietary-software-basket. If you are unhappy with a particular Open Source company or service, you can take all the code and go to the next company.
Or take their section on hosting and performance:
Screenshot taken from Clickability's SaaS vs Open Source comparison.
I won't even begin to debunk what they write on self-hosting -- it doesn't have anything to do with being Open Source. Suffice to say that the great thing about FUD is that it validates our work in the Open Source community. They wouldn't have such a comparison page if they weren't worried about Open Source disrupting or slowing down their business.
My take on Open Source versus SaaS?
It is true that SaaS enables organizations to save money on hardware, configuration efforts and avoid hosting and maintenance hassles. However, proprietary SaaS vendors like Clickability need to ask themselves what happens when we start building SaaS solutions based on Open Source values. Open Source SaaS offerings, like Acquia's Drupal Gardens offer the convenience and support of SaaS multiplied by the benefits of Open Source.
Drupal Commons, meet Jive Software
DrupalCon San Francisco didn't even start, and already we have a first announcement to make! If you follow the Acquia blog, you might have read that we've begun building a free Drupal distribution, named "Drupal Commons", to go after social business software such as Jive Software. Drupal Commons will integrate groups, discussion forums, blogs, wikis, events into a single packaged solution. If you need a communication or collaboration website, or a corporate social network, Drupal Commons might be for you.
Over the last few months, I talked to a lot of Drupal users, customers and Drupal development shops, and it is clear that many of them need a distribution like Drupal Commons, but that the lack of a prepackaged solution was holding them back. Enterprise users weren't 100% sure Drupal could do what they needed it to do and had trouble convincing their boss about Drupal, and Drupal development shops and system integrators struggled convincing their customers without spending weeks building a functional prototype. In some cases, Drupal is too much of a framework.
We've only started working on Drupal Commons a few weeks ago, so we obviously have a long way to go. However, we've put together a little demo video of what we have today to give you a sense of what direction we're heading in. As soon we have a base version working, we'll share it on drupal.org under terms of the GPL like any other Drupal distribution. We hope others will join us in helping to build Drupal Commons.
Drupal Commons is also a good response to some of the FUD that Jive Software has been spreading about Open Source software, and Drupal in particular. The screenshot below, taken from a Jive Software whitepaper, shows how they position themselves against Drupal, and how they justify charging million dollar license fees to their customers. I don't know about you, but we'd love to show how Drupal can run circles around Jive SBS for a lot less money.
A screenshot from Jive Software's whitepaper called: "The unique advantage of Jive Social Business Software over Open Source Software".
Last but not least, I've been supporting and championing distributions since 2006, and I still firmly believe Drupal distributions will be critical to Drupal's success. Without Drupal distributions, we won't be able to successfully compete with commercial vendors. Drupal distributions have great potential, but we have to do them right, and we have to figure out how to make them sustainable. By building a distribution ourselves, I hope to learn a lot, both on the technical side and on the business side. We already have a number of ideas, and will be announcing some of these shortly. Stay tuned!
Open Source and Free Puppies
Seth Gottlieb reported that Annie Weinberger of Interwoven, a proprietary CMS vendor, launched some good old Open Source FUD comparing Open Source to a free puppy:
"We look differently at the cardboard box full of free puppies outside the super market once we become adults. As children what could be more fun than to get a puppy who is going to be your friend for life? Why not mom…it’s FREE!! But as adults we have learned the truth. We know that taking home that puppy is going to cost us in the end. The free price tag hides all the costs we are going to spend on food, training, shots, and a new couch once the puppy discovers you are not coming home at 5:00 every night to walk him. Open source WCM solutions are very similar. The free price tag is attractive at first, but for online strategies that have multiple initiatives (intranet, extranet, portal, landing pages, micro-sites, etc.), the hidden fees lie in the heavy customization, maintenance and engineering work."
Puppy analogies -- especially those with free puppies -- are powerful stuff.
Is Open Source more expensive than proprietary systems? It depends. You can't generalize. Open Source implementations can be more expensive if you try to bend the software too much. However, you don't have to be a genius to understand that because there are no licensing costs, Open Source has the potential to be much cheaper than proprietary solutions, and that Open Source solutions come with freedom and flexibility not found in proprietary products. Implementation cost is an important factor, but it is in providing freedom and flexibility that Open Source wins and commercial vendors lose. Open Source puppies are "free" as in "free speechbark".
One thing is for sure: puppies attract attention; these days, Open Source does as well and proprietary vendors tend to be of the jealous type.
The great thing about FUD, though, is that it validates our work in the Open Source community. Blog posts like Annie's trigger the competitive gene in hundreds of Open Source developers around the world, and in the end, makes Drupal stronger.
A free puppy, anyone?
