Posts Tagged ‘nuxeo’

Quick Wrap on Nuxeo World 2010

December 2nd, 2010

About 1 week ago we held the first edition of Nuxeo World, our international conference. More than 140 participants from 8 different countries got together at the charming Théatre des Variétés, a century-old theater in the heart of the city. Regardless of some quirks inherent to any “debut”, we got a tremendous feedback from participants and I’m really pleased by this.

Plus we got a great professional stage and a beautiful room! A “Steve Jobs moment” for each presenter guaranteed. ;-) Will definitely reuse the venue, and there is room for a lot more attendees next year.

I was pleased to see our customers and partners engage with our tech teams. Our developers loved it (even if some were a bit skeptical at first). I’m sure the exchange will continue after the event and ignite new innovations. I know our dev teams have already planned some customer visits to better plan the work ahead and synch with external contributors. Yes, work happens outside the company when practicing open source! I love when our developers directly engage with our customers’ teams. I hoped it would happen and pleased it did. No doubts it will inspire more innovation over the months ahead.

I’ve also been positively impressed by the level of talks from all presenters, especially since few of us are used to present on a stage half the size of a basketball field.

We got great content to expose many aspect of our company and offering a unique insight about what we’ve done, how we do things, what’s keeping us busy and what’s next. I highly recommend to check out the slide decks and react on the content. We talked about the roadmap for 2011, (stunning) performances, agile, mobility, market trends, digital assets, case management, more OSGi, semantic technologies, CMIS, Nuxeo Studio, and much more…

I’m very grateful to our customers and partners that took the time to come and show their achievements, I know it’s an important time investment and we value it highly. Damien Metzler from Leroy Merlin presented an impressive deployment of a large scale collaborative content portal for its 25000+ employees in 100+ stores. Plus, Damien talked how his team became the largest external contributor to the platform’s code base. Before that, Thomas Choppy from our partner Smile presented an innovative collaborative portal for students of France’s most famous business school. I’m really fond of these stories, where motivated teams innovate and make a difference in their organization. And it’s also two examples where collaboration drives better business.

I was honored to open the event with the keynote speech. Hope I was up to the task. We are growing and getting market share everyday serving more and more customers. We’re here to make a different in the market. Focusing on creating more and more powerful technology to let our our customer innovate managing their content, unleashing collaboration, creating a better work environment.

I’m including the video of the talk here

as well as the slide deck if you don’t have the time to listen. ;-)

So, the event was a success and will have a positive impact on our business and our community. I believe we’ve stayed clear of the usual self-congratulating BS and tried to remain transparent and open at all times (yes, the roadmap started with what we’ve achieved and what we’ve missed, apparently it’s not a common vendor practice to do this honest appraisal…).

If you’d like to know more, check out:

I’m looking forward to the 2011 edition. We might double it with a US-based event to make it easier for our North and South American friends.

I hope to see you there next year!

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Posted in ECM, Software, Web/Tech

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Business of open source: my take on “open core”

April 1st, 2010

The “open core” debate has been around since the inception of the model itself, and gained significant adoption among so-called “commercial open source companies”. The debate is heating a bit these day, and I got inspired by 2 recent blog posts from Brian Prentice and Matt Aslett. I advise to read both posts to understand the reactions bellow. :-)

I think a lot about business models leveraging open source as it’s what makes our business run and I’m deeply convinced that “open core” is fundamentally flawed. This conviction has been formed by real world observations: running a real business for several years now. And I’m happy to see high-profile analysts reach the same conclusion with a sharper analysis and better process! :-)

About Sales & Marketing Savings

James Dixon from Pentaho argues — not suprisingly — that open core is the right model because it reduces the sales and marketing costs to distribute the software. And that might be true. But it is not linked to open core neither to open source, intrinsically. It’s linked to the internet distribution model and the rise of the web as a way for new and small companies to become known.

I would also add that I think the open core market is less powerful as a distribution model than a freemium (or free trial)-one based leveraging proprietary software. The reduction in sales and marketing spend is more related to the online distribution of the software than the open source aspect of “a software core”. So, of course, when you distribute a software online, you have to make it easy to install (hence improve packaging compared to traditional proprietary offerings). But it is really linked to internet-enabled distribution, not to the open access to the source code of the software.

Atlassian (or Skype) might be the flagship of success for this model… without being open source at all (but while contributing to it)!

About the “open core” model

With an open core model, you have to exclude/remove features (hence value) from the open source software to in order to preserve your business: you could be forced to even limit innovation in the open source branch because it could damage your business. It does not leverage any benefits that should be derived from the open nature of the code — which is the very core aspect of open source. It only leverage free distribution not the open aspect of the source code.

I would add that a subscription-based model (where subscription is for maintenance and support services) is superior on the long-term because it drives the company to align and organize itself around the value created for its customer. The more the customer deploy and benefit from the software, the more revenue goes to the vendor. So I think it’s a great way to align vendors and users on the same value stream.

Also, using an open source license does not require free download (advocated by open core users): RHAT is, I think, considered as the most successful company in the open source world. Yet their software is not freely downloadable, while 100% open source.

Hybrid?

I read a lot about “hybrid models“, based some blend of proprietary and open source software, to justify/support an “open core” model. I don’t believe in this at all. Of course, proprietary software is not going away anytime soon. It’s a valuable and proven business model that works and can deliver value to customers when properly applied. Same for open source: it’s here to stay for good. But the “open core” model offer no long-term benefit for customers: it just blurs the real value of open source for them, only leveraging the distribution channel it implies for the vendor benefit.

I believe in clear business models. Successful companies use clear business models because that’s what enable trust from customers. Open core is not one of them: there is no clear line between open source / proprietary, neither serious justification for the customer. Open core is just the good old proprietary model, nothing new here. All vendors uses open source software today!

From a higher perspective, I believe that the whole IT market is moving toward service-based approaches — SaaS paved the way — because it aligns customer value with vendor revenue. That’s why we — at Nuxeo — won’t use the open core model even if it could increase short term revenue. We’re here to stay and we believe that basing our revenue stream on the value we create for our customers is the best way to create sustainable growth.


Cheers,

EB.

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Posted in Business, Open Source, Software

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What makes Nuxeo ECM different and worthy of interest? (No, it’s not “open source”)

March 18th, 2010

Note: this post follows the previous one about the ECM market and I advise you to read it to better understand the context of this one.


What differentiates you from the other enterprise content management offerings?


Standout-from-the-crowdI get this question regularly, and too often the expected answer is “open source”. While playing a role, I wouldn’t say that open source is what makes us different. Open source is in our DNA, but that’s not the key for our customers, nor the biggest change we’re aiming to bring to the market.

What makes us different? Our technology, the ECM platform.

This is by far our main market advantage and what we have to bring to the market: Nuxeo Enterprise Platform (EP), our ECM platform. We’ve built superior technology, leveraging an up-to-date Java stack, design pattern and modularity. This is hands down the main reason that we win deals today with enterprise architects and technology-savvy business sponsors.

The value proposition here is simple and compelling — We dramatically reduce the time and the cost of building on top of the ECM platform when compared to LiveLink or Documentum. This is why we won major deals with Jeppesen — a Boeing Company, Orange, BBC, EllisDon, Cengage Learning, Overstock.com, and many more.

We don’t try to hide from architects, we bring them back to the center of the game and give them the tools to answer challenges of the 21st century. To fully bring competitive advantage and deliver the value it promises, technology is important. We believe software is an engineering discipline, at the service of the business.

Of course, open source is deep in our DNA and brings a lot of value, ease and insurance to our customers. But from a decision-making standpoint, it plays a role but isn’t usually a key factor. The same is true for cost. Yes it is important but clearly only satisfying the functional and technical requirements are paramount. Ironically, price regularly plays against us: such as when our competitor friends have the financial resources to buy deals from us when money is key. Hence the best case for us to win is when what we offer is not achievable by the incumbents.

We offer a better ECM platform, enabling a new generation of content applications

On the platform side, our mission is to commoditize the market for “ECM platforms” with standards, widely known technology and great infrastructure. We made a strategic bet 3 years ago on a stack of technology and infrastructure that is now mainstream. So we have a great ECM platform, leveraging open standards and a well-known technology stack, highly modular and flexible. It runs on a wide range of hardware (from embedded devices in planes to large farms with terabytes of data) and serves very diverse needs (from mission-critical editorial systems for press agencies to a highly secure case management system for a nuclear agency or a mobile document repository for an offshore welding engineer.)

The net result of all this is that our platform is the most flexible and modular on the market and is widely recognized as such. This has become a great market advantage for us with the rise of content applications (CEVA/CCA: Content Enabled Vertical Applications / Composite Content Applications – as Gartner puts it and discussed at its recent Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit).

Content Apps represent a steady move in the ECM market where buyers want to buy vertical solutions, solving actual business problems. They don’t want to pour money into generic technology anymore. We are seeing a new category of ISVs, packaging business knowledge into software to create and sell those content applications (ex: construction project management, clinical facts management for biotech and life sciences, software for control and command centers, etc.). Content apps are a logical evolution of the ECM market toward more vertical, business-ready solutions. And we believe we offer a great development and composition model for the next generation of content apps.

As such, I believe Nuxeo is well-positioned to benefit from this evolution given that:

  • Open source software has shown superior ability to commoditize markets, recycling big vendors’ license revenue into a new stream of value. We participate actively in this commoditization, deriving revenue for us and offering better value for the customers.
  • Our platform’s flexibility and feature scope combined with the open source aspect of the software ease the life of content app architects and developers. The development model the platform offers is widely recognized and praised. We believe we can enable a new way of building content apps. Easier, cleaner, faster.
  • Our business model derives value from applications built on top of Nuxeo EP (thanks to the subscription-based business model we have created).

That’s why we’re here. To offer and evangelize an ECM platform and the associated content apps, responding to the new needs of businesses in this era of information explosion.

I hope this also bring some clarification and will entice people to look beyond the “open source” label. Because there’s a lot more to discover and that could really help your business!

Cheers,

EB.

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Posted in ECM, Marketing, Open Source, Software

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Recruiting 2.0 @ Nuxeo – a real world story

December 17th, 2009

Dream-job-signal As you might have noticed, in September we (proudly) welcomed a new member of our executive team, Cheryl McKinnon has joined to lead our marketing, bringing many years of ECM experience from big name players.

Cheryl is a key member of our executive team and I am proud to have her on board: she brings deep knowledge of ECM alongside great sense or marketing. It’s a unusual hire for a company like Nuxeo. I believe the hiring process is a very interesting aspect of this story… It’s a total “2.0″ process.

Earlier this month, Cheryl organized and hosted a workshop for tech professionals who needed to get back into the job market – a move that ‘went viral’. She has lived the new Recruiting 2.0 experience and offered to share her learnings with others – because this is how we found her:

For several months I was thinking of finding a CMO to accelerate and strengthen our go-to-market strategy, as well add some serious brain power and experience in the field of ECM to our company. It wasn’t an active search at first – it took time to imagine the profile I was looking for. Once figured out, it became one of those sticky ideas I get sometimes… I had to fix this!

I considered several options to find the right person:

  1. Hunter Route -> great to find the typical “world-class marketing guy” but he/she might miss the twist that I was after. Plus I wasn’t sure I could properly explain the profile, let alone assuming the head hunter really gets it. :-)

  2. Wait for somebody to send a resume spontaneously -> can work, but I wasn’t confident in the exact timeline for obvious reasons! :-)

  3. Find her/him myself using my own (limited) resources.

As the first route seemed wrong (and/or too expensive) and the second one too uncertain I went for the third one and started to work on the topic.

I wanted an “ECM expert / Web 2.0 thinker / social media pundit / community-aware marketer”. That would have been the first brief for a head-hunter. Hence, I headed to LinkedIn: refined searches, careful manual review of profiles (including blog / twitter-feed reading).

Applying several rules: proper Linkedin profile, a professional blog, a twitter account, some activities in social media and communities of practice. But more than anything, I was looking for the “twist”, the small things, difficult to describe, that make a person right for a particular job at our company. The thing that makes your company special and that is so difficult to describe. I was looking for “Nuxeo’s CMO”, not “a CMO”.

I ended up with a very small hand-picked group of people that seemed to fit the profile. Next, I sent an intro email to explain the opportunity, got answers, (lot of) calls, in person meetings, explained and discussed about vision and strategy. Kind of a standard hiring process, actually, for a key position. With a difference, however, from the old times… I would never had been able to do it, just 5 years ago. LinkedIn, social media, blogs and twitter made that possible: find great people for key position in (close to) no time. Less time than describing such a complex profile and complex position to a head hunter actually.

I now use this approach for all key positions in the company: you don’t find us, we find you (well, if you find us that’s cool too…). The social web is just a wonderful opportunity for great companies to find great people and for great people to find great companies. It enables to hear the voice of the talents and connect with them, before the first interview. That’s a brand new way of seeing the hiring process. This would have been completely impossible just 5 years ago. And I don’t think we’re an isolated case, my wife has been hunted and hired the same way a few month ago (which is maybe what got me started with this approach, actually).

As a CEO, it’s the most valuable result I’m getting from social media: being able to connect and engage with great people that can join and strengthen the company, at no cost (except participating to the system, being very open and transparent). I have access to a virtually unlimited pool of talent: just need to pay attention and look for people. This is a huge opportunity, totally new compared to what our predecessors had to deal with. And a great threat for those who don’t get it.

We’re living amazing times…

EB.

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Posted in Business, Marketing, Recruitment, Web/Tech

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Amazon EC2 graduates: Here Comes The Cloud!

October 28th, 2008

Cloud of Fire Last Friday was an horrible day for the markets, but a big step forward for the IT industry. EC2, The first large-scale on-demand computing cloud, graduates and is now labelled as production-ready, with SLAs.

After bout 2 years of beta testing and improvements, Amazon offers a computing cloud alongside its storage cloud. Being the first of its kind, the cloud will certainly have a great impact on the IT industry as a whole.

Initially, when Amazon launched its WebServices division and its storage service S3, it might have appeared as a weird move from the large retailer. But now, several years later, with EC2 and the myriad of additional services (payment, content delivery, etc.), it makes a whole lot sense. Amazon is clearly positioning itself to build the infrastructure of the Web. This is big business. And they’re several steps ahead the competition, emerging from Google (using a different approach with AppEngine), Microsoft (with their rumored “Cloud OS” named Strata), and maybe the smaller force.com (even if I don’t really believe in its proprietary approach).

It’s a huge opportunity for software vendors and service providers (plus a death threat to many hosting providers that can’t adapt fast enough): access to a high-end technology and infrastructure to deliver new services to customers at a fraction of the capital required before it. Any startup can now rely on a strong and scalable infrastructure to imagine and create new products and services, without worrying about consequent capital investment in hardware and infrastructure. Also, it will be easier to imagine and try ideas, fostering fast innovation cycles in the online business.

OK. And what about ECM in this?

Enterprise Content Management is about managing content, right? And content, especially pictures or videos, require space to be stored, computing power to be processed (think large picture management, video processing, etc.) and bandwidth to be delivered. It requires infrastructure. A lot. Exactly what the cloud revolution is addressing. That’s why I really expect a strong transformation in the ECM market enabled by the cloud-related technologies and the widely available broadband: we are about to be able to deliver to organisations a high level of service at a fraction of the price is currently cost priced. The Cloud enables new players (and I expect our company to play a key role here) to offers innovative services in the ECM market, disrupting existing leaders stuck with their centralized, aging technology.

Imagine your content repository, plugged onto a high performing cloud-based infrastructure (be it Hadoop / HDFS, my team is already working on and we begin to get really interesting results), S3+SimpleDB (I don’t really believe in this option actually) or Google AppEngine (interesting but so closed and proprietary…). It just opens new horizons to content stores, content processing and content management! Horizons that were just dreams before at reasonable prices. It only can make innovation more vibrant in this area. And we’re not the latest on this…

The ECM market, due to its nature, is gonna be one of the most impacted by the cloud in the IT industry. We now have to achieve unlimited storage and near-linear scalability! We’re committed on this!

So, the could is coming and will dramatically the IT landscape. For the best I think. Don’t give up open source and open standards. They’ll be even more important. And you’ll get the most from the Cloud. Just another step. But a big one. Interesting times ahead… :-)

Stay tuned!

EB.

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Posted in Business, ECM

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