Enterprise Version License and price

[zoao]

Hi,

    Now that the alfresco, has a clearer licensing model and versions (in my opinion much better), where features exist only in the Enterprise version and maintenance versions are released more frequent (correction of bugs) for the enterprise version .

  Why not is there a cheaper license, which allows access to the benefits of enterprise version, without having to pay for support / installation of Alfresco or its partners?

  My situation (I believe that many of the others are in the same situation) is that I am a freelancer, I am now a client who is interested in mounting an intranet and in principle I will choose the Alfresco Share. But paying more than € 15,000 for the product and installation is completely impossible, however if for example about 3000 € just for software, as could be possible.

Thus also was to contribute a little to the excellent product and work you have done and that should be rewarded, but for smaller projects should have an intermediate license.

[dimamovic]

Hello,

something similar I was trying to find out. I have found number of articles where alfresco is alternative for MS SharePoint server but to be honest with you, I don't know how these people coming up with idea of cost effectiveness. There is per user pricing for Alfresco so this is total overkill for smaller organization like SME we are dealing with. Big boys go after Documentum or Filenet stuff and they don't even look at Alfresco.

So I don't know who can afford this (in SME area) but we will go after some other products in ECM which have more options for licensing and purchasing support to be able to offer it in reasonable price range.

Best,

Damir

[mikeh]

Where have you read that Alfresco is "per user" licensed? - that's completely untrue. Alfresco is licensed per server CPU. Add as many users and your server can cope with. This is where the biggest distinction between SharePoint and Alfresco lies. Also, check the extra cost once you want to put your SharePoint server on the Internet!

Finally, contrary to your other statement, the "big boys" are indeed (and have already) replaced Documentum and Filenet with Alfresco.

Thanks,
Mike

[dimamovic]

I made mistake. What I was trying to say "there is no per user licensing". Sorry for typo …

[dimamovic]

Where have you read that Alfresco is "per user" licensed? - that's completely untrue. Alfresco is licensed per server CPU. Add as many users and your server can cope with. This is where the biggest distinction between SharePoint and Alfresco lies. Also, check the extra cost once you want to put your SharePoint server on the Internet!

You are not right. I have offer from Microsoft where I can license it per user and for Internet enviroment. Comes at 1/3 of the pricing for Alfresco I received. So this particula project we are going to do (12 separate installation), we will use SharePoint just because pricing. Nothing else.

Finally, contrary to your other statement, the "big boys" are indeed (and have already) replaced Documentum and Filenet with Alfresco.

Thanks,
Mike

Not that I am not aware of any in Germany, Austria and Balkans area. In fact, I am involved in two projects where some of open source ECM are being replaced (not Alfresco).  We were very interested to use Alfresco for number of our customers but at least five of our customers after presenting pricing, what is Alfresco said no …

[mikeh]

I have offer from Microsoft where I can license it per user and for Internet enviroment. Comes at 1/3 of the pricing for Alfresco I received. So this particula project we are going to do (12 separate installation), we will use SharePoint just because pricing. Nothing else.

That's great - then obviously SharePoint is better for you in that situation. I hope you factored in the cost of the SQL Server and Windows Server licenses too?  :wink:

Mike

[dimamovic]

Since Alfresco wasn't planned to be run from MySQL nor PostgreSQL, it still about same ratio. Cost of Windows server comparing to RedHat or Suse Linux is still something we can afford, when you add Oracle license in order to have MS free environment. We have estimated it including cost of Linux/MS admin pricing, Java/NET developer pricing. And even I don't like MS, again MS is the winner. What would customer pay something like €16.000/processor per year on three year term and then use MySQL or PostgreSQL ??? Doesn't make sense, at least for me. I am not MS advocate but over the past has been proven that Microsoft was bringing pricing down on certain products (not MS OFFICE but they will do also there price decrease soon). Also, I not am here to argue but only to point that you should review the way you license your products in order to get more SMB to your reference list. On the other hand, it is your product and you can do whatever you want with it, sell it the way you want. You have to make living too :-). Maybe you have just enough business to deal with and you don't want to bring a lot of customers and then struggle with support. But I have realized that OpenSource ECM doesn't mean affordable ECM. To bad I spent some time with it without asking for pricing first. Waste of time since we can't use it.

Best, D

[wmay]

You are right - we have / had the same problem - the actual alfresco license / support model works fine for customers with >200 user but when you have a customer e.g. with ~20 or 50 workstations it is too expensive. But now Alfresco looks only to the "big" customers and all others are "not interesting" - maybe (i hope) this will change in the future……

[zoao]

The alfresco is very good for document management, and now with alfresco share begins to be an alternative to intranet and collaboration sites. But for customers that want an intranet rather than a document management system, the licensing is too expensive when compared with other alternatives: liferay, microsoft sharepoint services (which is free for those with Windows Server).

But as said you are free to choose what interests you, but it is unfortunate that no attempt to attract more small projects that could contribute much to the community and a little money for the project.

If you choose a model similar to liferay that the cheaper licensing not include alfresco support, only gave access to the more tested code, the documentation, the updates that are released more frequently and security of having a version that is supported more longer.
This way you dont have more work with this sold licenses(not including support), the little fee of the licenses multiplied by all, could be a good help to the project, with benefits for everyone.

[dimamovic]

as I said it is good product, good aim, good platform support. maybe it is missing some BPM (but this can be added), but pricing is not usable for SMB. When you get project pricing (not list price) from MS, IBM (didn't check Documentum) you get same cost or lower comparing to Alfresco. Ok, with Alfresco you get processor pricing but this is not relevant to SMB: As far as I was able to see …