Your Experience with Alfresco

[p_l]

We're doing some research for a potential client and they would like to know more about Alfresco, hoping this forum will help answer some if not all of their questions.

First of all if anyone is available for a one-on-one phone or email conversation about your experience good/bad with Alfesco's Document Management (DM) and/or Web Content Management (WCM) please let me know it won't take long and would really help them make up their minds. We sat through two webinars and had several back and forth conversations with Alfresco's Sales/Technical team, but would like to hear this out of horses mouth so to speak.

2nd - They asked an odd but a very good question: They wanted to know if anyone has been using Alfresco, but then stopped–what was your reason for dumping Alfresco? (I realize this is probably not the best place to get an answer for this question, but nevertheless…)

Any other points of reference that may help me are of course welcome,

TIA!

[rdanner]

We're doing some research for a potential client and they would like to know more about Alfresco, hoping this forum will help answer some if not all of their questions.

First of all if anyone is available for a one-on-one phone or email conversation about your experience good/bad with Alfresco's Document Management (DM) and/or Web Content Management (WCM) please let me know it won't take long and would really help them make up their minds. We sat through two webinars and had several back and forth conversations with Alfresco's Sales/Technical team, but would like to hear this out of horses mouth so to speak.

2nd - They asked an odd but a very good question: They wanted to know if anyone has been using Alfresco, but then stopped–what was your reason for dumping Alfresco? (I realize this is probably not the best place to get an answer for this question, but nevertheless…)

Any other points of reference that may help me are of course welcome,

TIA!

TIA … per the second question… PLEASE ASK THESE QUESTIONS HERE!
The truth hurts when it hurts; it is better to deal with reality – OR a more positive outlook – maybe they dumped it because they didn't understand something that the community can help with.

Per the first question:  Honestly, the best way to go is to email sales.@.alfresco.com and ask to be linked up with a customer.  The reason to go through sales is that the sales guys can help you find someone who has similar needs to yours.  They don't need to be on the call if you are worried about the level of transparency. 

One of the best things in open source is that people tend to speak their minds.

[p_l]

Russ thanks for your reply!

Are you a customer? If so can you share your experience with Alfresco's setup? Did you have any hurtles you had to overcome with this software?

Thanks for the suggestion about contacting Alfresco to connect us with a customer, I'll send them a note.

-Paul

[rdanner]

Paul,

My organization is a customer; I work for the Christian Science Monitor / The First Church of Christ Scientist.  We use Alfresco in two different capacities. We use it as an repository under the CSM website which delivers the XML for stories and supplies the raw query driven power behind the dynamic aspects of the site (section pages etc) and as a workflow engine, repository, and integration component on our production side.

Alfresco is very powerful and it is extremely valuable from a development/platform perspective. it has also played a critical role in enabling our editorial system to work with our web production and delivery system.  The raw capabilities are fantastic.

I know… what about the other side?

I hear a lot of comments about the UI being cumbersome in that it requires too many clicks.  Everyone agrees that the UI is visually pleasing but many wish it had more Ajax or a different UI paradigm that required less clicks.  JSF has some nasty side effects that seem to bother people – the back button doesn’t work consistently, and URL’s are difficult to bookmark. Alfresco has already released major enhancements to the user interface to reduce the click finger fatigue and there is a lot more on the way – have you seen the AJAX components built on top of the web scripts layer?  I just don’t see this as a long term issue. The better the UI gets the more I will feel comfortable turning more of the system over to our users and the more value we will see from the product IMO. It’s been great from the development side and I’d like to see the same excitement and satisfaction from the “consumerâ€

[p_l]

Russ, thank you for the detailed break down in your response, exactly what I was looking for.

From where I sit, this is a good fit for our client, but then again they know best where they want to be tomorrow and the responsibility of choosing a system is a tough task for anyone. So the more info I can gather the better off everyone will be.

Current version of Alfresco seems to match the requirement layout out in front of us well, but I think the client may be a little uneasy about going the open source route and I'd love to get some input regarding level of support, patches and upgrades you have been getting from Alfresco (corp + community) over the period you have been with them?

Russ–if you don't mind email me or sent me a private message of SI you've used, we will definedly need someone to do some special tasks and/or build the missing pieces in the beginning and knowing the right person will be a big help. I will scour the forum as well to look for the active ones.

Thanks again for your help,
Paul

[rdanner]

Russ, thank you for the detailed break down in your response, exactly what I was looking for.

From where I sit, this is a good fit for our client, but then again they know best where they want to be tomorrow and the responsibility of choosing a system is a tough task for anyone. So the more info I can gather the better off everyone will be.

Current version of Alfresco seems to match the requirement layout out in front of us well, but I think the client may be a little uneasy about going the open source route and I'd love to get some input regarding level of support, patches and upgrades you have been getting from Alfresco (corp + community) over the period you have been with them?

Russ–if you don't mind email me or sent me a private message of SI you've used, we will definedly need someone to do some special tasks and/or build the missing pieces in the beginning and knowing the right person will be a big help. I will scour the forum as well to look for the active ones.

Thanks again for your help,
Paul

I'm sure you already have this covered with the management but I'll cover it quick.

The fact that Alfresco is Open Source (GPL) and is backed by a company is a huge plus.  When you use commercial open source, from the bits perspective it is exactly like using any software.  Software is software.

What is better is that first, you won't pay for the bits, you'll only pay for the support subscription which you can cancel at any time – this requires the vendor to satisfy you or loose you as a customer.  Even if you leave them as a customer, in most cases, you can continue to use the software.
Second, the source code is open, the issue tracking, and roadmaps are visible to the world – you don't get that from traditional software.  You really have to ask yourself, "What is the downside of commercial open source?"  – It’s the best of both worlds really – no, strike that, it's just a world that makes sense for customers.

Is open source support/Alfresco better than traditional software support?  It better be; the customer has nothing to loose here – if you walk due to bad service, they loose, you win.  There is nothing to mandate better service other than the fact that they need to give great service or face loosing customers. Open source, by nature, makes it less painful for customers to walk.

Make sure you understand what the support is. 
Does the support mean you can ask any questions you want or does it mean they will only address your stack traces and error messages?  Both are legit types of support, but are they different?  What about training? What about other types of services and support?

Make sure you know what your SLA is and what your communication channels are.

Make sure you know what you can modify and what you cannot.  Some types of modifications void the support agreement because it is too hard to support a system full of modifications that may be the root of the cause.  Most companies will make a best effort to help you but, if you have tampered – you may be on your own if the issue is a complete wormhole.  This is going to be the case with any company. And if you don't like the sound of this, consider it from the following perspective:  If company A modifies the source of the product and is having issues and is sucking up all of the support resources… YOU are the one at risk.  The limitations are there as a protection, not a loophole IMO.

Make sure you participate.  Make sure the company knows you do. Share what you learn and build your own support network. If you decide commercial support is not for you, you want to have a strong community and a place in that community to lean on – reduce risk while building value. 

Make sure the company participates – if they don't OSS, is probably just a gimmick – so can you trust them?  Look at the level of support in the community from the company.  This is going to give you a sense for how talented they are, how detailed they are, how responsive they are.  That is the base line, your cash should step that game up — at least in priority.

Make sure you understand the licenses.  Standard licenses ease this burden.  Alfresco is GPL which means you should not have much trouble finding someone to help you understand it.

Remember, commercial open source is usually a much different sell to management than free software or non commercial open source.  It really removes the concerns about open source that people seem to have and leaves only the goodness that comes from open source.  You should spend your time worrying about how the product serves your needs – the only real question there is.  How well does the product address your needs, and how hard is it for your organization to adopt?

Hope this helps.

[mjasay]

Paul:

I'm with Alfresco, so treat everything I say as highly suspect.  🙂  Speaking candidly, there have been a few companies that have opted not to renew their Alfresco subscription but (and I mean this sincerely) there have been very, very few.  This is, in part, because we've only been selling subscriptions for the past two years (so, not much time to fall out of love with the product), but it's also because it's a good product.

Perfect?  Of course not.  But keep in mind for your client that one of the best things about open source is that the cost of failure is comparatively quiet low.   You want high-cost failure?  Try proprietary software (see http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9751606-16.html or http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9754369-16.html).  If a customer tries and fails with Alfresco, maybe they're out $15-20K.  This is non-trivial, of course, but given that we're almost always 1/10th the cost of proprietary alternatives, it's a difference between losing $15K or $150K.  I'll take the $15K loss every time.

More importantly, I don't have to accept the loss at all, since I can vet and try the product for days/weeks/months/years/decades/centuries before I ever engage Alfresco to buy it.  There is little to no risk with going with Alfresco (or any truly open-source project) because the ability to evaluate before purchase is there, and the ability to disengage from support post-sale is so easy.

Back to your question, I manage sales here in the US.  I know of three companies that have not renewed their subscriptions with us, and in each case it was simply a matter of a project not starting (shifting priorities) or the project sponsor leaving.  I'm not aware of any non-renewals that were caused by the kind of dissatisfaction with the product that you want to hear about….

Again, I'm sure this will happen as we continue to grow.  We can't be all things to all people.  The value of Alfresco's open source approach, however, is that you can no well in advance if we're going to be a bad fit for you/your client.  Even if you somehow make a mistake and buy into Alfresco and find that it doesn't work, the cost of switching to something else (given that we're open source, open standards, and subscription-based) is comparatively low.

That sounds like a good deal to me.

Matt