Alfresco Drives 60% of Sales Through Channel Partners
A year ago, 15 percent of Alfresco’s sales involved channel partners. This year, the open source content management company will drive 60 percent of its sales through channel partners, The VAR Guy has learned. So, what can other open source companies learn from Alfresco’s channel strategy? Take a look.
For starters, Alfresco has been working hard to grow its partner ecosystem. Matt Asay (photo, left), GM and VP of business development at Alfresco, says the company will have about 125 partners by the close of 2008 — up from 75 partners in 2007.
Asay shared the data points by diving into The Open 50, an ongoing global survey — from The VAR Guy, of course — that aims to identify 50 open source companies disrupting the traditional IT channel. (Shameless plug: The survey is open to all open source companies.)
Growth Mode
Admittedly, it’s difficult to measure Alfresco’s overall momentum since the company is privately held. But Alfresco is in growth mode; the company will employ roughly 110 people by the close of 2008, up from 60 in 2007. And Alfresco has a full-blown partner program, overseen by VP of Alliances Martin Musierowicz (photo, left).
The Alfresco partner program includes systems integrators, infrastructure providers, ISVs, OEMs, distributors and resellers, hosting partners, and training partners.
True believers include Rivet Logic, a systems integrator that recently won a contract to develop ConnectedWeddings.com, an application built upon Alfresco and Facebook.
Pardon the Disruption
Alfresco’s pitch to partners and customers is rather simple. The company positions itself as the “Open Source SharePoint Alternative.” (Translation: “We’re not Microsoft. We’re here to help.”)
Plus, Alfresco says its content management system is:
- 5 times faster than traditional closed systems
- 10 times cheaper than traditional closed systems
The VAR Guy is a bit too tired to start crunching numbers, but it sounds like the math gives Alfresco a competitive edge against legacy content management systems.
The Alfresco team includes a bunch of content management veterans from Documentum, FileNet, Interwoven and Vignette.
Now, those folks are all striving to disrupt the very content management industry they helped to create. The VAR Guy loves the irony.
Oh, and full disclosure: The VAR Guy spends far too much time reading Asay’s blog over on CNet, dubbed The Open Road. And yes, Asay spends some time reading The VAR Guy.
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