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 Channel Futures

Open Source


Red Hat, Alfresco Attack Microsoft SharePoint

  • Written by The VAR Guy 1
  • June 23, 2009
The VAR Guy hears it all the time: VARs and managed service providers generate hefty profits with on-premise and hosted Microsoft SharePoint. In fact, SharePoint has grown to become a $1 billion business for Microsoft. But now, Red Hat and Alfresco are trying to direct some of those SharePoint channel dollars toward open source alternatives. Here's the scoop from The VAR Guy.

sharepointThe VAR Guy hears it all the time: VARs and managed service providers generate hefty profits with on-premise and hosted Microsoft SharePoint. In fact, SharePoint has grown to become a $1 billion business for Microsoft. But now, Red Hat and Alfresco are trying to direct some of those SharePoint channel dollars toward open source alternatives. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

According to Red Hat and Alfresco: Customers can achieve a TCO (total cost of ownership) savings of up to 89 percent by using Red Hat, JBoss middleware and Alfresco rather than SharePoint. Not by coincidence, Alfresco positions itself as the open source alternative to SharePoint.

In a bid to prove the financial point, Alfresco Chief Marketing Officer Ian Howells will present a case study during Red Hat Summit 2009 (Sept. 1-4, Chicago)..

Microsoft’s Killer Application

Of course, it’s important to give Microsoft equal time on this topic.

From 2001 to 2008, Microsoft sold 100 million SharePoint licenses, and SharePoint now represents at least a $1 billion business for Microsoft, according to InformationWeek. As of 2008, Microsoft had 2,250 certifed SharePoint integration partners, InformationWeek added.

Pretty darn impressive.

Next up, Microsoft is bolstering SharePoint as a hosted service — available within the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite.

Quite frankly, The VAR Guy has not heard complaints from customers or VARs about SharePoint pricing or TCO. Rather, the biggest concern seems to be about SharePoint sprawl — the continued growth of SharePoint in large enterprises without proper centralized management. But in many cases, that’s more of a personnel and management issue, rather than a Microsoft product issue.

We’ll see if Red Hat and Alfresco force the issue during Red Hat Summit in September. In the meantime, Red Hat continues to build out its JBoss middleware partner channel. Watch for some announcements in that area during July 2009, The VAR Guy hears.

Both Red Hat and Alfresco landed on The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50, which tracks the most promising open source partner programs.

Follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter; and via his Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Channel Programs Open Source

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9 comments

  1. Avatar The VAR Guy June 23, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
    Reply

    An update from The VAR Guy. In a somewhat related move, Zoho also is seeking to cash in on the SharePoint craze. The SaaS software specialist has introduced a Zoho SharePoint ad-on that allows users to:

    1. Create New Documents/Spreadsheets/Presentations on SharePoint using Zoho Apps
    2. View amp; Edit existing documents within SharePoint using Zoho Apps and save changes back to SharePoint
    3. Collaboratively work on documents in real-time

    Now, for the Zoho twist: All of that can be done without needing Microsoft Office. Zoho claims users gain “the advantages of online apps to SharePoint” while keeping “their data behind their firewall and still take advantage of online apps.”

    Hmmm. Seems like everyone seems dollar signs when they look at SharePoint these days…

  2. Avatar Nancy Garrity June 23, 2009 @ 7:04 pm
    Reply

    VAR Guy –

    Thanks for the mention.

    The data for behind the TCO study that you mention can be found in a whitepaper on the Alfresco site, http://www.alfresco.com/products/whitepapers.

    Nancy Garrity
    Alfresco Community Manager

  3. Avatar The VAR Guy June 23, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
    Reply

    Nancy: The VAR Guy will be sure to give it a look. Thanks for the link. And please keep our resident blogger posted as Alfresco continues to build out its partner community.

  4. Avatar Stephane Croisier June 24, 2009 @ 7:07 am
    Reply

    It would be interesting to get your opinion on the announced strong partnership between JBoss and the Exo Platform (and the contribution/merge of theit Portal + Content Repository layers) and Alfresco. Both are now trying to become some kind of OSS SharePoint killers. How will JBoss manage such a dual hat?

  5. Avatar Mark June 24, 2009 @ 8:22 am
    Reply

    gt;From 2001 to 2008, Microsoft sold 100 million SharePoint licenses, and SharePoint now represents at least a $1 billion business for Microsoft, according to InformationWeek. As of 2008, Microsoft had 2,250 certifed SharePoint integration partners, InformationWeek added.

    gt;Pretty darn impressive.

    It is of course impressive only from one particular point of view.

    From a different point of view, but nevertheless still a business point of view, that amount spent on Sharepoint licenses actually represents a $1 billion avoidable business cost, and consequent lost investment opportunity through not having managed to avoid it.

  6. Avatar The VAR Guy June 24, 2009 @ 11:37 am
    Reply

    Stephanie: The VAR Guy will look into that.

    Mark: Your point of view certainly has merit. But The VAR Guy suspects a lot of SharePoint VARs and customers believe SharePoint delivers positive ROI.

  7. Avatar Josh in Rural Ohio June 24, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
    Reply

    Var Guy,

    Another formidable competitor to SharePoint is Plone. A while back I did an informal comparison of Plone vs. SharePoint vs. Alfresco. At that time, Plone was far more like SharePoint than Alfresco was… and, being Python, easier to develop for. I am not sure if Plone is as scalable as SharePoint… Zope is not known for its performance. 🙂

    Cheers,
    -Josh

  8. Avatar The VAR Guy June 24, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
    Reply

    Josh: The VAR Guy is slammed with a few deadlines but will check out Plone in the next few days. Thanks for bringing a new point of view to this conversation.

  9. Avatar sgtrock June 24, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
    Reply

    VAR Guy –

    Thanks for the mention.

    The data for behind the TCO study that you mention can be found in a whitepaper on the Alfresco site, http://www.alfresco.com/products/whitepapers.

    Nancy Garrity
    Alfresco Community Manager

    Sigh. When are vendors going to learn that insisting upon a registration before showing me a whitepaper pretty much guarantees that I won’t bother to read it?

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