2010 Results Suggest Alfresco more 'Sapling' than 'Green Shoot'
2010 saw enterprise content management (ECM) provider Alfresco gain 470 new enterprise customers and reach operating profitability
Posted by Killian McAleese, 8th April 2011
At Open Plus we've been listening carefully for news of so-called 'green shoots' in the world of open source and cloud hosting, and we've been reporting on it here too. But in reality, talking about 'green shoots' is probably incorrect when it comes to open source businesses.
The term has been bandied around with prominence anew by politicians and economists for about a year now, sometimes to identify evidence of economic recovery, but more often than not to discuss with a sense of longing or unreality the hope that one economic policy or other is actually working; that some government elite's ideas are improving the economic and business climate in general rather than just forwarding their own fiscal ideology.
Open Source 'Catalyst'
'Green shoots' doesn't quite work for the world of open source and cloud hosting because many saw – or hoped to see – the international financial crisis as the catalyst for open-source software and cloud. Surely, we thought, the cost-cutting needs of this environment would make enterprises the world over search anew for solutions better fitted to cash-strapped times and irregular patterns of consumer behaviour.
The reality is that during the worst of the economic crisis and through its close, if it has indeed ended, we saw rather the maturation of the open source and cloud industries; it hasn't been 'green shoots' so much as saplings and trees.
Staggering Growth
But moving on from the metaphor, this week saw further tangible proof that open source is on the rise, this time from Alfresco. The recently formed company, which specialises in enterprise content management (ECM), on Wednesday announced that 2010 saw significant revenue growth and operating profitability.
Significantly, Alfresco also saw renewal rates rise to 85%, suggesting a growth in customer loyalty. Further evidence that the brand is making significant inroads can be seen in the company's expansion in download customers to 55 countries.
Perhaps the most staggering figure announced on Wednesday is that Alfresco's year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2010 against the same time in 2009 was 40%. This is coupled with around 33% growth for 2010 as a whole.
Robin Vasan of Mayfield Fund described Alfresco as “a disruptive force in the content management space.”
According to CEO John Powell, Alfresco has “used the open source model to propel our company and bring cost-effective software solutions to global enterprises.” Crucially, Alfresco also claims to have saved customers a total of between $750 million and $1 billion in software licensing.
Viewing these positive results in light of the projected success of the likes of Rackspace Hosting and Ret Hat, 2011 looks more likely than ever to be a hugely successful year for open source.
Open Plus, Alfresco and Open Source
Find out more about how Open Plus utilises open-soruce software from our Alfresco and Open-Source IT Solutions pages.
Related News
Red Hat Shares Soar on Positive 2010 Results, 24th March 2011
More Green Shoots for Online Retailers, According to IMRG Report, 17th March 2011
Green Shoots and Cloud Hosting, 4th March 2011
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