Alfresco Open Source Barometer report released

Alfresco released its third annual Open Source Barometer report this week and found that that companies were looking for a browser-based Web 2.0 experience and had no real preference where blog and wiki software were concerned. The survey questioned respondents (who are either joining the Alfresco community or evaluating Alfresco software) about their technology preferences in order to measure how companies are evaluating and deploying open source and proprietary software stacks in the enterprise. The survey was conducted with over 25,000 Alfresco community members worldwide, so it reflects the attitudes of the Alfresco user base, not necessarily the industry as a whole, but even given that caveat there were some interesting results.

The survey found, for instance, that most users evaluate open-source software on a Windows laptop, so these are not necessarily open source fanatics, just people looking at open source as an alternative. What's more the survey found that more than 50 percent were interested in Java and Ajax, while 92 percent had no interest in Microsoft Silverlight and 86 percent did not intend to use Microsoft's .Net development program. Yet a majority respondents chose Microsoft Office as the Office suite of choice. It's certainly interesting that companies evaluating and using Alfresco are Windows users, who are running Office, but their IT departments appear to be shying away from Microsoft solutions that lock them into being a Microsoft shop.

It's hard to say how this will affect other Microsoft enterprise offerings such as Sharepoint, one of the companies that Alfresco is clearly gunning for. While the survey is only a snapshot of the Alfresco community, it does give some insight into how companies are running proprietary solutions, including content management solutions, along side open-source offerings and it shows that there is greater diversity in the enterprise than we might have thought.

For more information:
See the survey website [1]