Guest post by Scott Liewehr

I just spent a few days at CMS Expo, a conference full of WCM open sourcers which I enjoyed very much. But I had a message for them during my keynote which I would like to share here as well: Open source web content management needs to change if it wants to maintain relevance in the enterprise in the next five years.

While this is more a call-to-action than a prediction, it seems to fly directly in the face of predictions by many industry voices, all of which tend to indicate a rise in the popularity of open source WCM in the enterprise. In fact, these points do not conflict, but allow me to explain.

One thing I have surely learned about the open source WCM community is that it is a passionate group. Coincidentally, the stance I took last year when I wrote a guest post for FierceContentManagement helped to drive that point home for me. I have come to appreciate that Hugh MacLeod was on to something when he wrote in jest, "Open source is a religion, and all the non-believers are going to hell." Joking aside, both religion and open source have a common effect on those who are seemingly un-convincible. Take Bill Gates, for instance--who would have ever thought ten years ago that he would allow Microsoft to embrace the very ideals he once eschewed?

But while open source WCM is resonating well and has been picking up steam in the WCM industry for quite some time, it still tends to appeal to "geeks." And why shouldn't it? The advantages of open source are typically sold by geeks, in a geeky way, using geeky examples to people who are geeks or have geeky inclinations. I'm one myself, so I use the word as a term of endearment, but nonetheless, we all know the story.

The only time the geek-factor is not present during an open source "pitch" is when the proclamations of "free" are being tossed about. That said, I realize it is often less an argument about "free" than it is a cost-reduction story in general, but the jury is still out as to whether the total cost of ownership of an open source WCM solution is actually less expensive than a proprietary system in the long run. Regardless, it is a far less relevant argument in large enterprises than it is for small businesses (SMBs).

Given the evangelizing I have witnessed, the converts to open source are primarily geeky, gullible, greedy or a combination of the three. All are prevalent today as valid characteristics of decision-making WCM buyers within the enterprise, but they won't be for much longer. Or, at least not to as great an extent.

As the market gets more educated about the business value of web content management and web engagement in general, the dollars will shift from IT to the business for these large purchases. At Outsell's Gilbane Services, we are already seeing this trend. In 2008, approximately 78 percent of WCM purchases were led by IT, where the "geeks" wielded the big financial sticks and made the final decisions. By 2010, that number dropped to 63 percent--a 15 percent shift, typically to Marketing or related business team. If the trend continues, and I expect it will, we could see the "non-geeks" making half the purchase decisions for web content management by the end of 2012. Undoubtedly, IT will continue to have influence just as Marketing does today, but the ownership will change hands, and this could have some far-reaching effects, especially on open source.

The proprietary vendors cannot wait for this shift--they are ready for 2012 right now. In fact, in my consulting work with WCM vendors, I find myself reminding product marketing teams that IT is still the buyer, whether they like it or not. The vendors who own the enterprise today have already shifted their messaging, and their products, to appeal to Marketing. Now it's time for the open source vendors and projects to follow suit. If they don't, open source will continue to gain ground, but it will give up the "high ground" to the proprietary vendors. That may be fine, but it should also be conscious. My sense is it would not be fine, either for the open source advocate or for the enterprise market.

In my view, the Open Source WCM market in 2011 very closely parallels the IT Services offshoring market in 2006. Both have reached a high degree of popularity under the veil of lower costs, high [labor] availability, etc. However, both are being scrutinized, as questions about TCO and various other complexities arise.

The open source WCM market must define a more palatable value proposition which ties directly to the business, just as IT offshoring developed vertical business domain expertise and addressed productivity and service-level concerns. There are numerous opportunities, such as higher user adoption rates due to ease-of-use factors, or the achievement of web engagement through an inclination toward standards and interoperability with other systems.

In any case, open sourcers counter-intuitively need to start by talking the talk, and then follow suit by walking the walk. Today, there are a number of enterprise-level WCM issues left unaddressed by many of the prototypical open source products. Whether this is because the installed base is made up mostly of the SMB market or because developers tend to freelance or work for small companies and therefore do not understand the needs of the enterprise, I do not know. Nevertheless, I do know it is time for the open source community to identify and acknowledge these issues, and then wield its mighty stick to join the charge into the enterprise. We would all be better for it.

Scott Liewehr is the Lead Analyst of the WCM practice at Outsell's Gilbane Service as well as a founder and Principal at onesta where he leads the Strategy team. He also considers himself fortunate to serve as the President of CM Pros, the association of record for content management professionals worldwide.