e CRMhe Art of Dueling in 2013

tephen E.

Open source software, according to ForresterResearch, Inc., is going to slash and parry its wayinto the enterprise in 2013.1 can visualize the open

source cohorts sharpening their swords and hear the snickof steel on whetting stones. Paula Rooney, ZDNet's Linuxand open source specialist, quoted Forrester's JeffreyHammond as saying, "[F]ive out of six developers are cur-rently using or have used open source software tools andframeworks as part of their projects."

She also pointed out that there were 725,000 open sourceprojects in 2012, "with 10,000 new open source projects in2011 alone, and up sharply from 100,000 projects in 2006"("Forrester: Open Source Project Explosion Driving a'Golden Era' in App Development," Nov. 28, 2012;zdnet.com/forrester-open-source-project-explosion-driving-a-golden-era-in-app-dev-7000008050). Open source isno longer a knife with a rubber blade. Open source solu-

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tions are starting to look like Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Aswipe of his weapon produced an eerie "woooom" sound.Commercial software companies may be listening moreclosely in 2013.

OPEN SEARCH AND CRMOne interesting subtrend that warrants monitoring is the

intersection of open source search with open source cus-tomer relationship management (CRM) systems. Librariesare slowly becoming interested in CRM, as they look forways to market their services and attract "customers."During the 2011 Wisconsin Library Association AnnualConference, Caroline Meikle and Ryan Schryver, Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, described implementing a CRMsystem at the Wendt Commons Library (wla.wisconsinlibraries.org/images/waal/conferences/2011/postconference/whereeverybodyknows.pdf ).

In August 2012, a blog post by Ava Cambellini at theiLibrarian site discussed "How Libraries Can Benefit FromCustomer Relationship Management" (oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2012/guest-post-how-libraries-can-benefit-from-customer-relationship-management-crm). She citedthe ease of sharing information, ability to raise funds,reaching new users via social media, and making collectiondecisions hased on details of usage.

Yes, libraries are not above the open source CRM fray. Thesound of sharp steel swords soon may be heard within thesebastions of information.

ARMORY OF OPEN SOURCEOpen source search exists in several forms. At one end of

the armory is the community-focused approach withalmost zero commercial interest. Examples of open sourcesearch solutions are Apache Lucene (lucene.apache.org/core). Apache Solr (lucene.apache.org/solr), the Danishnational library system Summa (statsbiblioteket.dk), andXapian (xapian.org).

In contrast to FOSS (free and open source software), thereare open source search solutions that have a more com-mercial positioning. Examples of search solutions thatblend open source vnth proprietary software include Basho(basho.com), Datastax (weww.datastax.com), Elasticsearch(elasticsearch.com), and LucidWorks (lucidworks.com).

An organization that wants to add search functionality toa customer support system can use products from any ofthese companies or one of the dozens of other vendors thathave embraced open source as a tactical component intheir software system. Attivio (attivio.com) and Artirix(artirix.com), for instance, both make use of open sourcesoftware albeit in slightly different ways.

SUGAR-COATEDThe CRM open source options may not be widely known

in some organizations. One that impresses me isSugarCRM. A version of this system is available fromSugarForge (sugarforge.org), which says at its website, "Inan industry dedicated to improving customer relationships(CRM), it is interesting that proprietary software vendorsspend between 50-70% of revenues convincing customersto buy their product (sales and marketing) and less than10% of revenues actually making better products (engineer-ing)" (sugarforge.org/content/open-source). I assume fromthis that SugarForge intends to concentrate more on engi-neering than sales and marketing.

In the last 2 years, the open source SugarCRM system hasbeen downloaded "over one million times and translatedinto over 75 languages." The company adds, "Over 400 com-plements and extensions to Sugar Community Edition havebeen contributed by our user community."

Other open source options are available. Examples areCompiere (compiere.com), SplendidCRM Software (splendidcrm.com), Tustena (tustena.com/crm/en), and a bevy ofother vendors.

OPENERPWANTSA DUEL WITH SAPA potentially disruptive product fi-om OpenERP (open-

erp.com) was announced in January 2013. According to itsfounder, Fabien Pinckaers, "OpenERP 7.0 is bringing amajor innovation ending a 30 year war among best ofbreeds and integrated application fans. By providing a por-tal of Integrated Business Apps, OpenERP is the first com-pany to bring together the best of the ERP and thestandalone app world" (v6.openerp.com/node/1300).

Belgian-based OpenERP is aiming its 7.0 version at smallto midsize organizations and has set base prices of $39 forNorth America and €35 for Europe. The basic features of thesystem include CRM. Other functionalities available asopen source include accounting, payroll, project manage-ment, marketing, and warehouse management.

The ambitions of OpenERP are considerably broaderthan managing information about customers. The scope ofthe open source product is nothing less than displacing theindustry giant SAP. With more than $20 billion in revenues,SAP seems to be an unlikely target for an open source ven-dor to engage in battle.

SAP owns a proprietary search system named TREX, amedieval bit of gear in my experience. Via its subsidiaryBusiness Objects, which it acquired in 2008, SAP gainedaccess to the Inxight Software text-processing software(Business Objects acquired Inxight in 2007). Inxight isanother weapon deserving a place in the British Museum'scollection of armor. Additionally, SAP grabbed Sybase andits commercial search-and-retrieval technology in 2010.

Yet SAP has also shown interest in open source software. Inmid-2012, Internet News reported: "While SAP cannot be con-sidered an open sotirce company in the same sense as RedHat, SAP has made strides in open source involvement andadoption. 'We have gone fi-om preserving everything in houseto voluntarily going open source,' [Ifran] Khan [SAP SybaseCTO] said. 'We truly believe in open now.' Khan noted that SAPis making open source contributions in lots of areas includingthe Eclipse development community. The overall direction ofSAP's open source involvement has been progressing on ahockey stick growth curve ..." (Sean Michael Kerner, "SAP'sOpen Source Hockey Stick," June 29, 2012; internetnews.com/dev-news/saps-open-source-hockey-stick.html).

FLOWER OF BATTLEOpenERP took a page from Fiore Dei Liberi's Flos

Duellatorum ("The Flower of Battle"; thearma.org/Manuals/Liberi.htm), published in the 15th century, when it issued adirect challenge to SAR In December 2012, Pinckaers, in ablog post tided, "Sorry SAP Campaign—The Making Of,"said, "To fuel my motivation, I had to pick someone to fightagainst. In business, it's like a playground. When you arrivein a new school, if you want to quickly become the leader,you must choose the class bully, the older guy who ter-rorises small boys, and kick his butt in front of everyone.That was my strategy with SAP, the enterprise softwaregiant" (v6.openerp.com/node/1291).

MAR I APR 2013 ONLINE SEARCHER 57

With its most recent release,

OpenERP seeks to deliver a coup de main,

a blow designed to kill the adversary

with a single, smooth cut.

Aggressive marketing is part of most enterprise softwarecompanies' marketing arsenals. What makes the OpenERPapproach interesting is that the company ovms the domainname www.sorrySAPcom and may be complementing itsgrowth curve with a more direct, continuous criticism ofSAP's business model, products, and services. With its mostrecent release, OpenERP seeks to deliver a coup de main, ablow designed to kill the adversary with a single, smooth cut.

Will this headlong charge into battle become the stan-dard operating procedure for the firm's 2013 marketing pro-gram? If it does, the collision between open source upstartsand established, essentially proprietary software vendorsmay mark a change in how open source software has oper-ated for the last few years. Open source search vendors willwatch OpenERP to determine if such aggressive tacticsdeliver the expected payoff.

BATTLE FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORTA number of commercial, proprietary search vendors

have positioned their technology as a customer supportsolution. Coveo, a company that has been in business since2004, provides its system to deliver "insight" to CRM andcustomer support call centers for sales and service (coveo.com). In December 2012, Coveo raised an additional $18million in funding. The total invested in Coveo is about $35million. The most recent funding round was from TandemExpansion Fund, BDC Venture Capital, Propulsion VenturesSEC, and Fonds de solidarité FTQ (mrweb.com/drno/news16530.htm).

EasyAsk (easyask.com), a developer of natural-languagesystems, provides a search solution for the SugarCRM sys-tem (easyask.com/solutions/sugarcrm). Vivísimo, before itstransformation into a Big Data company and its purchaseby IBM, pursued the customer support sector. Attivio,Autonomy, Endeca, and Microsoft SharePoint Search have,to varying degrees, asserted that their systems can deliverenhanced customer support functionality.

Customer support is one of the markets where opportu-nity exists. CRM may be the first application space in whichopen source and proprietary collide. Organizations want tokeep their existing customers. Organizations also want toachieve cost efficiencies. Both are particularly important tocash-strapped libraries.

In their article on open source, Diomidis Spinellis andVaggelis Giannikas found that large firms showed greaterappetite for open source because of the cost benefits pro-

vided (Diomidis Spinellis and Vaggelis Giannikas."Organizational Adoption of Open Source Software." Journalof Systems and Software, 85(3):666-682, March 2012. (doi:10.1016/Í.JSS.2011.09.037). They say, "Software companies thatderive a large part of their income from selling standardizedproducts that can be easily replaced by OSS offerings riskseeing their corresponding income stream collapse." This iscontrary to the generally accepted view that smaller organi-zations are more entranced by open source.

VULNERABILITIES OFPROPRIETARY SEARCH COMPANIES

If we assume that the researchers' data are correct, theuptick in competitive aggressiveness may reflect a growingconfidence on the part of open source vendors. Large com-panies such as SAP may indeed be vulnerable. Despitethese firms' attempts to acquire technology and supportopen source, the open source option may begin to depriveestablished proprietary software vendors of new sales.

For enterprise search vendors based on proprietary tech-nology, the shift to open source may reduce these firms'ability to close deals. Why use a proprietary solution such asCoveo's or Vivisimo's when an organization can use one ofthe proven open source solutions?

Open source software is a growing force in the enterpriseand in libraries. Business models that assume commercialvendors will be largely unaffected by open source may beunrealistic. The actions of a single open source vendor suchas OpenERP may be an anomaly However, the broaderopen source movement could have a negative impact oncommercial enterprise search vendors chasing the cus-tomer support market.

Libraries have a philosophical predilection for opensource software. Battle-hardened by other technologicalintroductions, librarians are just beginning to considerCRM systems. As the proprietary vendors marshal theirdefenses and open source charges into the fray, it's a perfecttime for the library market to consider open source CRM.Do I hear the "woooom" of a lightsaber?

Stephen E. Arnold (sa@arnoldit.com; www.arnoldit.com/wordpress)is a consultant, blogger at Beyond Search, and frequent speaker at infor-mation industry events You can sign up for his opt-in "no holds barred"newsletter by writing thehonk@yandex.com.

Comments? Email the editor-in-chief (marydee@xmission.com).

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