A Look Back at 2007: Open Source and Social Networking

The end of 2007 is close, an ideal chance to reflect back on the year. It’s been a great year for us, from gaining investment from Intel, launching our new Concourse Suite 5.0, and of course our name change which reflects the growing presence of the company. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our employees, customers, partners and investors, which have supported us throughout 2007.

I noticed that Mashable, the largest social networking news blog, ran a piece on “Best of 2007: Trends That Shaped the Web”. Three of the trends that Mashable selected: ecommerce, social networking and open source, are all areas that Concursive is directly involved in. In our drive to enable organizations to connect through the simplicity of a single platform solution, we provide the tools that better enable ecommerce, embrace all social networking standards – and all through open source standards.

The momentum of these areas: trading and connecting online, and looking for new and innovative ways to do so, is set to increase throughout 2008. As the lines blur between different communities and how individuals connect, there is a huge opportunity for businesses and media to be more innovative, to embrace new ways of working and to play their role in bringing groups together. 2008 promises to be an interesting year and Concursive is committed to playing its part.

We’ll be off for the next few days- Happy Holidays from all of us at Concursive!

Michael Harvey

Interoperability in Open Source

Last week was an exceptionally busy week for Concursive: launching our new website, announcing our name change, and releasing our new Concourse Suite 5.0. And during this hectic week, there was even more news that I wanted to take a moment to address.

Our friends at the Open Solutions Alliance released the results of the surveys they have been collecting, evaluating customers’ views on Open Source software. Overall, the data seems to be pretty positive, highlighting the cost effectiveness and simple customization of Open Source solutions. Conversely, the OSA found that the point of contention for customers is the potential interoperability issues with Open Source applications.

Although interoperability with Open Source applications could be a genuine concern for customers, I think OSA President Dominic Sartorio’s quote sums up our stance on this:

“These findings represent a clear opportunity for the OSA to out-Microsoft Microsoft by offering a fully interoperable suite of business tools,” … “If we can help our members’ solutions work well together it makes it easier for our channel partners to sell open-source software and it will translate into more revenue for vendors and even more options for customers.”

That’s exactly how we see this at Concursive. Interoperability has always been a large focus for us, because we have moved from creating traditional CRM software to highly scalable integrated applications for extended enterprises. I look forward to seeing how the rest of the open source market develops and reacts to this news.

Like Dominic said, this is a perfect opportunity for us and other Open Source vendors to distinguish ourselves by answering the customers’ needs of improved interoperability. Impress them now and gain their support for the future.

Read the full summary report here (PDF warning).

Welcome to the Concursive Blog

As you can tell by the new blog address and name, there have been a few sweeping changes around here. Well we’ve been busy! With great pleasure, today CentricCRM announces its new name, Concursive Corporation and a new front office solution, ConcourseSuite 5.0

For some time now, our company vision has been evolving to reflect a shift beyond the boundaries of “traditional” Customer Relationship Management. CRM has traditionally focused on aggregating large amounts of customer data into sales automation, marketing automation, or customer service silos. ConcourseSuite adds significant additional capabilities that help address the needs of today's businesses who must operate in an always on, always wired world. The product is a complete front office solution that includes standard CRM capabilities, as well as web content management, enterprise content management, and team collaboration.. We wanted the new name of the company to reflect this expanded vision.

Concursive is a name we created and is derived from the word “concursion,” which means “running together of people, things, and ideas”. The Latin root “con carre” gives rise to other words such as “concourse,” “concurrent” and “concur.” All concepts and ideas we believe fit with the direction of the company - specifically the word concourse - a place where people meet and come together.

The new application, Concourse Suite 5.0, (formerly Centric CRM), integrates CRM, website creation, content management and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. This tool provides an open forum for collaboration, debate, and productivity; a place where connections are made.

This blog aims to be a destination for similar connections: here we can collaborate and debate CRM, Open Source, and anything about bringing companies closer to their customers through technology.

Check back here for more updates and go visit our new website at www.concursive.com

Getting and Growing Customers during the Holiday Shopping Frenzy

When it came to holiday shopping this year I had only two questions: “is it possible to avoid real stores and do it all online this year?” and “where the heck can I find a Nintendo Wii?”. As promos for “Black Friday” begin showing up as early as October and an abundance of stories emerge in the papers highlighting the joys of holiday shopping - excruciating lines and fights with fellow shoppers over merchandise, it is clear to many that the holiday shopping experience can be a burden.

CRM Buyer recently ran an article “Tips for Surviving the Holiday Shopping Experience” outlining what consumers are looking for to get the most out of a shopping experience. These tips aim to help both consumers and the companies out there - looking for ways to improve time spent in stores.

This article is predicated on the notion that we need help to survive out there in the consumer frenzy. And that’s just it: consumers are now expecting a negative experience. While consumers see this time as a nightmare, I see holiday shopping as a chance for retailers to get and grow their customer base.

The holidays present an opportunity for companies to impress their customers; show them they are different, friendly, helpful, and that they standout from the pack. Surprise your consumers who are expecting to be overwhelmed this holiday season by offering them exceptional customer service and they will be your customers for life.

Making a positive impression on your consumers this holiday season will help build brand loyalty, gain your company a few customer champions, and turn a little extra effort now into better relationships in 2008.

Red Hat's blessing of Sun Java: No longer any excuse for open source developers not to use Java

Red Hat's recently announced support of the Sun OpenJDK project is a huge win for both the open source and Java developer communities. In the past, Sun's licensing practices kept it from being fully embraced by the open source community. To date, Sun's Java—which is obviously the gold standard—has never been included in a Linux distribution. As a result, open source developers in the past may well have adopted other languages and architectures because of this. As of today, Java comes fully into the open source mainstream. Given its technical superiority including a great security architecture and unrivaled suitability for enterprise-class applications, there is no longer any excuse for open source developers not to choose Java as their platform of choice. I suspect we will see a flood of new open source applications developed on Java. At Centric CRM, we fully embraced Java many years ago and have never regretted our choice. Today's announcement by Sun and Red Hat only increases our commitment to both the open source and Java-based paths that we are on.

Google's Android: Open Source Phones and CRM

Google’s recent announcement of Android, the open source development platform for mobile devices, is a fascinating new move in mobile software and as I see it, an important step in the ongoing evolution of next generation CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

Take a look at Mobile Opportunity’s post which breaks down the details of Android.

From a technical standpoint, I think it makes a lot of sense that Android’s fundamental platform architecture is Linux and Java, with a SQL database, because of its advantages with security, cross-platform portability, and general robustness. From a business standpoint, I’m thrilled that Google chose this platform because it is precisely the same architecture that we used to build Centric CRM. With all the advantages of the Java platform, there’s no question why we--and Google--chose it as the basis for enterprise-level applications.

To kick off Android, Google is hosting a competition for mobile developers with a $10M prize for the best application built this winter. And while it will likely be a glitzy consumer application that wins, I think the most valuable use of the platform will be to enable the creation of true enterprise class business applications that can be used on a wide variety of devices by business people on the go.

An extended enterprise needs a CRM that can adapt to its diverse needs independent of location. Now with the opportunity Android provides, and other advances in the mobile enterprise space, CRM can extend this advantage to mobile devices optimizing productivity for anyone in the company in any location.

Now I’m not officially stating that Centric will be going after the $10M prize… but let’s just say that the opportunity that Android created has really generated some buzz from our development teams. With the convenience and portability of the Java platform and the new demands of mobile business people, Android could easily be the next big step for CRM software.

The Benefits of Beta Software

Here at Centric we have several rules of thumb. One of my favorites is never cast your beta net too wide, which seems to be happening in the CRM market recently.

The beta testing system is about bringing a select number of users into the vendor's fold in order to get a close communication between user and the developers. This not only helps the vendor with the trickier aspects of fine-tuning, it also ensures that end users are crystal clear on what they are using at the stage it is at. The final version might be right round the corner, but what if the company responsible for the beta keeps moving the corner? Without complete insider knowledge, customers simply can’t predict what will and won’t break when the final code ships.

Of course from the platform vendor’s point of view there are obvious advantages to rolling out a beta to as many people as possible. Microsoft in particular has long enlisted the help of interested enthusiasts and experts to help it iron out the inevitable bugs in its software. Parading betas in public can also prove to be a useful marketing ploy in terms of raising the profile of both the company and its products.

It’s not just vendors who benefit from betas. As users we all like access to the latest and greatest tools (so late and great they are still in beta). If you can deal with the pain that goes with them (now and in the future) it sometimes makes sense to experiment with beta products – you might even use them for some prototyping work. But to start working on mission-critical projects using a beta version as your preferred platform makes no sense.

Beta software, by its very definition, is unfinished software. It’s a product in the pipeline and inevitably contains bugs and glitches to be identifed and resolved. What’s more, test driving a beta version of a Microsoft Office word processor is one thing; installing a beta version of a complete CRM platform is quite another.

At Centric, we believe the whole point of coming up with a developer beta is to identify potential pitfalls, problems and challenges and resolve them before we release our products to the broader marketplace. As such, betas are very much an internal matter. What we might lose in short term publicity we will more than make up for in terms of long-term respect from our customers.

The Value of Transparency

Open source software can justifiably claim to have spawned one of the most vibrant and intelligent communities in existence. The main tenet of the open source community—and this should go without saying—is openness, running from the decisions made by the higher echelons of management at open source software companies down to the very bedrock of the code itself. This tenet has turned the traditional marketing cycle on its head.

As more companies embrace an open culture, there are fewer rumors about potential deals, releases and products, and this positively affects the quality of products. This is not to say that rumor mongering no longer exists: gossip and speculation accompany all healthy communities—it comes with the territory. There is, however, more knowledge of what is happening internally within each company in the open source space, than in other sectors. Dana Blankenhorn recently pointed out in a blog posting:

“What passes for rumor is speculation over the importance of things which have, in fact, happened. Even among proprietary vendors.”

In essence, because users are already familiar with the products under speculation, they are only left with guessing future impact. In short, open source users have an inherent understanding of their role in shaping the software and direction of a vendor.

This knowledge has several implications:
1.) Companies embody what users want. As the community voices its thoughts and concerns in real-time, the enhanced feedback leads to products that users want.
2.) Faster spread of information. In today’s collaborative Web 2.0 environment, information travels at breakneck speed throughout the software world. As products evolve, users talk about them more and more and become increasingly involved in their actual development. The more ownership users have of products, the greater they want to utilize them.
3.) More trust. Trust is a premium in the business world. If a potential user is able to read the comments of a community on open forums, and view the product’s progress, they will be able to see at first hand how reputable the product is, and the degree to which it is serviced. By experiencing an open source company delivering on its promises at first hand, a potential user is more likely to trust, and therefore want to utilize, the company’s software.

Matt Asay, in his “10 things the world can learn from open source” makes a great point on the subject of transparency and trust:

Transparency breeds trust, and trust breeds revenue. Open source teaches us to reveal the supposed crown jewels—source code—but it also teaches open-source companies to provide open roadmaps, user forums, etc. The more transparent a company, the less time that is wasted on helping customers to justify a purchase decision. Give them maximum information and then sell to them on their terms, when they're ready to buy. In the open-source world this translates into dramatically shorter sales cycles because by the time a customer knocks on your door, they're already sold.

To sum up, it is a never-ending cycle of openness breeding beneficial two-way relationships that bring more users into the fold. As openness grows, so do communication, trust and the user base. As more users get involved, they bring with them a more detailed and wider range of input, thereby ensuring continued innovation.

Oregon and On and On

The waves from this week's OSCON in Portland, Oregon, are still rippling through the open source community. As you would expect from an O'Reilly event, there was plenty of debate at the conference, not least about 'badgeware' licenses.

Ross Mayfield, the CEO of SocialText, announced at OSCON that the OSI had approved SocialText's attribution-style license. This so-called 'badgeware' license is called the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL) and is based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL) with some significant modifications in the areas of developer attribution and delivery of the software as a service on a network.

I think this announcement will spark two stampedes: first, a number of vendors will rush to adopt SocialText's license and thereby gain OSI approval. But there will be plenty fleeing in the other direction too. I expect to see some OSI members dissociate themselves from the OSI, which has historically expressed a strong defense of its own strict definition of open source and a strong distaste for 'badgeware' licenses.

At Centric CRM, we're following nobody. We won't join the rush to the CPAL. Our recent announcement of new products, based on licenses which satisfy the needs of our users and communities, demonstrates we are very much open to different licensing approaches—some certified by the OSI, some not—that serve the interests of our customers and our business.

Software must be built in whatever way suits the users and companies that are going to build their businesses on it. It remains the responsibility of vendors to be clear about their intentions. But, as the debate around badgeware shows, there's no such thing as a 'one size fits all' license for software. You can't please all the people all the time. The important thing is to focus on the customer.

High Tech Life and Times in Hampton Roads

There aren’t many serious, high growth, venture-backed technology companies here in Hampton Roads, VA.

We’re a military town. Heck, a military region! Hampton Roads is actually a group of seven cities: Norfolk, VA Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, and Suffolk, encompassing the entire southeast Virginia region of the Chesapeake Bay. Hampton Roads is home to Norfolk Naval Base, the largest naval installation in the world, Langley Air Force Base, NASA Langley, several army bases, and the Oceana Naval Air Station. We are the largest metropolitan area without a professional baseball team, a fun but otherwise useless factoid. There are a lot of (1.7 million) people here, but the federal government is by far the largest employer. We are home only to Norfolk Southern Railroad, Stihl Chainsaws, and Ferguson Enterprises.

In many ways Norfolk, where Centric CRM was born and lives, feels much more like a small town than a part of the 33rd largest MSA in the nation. Our airport is small. Traffic is light, the cost of living is low, and services are good. We’re a cultural lot; we have great restaurants, theater, symphony, rock concerts, museums, and one of the finest beaches in the world. We even have an opera house. But we’re also a continent away from Silicon Valley, the center of the technology universe. Frankly, I like it the way it is, and wouldn’t want to live in the big city. But there are downsides.

As CTO at Centric CRM, I’m asked from time to time how I will successfully scale the technology team since we haven’t located the company in a major technology center: NoCal, DC, NYC, Boston, the Research Triangle. I’ve always fairly glibly responded, “There’s plenty of talent in Hampton Roads”. There are highly trained men and women leaving the armed forces; there are contractors and consulting organizations catering to the DoD, and lots of small tech companies hovering around the periphery of NASA and the military. We have four universities and many more small colleges. There must be ample software engineering talent. In prior lives, as CTO and EVP of Engineering at a couple of other companies, I was able to attract plenty of systems and networking talent right here in Norfolk. I’ve always believed my own story.

But this is my first software company.

Ominously, my friends at other local tech companies bemoan the perceived lack of a strong talent pool, above all a Java developer talent pool. Since Centric CRM is a Java company, these sentiments are particularly worrisome. Would we really be able to attract the kind of talent we’d need to take Centric CRM to the next level (or two!)?

Centric CRM had cruised along with about ten employees for many years before we negotiated our first venture investment with Intel Capital, and we finally find ourselves needing to expand substantially and rapidly. We needed smart, highly motivated, senior software engineers with team lead experience to fuel our growth. We needed mid-managers to help us control it all and build the processes we’d need to keep Centric CRM at the forefront of the open source enterprise application space. So we advertised at the local Universities, we opened accounts at Dice and Monster, and started advertising.

Unfortunately the results were not encouraging. Timing was bad for the universities – it was June, and most graduating students had already found employment. Dice and Monster were returning lots of resumes, but mostly they were located in other cities and had no interest in relocating, or were not fully qualified for the positions we had open. We went on like this for weeks, and I was considering moving to San Jose, defeated and shamed.

But then something interesting happened: we started getting calls and resumes. Resumes from local talent that we had presumed existed, but had never seen. After a bit of work we hired the engineers we needed, and we’re still getting resumes. I wouldn’t call it a flood, but it’s pretty clear that the local talent pool will sustain at least one high-growth Java software company. Also interesting is the fact that bright young engineers are also willing to leave their contract jobs making big bucks in Northern Virginia to join an exciting young entrepreneurial company here in Hampton Roads.

The situation is looking good for us here in Norfolk, and I hope that means it’s looking good for Norfolk, too.

Ethics of Using "Open Source"

As background, I'm the CEO of Centric CRM, one of the vendors of open source software that has been at the fulcrum of a heated discussion centered around which vendors can rightly use the term "open source" when describing their products. While I normally stay out of such verbal jousts, I decided I ought to share our view point if only given the tone of some of the recent postings. Specifically, to address the sentiment of some that vendors using the term “open source”, whose offerings differ from the strict OSI definition, are either disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.

Let me begin by saying we are supporters in many respects, though not all, of the OSI and we spend considerable time and effort in groups like the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) actively supporting concepts almost inherent in the notion of “open” technologies. And with respect to the OSI specifically, as Matt Asay recently shared in his blog we are about to release a sizable piece of code named Team Elements under the OSL, an OSI-endorsed license authored by Larry Rosen, whom I believe was the original counsel for the OSI. The reason for our use, in this case, of an OSI license couldn't be simpler. The OSL is a good license for our customers and, we believe, a smart business decision for ourselves. That's it. Neither religion nor dogma is driving us in this regard – though admittedly we do feel a sense of satisfaction that in this case the license and our business model align with the OSI definition. However, if the only reason we chose the OSL was to comply with the OSI we'd be standing on shaky ground, especially with our shareholders. And because one is my wife and another Intel Capital – one of which is volatile, though I'll not say which – business considerations must trump dogma.

For identical reasoning to the above, we will continue releasing our CRM product under our own, open source license. This one, the CPL (Centric Public License) is not one endorsed by the OSI. And at least in the near term (as also pointed out in Matt's blog) we will continue to license it so. Rightly or wrongly, we evaluate licenses by their ability to help us support our customers, and by extension, our other stakeholders. While the latter might sound somewhat self serving (it is) it's also important to our Job 1 – satisfied customers; they demand we remain commercially viable. Ending up on the scrap heap like a host of proprietary CRM vendors is not in their best interest. They've been clear in this regard.

Without going into too much detail – though some detail is important – the major difference between our CRM license, the CPL, and any one of many good ones endorsed by the OSI is that the CPL limits EXTERNAL redistribution. That's pretty much it. So while our source code is available and is for free, while we allow it to be modified and the modifications licensed however the authors dictate (think BSD), and while it can be freely distributed internally by user organizations, we run afoul of the OSI because we do not allow, without our consent, external redistribution. (To be clear, we want companies to redistribute CRM and many are doing so, but they're doing so as commercial partners.) That's pretty much the extent of the differences. Is this a burden to our partners? No. In fact, it's viewed as a good thing in that it protects the time and effort they invest in us. Is the restriction on external redistribution an issue to end customers? No. They're in the business of using software internally, not in the business of redistributing it externally to others. Is it an issue to the OSI? Yes. Therein lies the rub, especially given we claim the right to call Centric CRM open source. With that as background, let's talk for a second on the ethics of us (or the OSI for that matter) using the term “open source”.

We have no problem with the OSI not approving our license as OSI-approved. That's their prerogative. They've come up with a definition they think is valuable and we respect that right. What we find offensive is the notion, based on some supposed higher ethical framework, that vendors using the term open source without an OSI-approved license are somehow being dishonest, duplicitous, or otherwise stealing the good work of the OSI. This is nonsense, both legally and historically.

First, legally. This is easy. The legality of use of the term “open source” is not in doubt. It is not trademarked and, IMHO, never will be for the purposes we are discussing. It's too common now and was back in the late 90's when the so-called common law use of the term was supposedly established.

Which is an obvious lead in to the second point. And that's the concept of prior use – I'm no lawyer here, so if I'm using it somewhat wrong, be somewhat charitable. Anyway, many people, myself and my associates included, at times used the term open source well before such luminaries as O'Reilly, Perens and Raymond hitched their commercial and non-commercial band wagons to the phrase in the late 90's. While it may be a true statement that they put the most effort behind “coining” it, it's not accurate to say they were the first to use it. (I believe the current legal standing bears this out.) The two words were commonly used independently, and though certainly less so, in conjunction way back when. I became active in the early to mid-90's with the Internet – and several of my partners 10 or 15 years before this while in the military – and all sorts of terms were used to explain what is now almost generically called open source. We variously called it shareware, at other times free software, or as likely open code, open source, and many variants on such themes. Why? They were generally descriptive and reflected the attributes of the types of software we were talking about. They also, admittedly, lacked rigor.

The world continued to evolve and in the late 90's along comes the Open Source Summits and the evolution of the OSI. Perhaps naively I remember thinking at the time, what a good thing. Finally, common terminology is evolving and a group of smart people is getting behind it. “Open source” seemed to be a good phrase for us all to get behind. I also remember thinking, wow, what naivete if these folks really believe they were the first to mouth the phrase as they seemed to be saying. They most certainly weren't. At the time, it wasn't important enough for me (or probably any body else) to get into an argument over who first used the phrase so long as it didn't affect us in the negative and promoted a good cause in the positive – the continued evolution of open software.

Which leads me to my final point; I was glad then, and I'm very glad now, that no legal marks were given on the term “open source”. A faction of this movement of which we're all a part seems to have turned reactionary, versus visionary and revolutionary. The world of open software, not surprisingly, has continued to evolve. I'm hoping those in our community who early on put effort behind it recognize that institutions must also continue to evolve. Likely even including the OSI. The single greatest document, in my opinion, of self government is the US Constitution. It shouldn't be forgotten that almost immediately AFTER it was ratified came the Bill of Rights. And well after them several of its most fundamental improvements were amended. This isn't to suggest the OSI hasn't evolved – the proliferation of licenses are a testament to that. But they seem more like statutes. Perhaps what we need is something more akin to the 13'th and 19'th Amendments. Improvements, if you will, that fundamentally enfranchised those the Founders effectively forgot, but which society collectively and eventually determined worthy of being considered.

What Makes an Open Source Company

Over the last few days there has been some controversy about what open source is, which started with a post from Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNet, and a reply from Michael Tiemann, the president of the OSI.

As the open source community breaks into two groups for a face-off about this (see DIGG, and SlashDot), I would like to offer our point of view.

At Centric CRM, we are dedicated to delivering value to our end customers. Our products are developed to satisfy their business needs and to provide them with the innovation, freedom and control they need for the software their business depends on.

We truly believe in our product, team and product strategy. We have never misled or mis-communicated the license that our software is based on. Our current CRM license is not OSI-approved, nor have we ever claimed it is. But it is open source. Our software is developed and supported by an online community open to all; ships with full source code and grants customers the freedom to modify their software or any part of it for internal use; and is available for unlimited use, free of charge, by anyone who visits our website.

As Dana said in his opening post on this debate, CRM is beyond mission-critical: Customer relationship management is what companies do. It is essential that companies can protect their innovation so it can continue to be a source of competitive advantage. That is why our current license gives companies control over their own investments and allows them to protect their innovations.

We are active participants in the open source community, we build and deliver software that encapsulates open source and ensure that our business model is embraced by the end user community. As our success shows, with our software used by Fortune 500 companies, our approach to open source and business is successful. Centric CRM is a founding member of the Open Solutions Alliance and a member of the Red Hat Exchange (RHX). We remain committed to open source software.

That said, I am delighted to confirm that we've been exploring our licensing for some time. (See Matt Asay's recent C|Net post for some speculation on this topic.)

Later this week our next major product, Centric Team Elements, will be released under the Open Software License (OSL 3.0), an OSI-approved license.

In addition, we are putting out a Centric CRM SDK under the LGPL that will allow third parties to freely redistribute and build derivative works based on our public API.

We are also making our Microsoft Outlook plug-in available under the GPL so that third-parties can extend our plug-in capabilities to their products.

In the spirit of open source, I would welcome the chance to meet with interested parties, fellow vendors such as Sugar CRM and Michael Tiemann, President of the OSI, to discuss this issue. I also hope that this discussion truly becomes that: a discussion, rather than a religious war, a discussion with nuanced arguments (see, for example, Alex Fletcher's latest post) that can engage and accomodate multiple parties with multiple viewpoints.

In the meantime, anyone who would like to join the conversation within the Centric CRM community is welcome to do so in our discussion forums.