Lost!

I’ve been around CMS solutions for awhile now, I’ve even been around ECM solutions like Sharepoint for a bit as well. It seems, when ECM started getting popular, a term term sprouted out of the internet ectoplasm called “Knowledge Worker”. Honestly, I don’t see what all the hub-bub is and it actually annoys me to see the term used.

Now, according to the great and all knowing Wikipedia (You thought I was going to say Google, right?), a Knowledge worker is:

Knowledge worker (also referred to as as intellectual worker or brain worker) is someone who is employed due to his or her knowledge of a subject matter, rather than their ability to perform manual labor. It includes those in the information technology fields, such as computer programmers, systems analysts, technical writers and so forth. The term can also refer to people outside of information technology but who are hired for their knowledge of some subject, such as lawyers, teachers, and scientists.

Wikipedia’s entry on the subject goes on to talk about the term showing up way back in 1959, but I had honestly not heard it until a fellow Sharepoint freak was talking about it in the office. Why not say “User” or “Customer”? Heck, why not just say “Worker”? What’s the point, other than acting like you know what you’re talking about, to saying “Knowledge worker”? Some of these ECM solutions are so simple that even a ditch digger could use them and, according to the definition, he doesn’t apply as a “Knowledge worker”.

Oddly enough, I even saw a reference online while researching the term and saw a new word. Not surprising since everyone is trying to coin the newest word all the time… Anyway, I ran across “Kworker” today and that just dumbfounded me. If “Knowledge Worker” is too much to say, then stop saying it because it’s a generic term, at this point in time. The only difference between a knowledge worker and someone thats not is the computer usage. Yes, there are some people out there that simply refuse to touch a computer, even today. Would those people not be considered knowledge workers because they use machinery or shuffle papers back and forth all day?

Sorry, but seeing blog posts with it, or the occasional person - especially someone giving a class, spouting off this needless term just annoys me. The term Knowledge Worker was originally for people that were REALLY smart with years of schooling- now it applies to anyone that can use their brain. Nice.

Preview of the Next Blog Post: Content Management Interoperability Services - CMIS:

So, what is Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) anyway? This term exploded onto the Content Management Scene this month (late last week, actually) and every major ECM solutions provider from Microsoft, to EMC with Alfresco in-between are worked up over this. Heck, even the almighty IBM has jumped in!

I just wrote about Alfresco, so I figured I should do the same for SharePoint, since Alfresco and SharePoint are considered direct competitors. SharePoint is also mentioned in a hust list of Press Releases from Alfresco.

Company Growth
Microsoft has always been a strong company, no matter how much you look at it or hate it. Since the very beginning, most things have always gone right for the company - either that or there is just so much going on between hardware and software, that things typically don’t get noticed (except Vista, right?). With that said, Microsoft is still a strong company. Hiring is still strong and they’re even taking back employees that have left Google to return or start at Microsoft. Needless to say, Microsoft isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Application News
While I should have mentioned the current version of Alfresco in my last story, I just forgot (they’re on 2.2). So, to make it quick and simple, Microsoft is currently pushing Sharepoint 2007, otherwise known as Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). Unless you’ve been hiding under the proverbial ECM rock, you’ve heard of Sharepoint. Currently, they’re working on the next version rumored to be a 2009 release.

Sharepoint was recently placed in the in the Leader’s quadrant with IBM, ECM, Open Text and Oracle for Enterprise Content Management (ECM). This is interesting because I truly expected a larger share of the ECM market for Sharepoint. Alfresco is mentioned around mid-niche grade as well. Oddly, OnBase is the only Niche provider listed as a challenger - it’s the first time I’ve heard of them… Again - another story for another time. Anyway, this is a pretty decent news item because it literally plots Sharepoint on where it stands on the map - especially considered next to Alfresco.

On other news items, Sharepoint adoption in Europe is “exploding“. While I wish I could vouch for this, I only see the US side of things. While I know that certain parts of the US Government use it, covet it and all that touchy-feely stuff, there are other parts that downright refuse to look at it or use it because 1 person (who happens to make the decisions) “doesn’t like it”. Oddly, that sounds like an OSS excuse as well doesn’t it?

While there is no specific GSA award for Sharepoint (lots of training GSA contracts, however), Sharepoint is in use by multitudes of Governments and does price with a standard Government scheme. They also allow for educational usage, etc. Licensing costs can be harsh, depending on what you want though.

Open Source, Right?
Those of you that know anything about Sharepoint know that the only “open source” like files are the templates and a few odds and ends, here and there. No core files are sourced, nor do you want to look in some of the files that do have the source - they’ll give you a headache (research CAML if you really want to go cross eyed).

Well, Microsoft is Microsoft and you won’t see the Sharepoint code…ever. While it would be interesting to make some sections of Sharepoint OSS, coming from an Enterprise angle, I’m not sure if I’d want that. Customizing an Enterprise application is something a lot of companies do. When you do this, it makes updating the application a worse situation every time you touch a file. By the time you’ve got it the way you like, more likely than naught, you won’t be able to update the application without breaking nearly everything about it.

Sales
Sales for Sharepoint have risen up and up over the last few years. Now, in 2008 (it is 2008, right?), Sharepoint sales are expected to top $1 Billion. I would say that Sharepoint sales have been steady at this point ;-)

What is interesting is that Microsoft is making that much money, yet has barely touched the leader quadrant of the Gartner survey…

Wrap-Up
While I’d love to provide a quote, it’s really un-needed due to the link above. Sharepoint is a decent product, as long as you use it right. The features added in the 2007 release make Sharepoint an even nicer product for the corporate environment due to the Blog and Wiki features.

Other than that, I’ll try to have part 3 of the Alfresco vs Sharepoint story out here soon. I’m finishing installing my Dev environment on my Mac (VMWare Fusion) as I type this. Once that gets all setup, it’ll be so much easier for me to take screenshots and compare everything. I’ll use the actual server I have for performance comparisons so I know that the Mac environment isn’t causing problems.

Preview of the Next Blog Post: The Best CMS For “Me”:
Recently, I talked to a friend about CMS engines and how he felt about them. He gave me some insight as to how he decides what to download, what to install and what to trash. It’s a little interesting to get into the mind of someone that knows just enough to be dangerous on the web side of things.

I’ve written about Alfresco several times, I’ve even received comments back about my writing style with respect to Alfresco. Well, tonight is no exception. I received a comment that made me think a little and my response turned into a full-blown post.

You really have it in for Alfresco don’t you? To be perfectly neutral on the subject, (I honestly have no affiliations with Alfresco), you do come across as favouring MS.

I have a very weird attitude towards Alfresco, and it’s due to two different views that I’ve come to love and hate. Specifically, they are the Pro OSS side and the Enterprise Techie Side.

Alfresco is a great accomplishment on the OSS side of things. The community parti poker netpoker regeln holdfive card draw pokerparty poker bonus,party poker 50 bonus,bonus bei party pokerpoker um geld spielensichere online spielepoker anleitung texas holdempoker no deposit bonusparty poker downloadmultiplayer championship poker texas holdempoker software gratisomaha poker rulesonline spielenpoker texaspoker kostenlosplay omaha pokerpoker stars bonus code7 card stud downloadfull tilt poker bonustexas holdem poker handsregeln zu pokerplay omaha poker onlinetexas holdem ohne anmeldungonline poker für macgratis poker gamespoker spiel downloadentexas holdem wahrscheinlichkeitpoker java gamewww poker spielenpoker taxas holdempoker signup bonuspokerstars bonusparty poker net cheatsholdem poker pc gamewo kann man poker spielenonline poker detexas holdem poker downloadmultiplayer championship poker holdemtexas holdem no limit regelnparty poker 75draw poker onlinevincere poker onlinesoftware cartepoker texano on linestip poker gratisil poker onlinestrategie texas holdemfull tilt pokerpoker roompoker texas holdem,tornei poker texas holdem,regolamento poker texas holdem is providing a great product and they’ve really put a lot of effort into it.

The other side of the fence is the IT guy that has to make a decision to buy a “more expensive product” or Alfresco. After going through their sales process (for a very real, possible sale) a year ago, they had a heck of a lot of growing up to do. They also do several other things that annoy me as well - but I tend to write about most of those.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I haven’t had a chance to perform another sales call to them, so they may have fixed many of my initial points (there are more than the points I freaked out on before). I was actually about to perform another sales call, but managed to land a job last Wed and ended up starting that same Friday - talk about fast.

Anyway, from what I’ve seen, Alfresco could be great, but it needs to do a few things better to be something thats going to stay around for awhile. At this point in time, I honestly believe that the company itself is growing it’s employee and cost base way too fast and I’m predicting some nasty stuff is going to happen in the next few years - and yes, I know they just received a $9M round of funding…

The software alone will not “make” this company. In all honesty, I would love to see Alfresco become a profitable company.

I will offer this piece of advice to anyone that will take it, completely free of fees, royalties and lawsuits: The first company that designs a kick-ass SharePoint alternative using C#.Net mixed with MSSQL will make a boat load of money, OSS or not.

As for being Pro-MS (aka: SharePoint), at the moment, I am and so is most of the business world. Ask anyone that has purchased SharePoint if they even looked at Alfresco for longer than a quick peek at their site, I’m willing to bet they didn’t look long at all. As much as I hate it, the business world is completely Pro-MS and some will even laugh you right out of the room for suggesting OSS alternatives. Oddly, some of these same businesses use FireFox internally. Things that make you go Hmm.

Over the last 2 days, I’ve been testing a new blog logging service: MyBlogLog.com and there are some interesting things in the stats: Alfresco is dominating the incoming and outgoing links on my blog.

Even though I haven’t had time to write up a decent Alfresco story in a very long time, it still seems to be very popular when compared to SharePoint. While I’d love to write about it and SharePoint more, I just don’t have the physical resources to do so since my test server isn’t fully developed yet.

Don’t worry - I’m working on the test server, and when I do get it up and running, I’ll even post how cheaply you can get a serious test server up and running very cheaply.

So, why is Alfresco information dominating my blog? Could it be that it’s supposed to be cheaper than SharePoint? Perhaps because it’s Open Source? If you’re interested in Alfresco, I’d be really interested in hearing why. What things do you want covered? What types of screenshots do you want to see? Would you rather see news or stories on customization?

I’ve been sitting back for a bit scheming on how to make money since being unemployed. Currently, I’ve got a business plan going for a website, but it’ll be a few months before it’s even Alpha. But, within the last few weeks, several things have happened to slow down progress on that project: ECM projects that actually pay real money…

There are several ways to get noticed, but the easiest way I’ve seen is Monster. If you have an ECM background with SharePoint etc, it’s very easy to get noticed by recruiters around the globe and even Microsoft. I’ve personally gotten emails from Microsoft asking me to apply to their SharePoint team. (In that situation, I actually got an email from the Internal MSFT PM, not to mention nearly every recruiter in WA.) I’ve noticed that if you update your resume every Continue reading…