Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Open sourcing collaboration

September 29, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Open sourcing collaboration

TAGS: Open Source

Ismael is talking up WebEx's Connect product, which integrates WebEx (web conferencing) with BPM and distributes it over a grid. The demo goes something like this, according to Ismael:

The demo we saw goes something like this: you’re a sales manager, and a prospect sends you an email telling you that a technical problem needs to be fixed before you get your prized PO, look like a hero, and keep your fiancee happy (verbatim). The prospect is asking whether you knew about the trouble ticket that was recently entered into the BMC Remedy system.

Upon reception of this email, you check your real-time workspace to see which members of your team are online. You request an online meeting, which leads the system to call you on your cellphone in order to patch you in. You engage in a discussion with your colleagues, while checking the ticket from your dashboard. Once you figure out a solution for your prospect, you update the discount you gave to your customer, by using a Connect-generated user interface that serves as a front-end to your SAP ERP system. This very change is then automatically reflected into your sales forecasts that are managed by a SugarCRM instance deployed on premise.

Once all that has been done, you send an email back to your customer, explaining the resolution that was brought to solve the problem — and the additional discount you gave her, but decide that the overall process should be improved so that similar incidents are handled better and faster in the future. You start the Cordys browser-based process editor, change the workflow definition here and there, and call it a day.

Pretty cool. But still stuck in whatever a vendor (with some slight help, if they'll accept it, from their customers) can envision, as Ismael unwittingly admits:

The demo I saw yesterday gave me confidence that the most ambitious players in the field are making the transition from data to process, understand the need for Web 2.0 user interfaces, and acknowledge the fact that next-generation IT systems will be pioneered by your most creative knowledge workers, not your risk-allergic IT department. It will be quite interesting to see how Open Source players will learn from these new ideas, and build similar platforms from existing Open Source components. Alfresco + Intalio + Zimbra, anyone?

Bingo! Ismael. The problem with the WebEx Connect idea is that it's still stuck in proprietary land. As such, the vendor controls whatever process innovation might otherwise occur. Open the source code, however, and suddently anyone and everyone can potentially participate. At that point, it's not WebEx dictating the roadmap and vision, but rather the users, themselves. I just can't see any other way for Ismael's "knowledge workers" to shake off their shackles and truly start shaping the collaboration platform (or platforum, if you will) to their needs.

And since Ismael mentioned Alfresco, let me give him/you an idea of what we're already doing in this space. It's not a question of what we might do, but what we're already doing. You can get Alfresco integrated with Asterisk (VoiceRD from Novacoast) and SugarCRM (CRM) today. (And since our 1.4 Business Process Management release, we already have BPM in spades.)

Now extend this. Add some JasperSoft or Pentaho for Business Intelligence (perhaps reporting capabilities). Some DimDim for web conferencing. Some Zimbra or Scalix for email/collaboration. Want to scale this out on a grid? Get yourself some 3Tera. Etc. The great thing about all of this is that we don't have to do all of it ourselves. In many instances, enterprises are already extending Alfresco (or these other projects) to meet these and other needs. Hence, when a large pharmaceutical/medical devices company wanted wiki functionality in Alfresco, it didn't ask us. It just built it in.

That's the power of open source.

Posted by Matt Asay on September 29, 2006 09:28 AM

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