Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » More on Queplix

January 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

More on Queplix

TAGS: Open Source

After I posted this on Queplix last week, I had a conversation with their CEO. He told me I had mischaracterized Queplix's open source credentials, and I offered to give him a chance to refute my claims.

I'm happy to say that he did. Or, rather, will. Queplix plans to release a version of its product in February 2007. It looks good, has a range of big-name customers behind it, and is worth lookng at if you're in the market for CRM.

Here's how the company releases product today (which will sound somewhat familiar to its competitors, as they also use a similar, though not equivalent, release methodology):

QueWeb Open Source will be available for download from Queplix website in February 2007. It has an open-source modified BSD license for five users. A small company can use it, customize it and successfully support its customer base and can subscribe to additional support, services, modules or purchase license upgrades when such need arise. A bigger company can also use this version to test QueWeb without making any capital investments, thus eliminating financial risk.

QueWeb Enterprise license is targeted for companies where the user base of customer care representatives is greater than five. They will still obtain QueWeb with a modified BSD license; that will ensure that a company can take a full advantage of open source code, that can be modified, customized and enhanced to fit company’s unique business model, as well as adopt to all the future changes that company will be going through. Our current enterprise customers have deployed QueWeb to thousands of users across the globe.

[ASAY Note: This is what I'd call a visible source license, and many open source companies use it for their commercial license that they sign with customers. Basically, it gives customers the rights to view and modify source, but not redistribute. I've yet to find an enterprise that actually cared about redistribution rights outside of their company.]

QueWeb Professional license is targeted for IT consulting companies that are looking to create real value for their customers by bringing verticalized or specialized solutions for the customers. This modification will include a QueWeb OSS download, as well as a set of proprietary development tools – QueDesigner© that can be used to customize, configure, integrate and build additional functionality with QueWeb. This version also includes QueCrawler© - a tool that can be used to “crawl” through company legacy metadata and extract business objects. These objects then can be used to rebuild legacy functionality inside QueWeb platform.

On-Demand (ASP): All QueWeb options are also available on-demand.

I trust that Queplix is a good product, and I genuinely liked the management team. It's still an open question whether Queplix and others are abandoning some of the community benefits of open source by having some of its technology proprietary, but I know that Queplix (and others) is trying to balance being a good community citizen with getting paid. It's not an easy problem to resolve.

Anyway, if you're in the market for a CRM system, take a look at Queplix. But wait until February, when you can get it as open source.

Posted by Matt Asay on January 17, 2007 09:38 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: