I received this news today, and at first was really excited. John Deere dumps its proprietary CRM system for an open source system from Queplix. As I did a little research, however, I was dismayed to find that despite Queplix parading itself in open source marketing, there's very little that's open about its source.
There really is no Santa Claus. Or no Santa Source, as the case may be.
Don't get me wrong: Queplix may do many things well. For instance, Queplix sounds like a winner when it comes to data migration:
Queplix's CRM Resuscitation Program eliminates the need for traditional data migration -- shortening conversion time from what is typically many months to a matter of weeks. Customers can ultimately access the same data, the same interface, and the same business rules, using a web-based platform that is more robust, and can be more easily scaled to support emerging needs.That's great, but it's not open source. There is a weak open source version that no company could effectively use, but if you want anything useful, it's proprietary and pricey ($150,000/CPU and up for <201 users). Yes, this is cheap compared to the big, proprietary vendors, but it's pricey compared to the competition.
Go to Queplix's products page. No mention of open source. You can find it in press releases and elsewhere on the site, but how odd that it's not on the main landing page for its products. Even stranger, go to its downloads page. No code. Just white papers and such. About the only "open"-sounding thing on its website is its OpenForum, which wasn't working when I clicked through to it.
Queplix may well be a good company, but it doesn't look like a good open source company to me. I couldn't even find it on Sourceforge. Nor could I find its license, the code, or anything standard with open source on its website.
Now, I'm not a hardliner on things like this - I understand that there are different variants of open source. And, full disclosure, I'm an advisor to SugarCRM (Sugar takes criticism for its both source approach, but I managed Alfresco's CRM needs on SugarCRM's open source product for many moons - it works exceptionally well and was more than enough for our needs). I just can't accept the open source name on a company that appears to be just as closed as its proprietary competitors.
Good product? Maybe. Looks like it is. Open source? Nope.
Posted by Matt Asay on January 10, 2007 04:15 AM
