Over the past couple of months we have noticed a marked increase in the number of downloads of our Open Source offerings for Documentum. Comparing January to June, our downloads have increased 200%. Without engaging in any scientific studies, we can’t help but wonder whether this increase is due to:
- Continued evolution of the Open Source movement and the adoption by traditional software purchasers as to the benefits of Open Source
- The recession and tightening IT budgets
- The upcoming end of support for Documentum 5.3 and the need to upgrade and migrate both applications and infrastructure
- Continued development of our solutions including the recent certification and release of HPI
- All of the above
Most likely the increase has something to do with all of the above. OpenMigrate continues to be our most often downloaded offering with at least 100 downloads a month hinting that the Documentum upgrade is a significant driver this year. In talking with customers at our post-EMC World briefing in June, the upgrade was weighing heavily on their minds. While some of our clients appear to be using Open Migrate to do a straight upgrade to new hardware, many are using the upgrade as an opportunity to do much needed clean up of taxomony, object and security models that have evolved over time. Other interesting findings in regards to the upgrade:
- During one client upgrade review, we found that the DBA support/cost/risk needed for an upgrade leveraging a database backup made running a migration a safer bet.
- As mentioned in a previous article, clients are also leveraging our solutions to make their applications more easily upgradable.
- OpenContent as a platform for 5.3 and 6 development is something clients have leveraged with related downloads noticeably increasing.
As we look towards the remainder of 2009, we plan to add many other enhancements to our Open Source offerings including:
- A Flex-based Active Wizard capable of running on Documentum, Alfresco or other repositories
- HPI running on Documentum, Alfresco and supporting email/scanning and other requirements of high-volume usage
- OpenMigrate continuing to add additional repositories and enhancements from multiple clients/efforts
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