Jive Software gets $15M from Sequoia, points the way to true "enterprise-class" collaboration software
I've always liked Jive Software. My company, Alfresco, is used in conjunction with Jive's products in a range of accounts, and so I've had the chance to talk directly with Jive's customers. They all say the same thing: Jive's "lightweight" collaboration provides heavy-duty benefits at a significant cost advantage.
Now Jive is getting $15 million from Sequoia to expand and grow its business. It couldn't have come at a better time.
It turns out that all that "Enterprise" collaboration software (stuff like Lotus Notes) is just too heavy for many enterprises. Look at the Enterprise Content Management market: $3 billion or so and growing at a snail's pace, largely because of its cost and complexity.
But then you have Microsoft Sharepoint offering lightweight collaboration portals, and it's growing at a torrid pace. Why? Perhaps because it's not a heavyweight enterprise application.
Did you get that? Complex, enterprise-class software is no longer enterprise class. It's just expensive shelfware. Enterprises have finally started to ask themselves why their work software is rubbish compared to their lightweight consumer software. You know, the stuff they get for free.
Back to Jive. The company does many, many things right. I just wish it would extend its toe-dipping into open source with a full dive. It's half-way there. It just needs to take the next step so that its lightweight alternative to enterprise software adds the added benefit of freedom from lock-in and, more poignantly for the company, a bigger distribution network.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Ok, Zimbra would also need to acquire Funambol so that they have an open source mobile application server (currently they partner with NotifyLink, which is not open source.
What do you think?
You are absolutely right about the so called "enterprise" software. Business are moving away from it.
Most ERP/CRM/CMS services will have an Open Source alternative that will be cost-effective and feature rich enough to question "Why must we pay $1M for this?"
tristanbob,
Zimbra is not opensource, as this guy accurately points out:
http://www.rants.org/2007/06/26/when-is-open-source-not-open-source/
And, as of today, Yahoo's property:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9779918-7.html
So Zimbra's agenda now seems quite distant. But doubtless, an Alfresco-Jive tighter collaboration would make for a very strong player in this field. It would be very nice to see Jive open more.
On the LAMP front, watch for OpenGoo