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January 28, 2008 8:59 AM PST

IBM fighting the Sharepoint threat

by Matt Asay

Sharepoint is open source's biggest threat, according to Brian Behlendorf. I concur. But what many enterprise software companies fail to recognize is that Sharepoint is going to be their biggest threat, as well, as Sharepoint corrals content and applications into the Microsoft ecosystem.

IBM, however, is no dummy. It is ramping up a response to the Sharepoint threat, as CMSwatch discusses:

The sheer number of tools and technology announcements coming out show IBM has gotten the message that Web 2.0 is a critical component of business applications these days. Do you think they have a chance of winning over the volumes of companies and users of Microsoft collaboration technologies? SharePoint is so deeply embedded in many organizations today.

What IBM hasn't figured out is how to virally distribute its Lotus and other collaboration tools, as Microsoft (and open-source vendors like Alfresco, my employer, have). It's one thing to come up with great technology. It's quite another to get it in the hands of prospective customers. IBM doesn't have a good story there that I can see.

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.
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by bdunwood January 29, 2008 10:17 AM PST
Just a little clarification: the above extract comes from CMSWire.com, not CMS Watch, which is a different operation, focused on reports.

Thanks for the coverage.

-Brice Dunwoodie
Publisher, Chief Editor
CMSWire.com
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About The Open Road

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 general manager of the Americas division and 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.

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