To all Vignette employees: The open-source grass is greener

CMSWatch describes the sad demise of a great company, Vignette. The company used to be one of the heavyweights in the web content management world, but has since dwindled in importance. My own company has welcomed its exodus of employees and customers.

It seems that the only way for proprietary companies to continue to thrive is to consolidate into mega corporations that are somewhat impervious to the pressures of SaaS and open source. For the more niche proprietary players like Vignette, there is no safety in remaining proprietary.

Here's a good description of the problem:

In any event, we think Vignette's troubles are probably larger than any temporary tumult in the banking industry (or even in the U.S. economy). Vignette's product release cycles are long. Its sales force seems unfocused. The company is under pricing pressure (something CFO Pat Kelly admitted in the earnings call). And as CEO Mike Aviles himself suggested, Vignette is not the bastion of innovation it once was.

To all my Vignette friends: The grass is greener in open source.

We'd welcome you at Alfresco, where most of our solutions engineers are ex-Vignette. But you'd be equally valuable to Acquia, Magnolia, and other open-source content management projects and companies. There is life after proprietary software, a life rich in customers and rich for customers.

Disclosure: I work for Alfresco, an open-source competitor to Vignette.