Financial Services are Bullish on Open Source

Zach Urlocker, Executive VP of Products at MySQL, blogged about how MySQL met Union Bank of California's scalability requirements with open source and now the bank is migrating from AIX to the LAMP stack. The top 25 bank's move is an indication that Financial Services are moving toward open source. When financial services are not afraid of open source and believe that it can meet their scale and security requirements, its not long before all other industries come to the same conclusion.

One of the main clusters of adoption that we are seeing with Alfresco is in Financial services. Four of the top 10 banks and two of the top 10 investment managers in the world are now using Alfresco. At least that we know of, since it is open source and who knows who else is using it. New financial forces like E*Trade are also using Alfresco. So is the American Stock Exchange. This is without even trying. There is only one bank that we targeted and I told them that it was my hobby to sell them. We don't sell, people just try it.

There are two factors that contribute toward this. Financial Services have always been natural early adopters. In general, banks and investment banks in particular attract aggressive risk takers. They like new things and they search for competitive advantage through experimentation. The second factor has to do with that advantage. With the cost of IT on average at 20% or more, reducing the cost of IT through open source eventually becomes a no brainer.

There is one other interesting factor for Alfresco in particular. ECM is a big deal due to the regulation of the industry, but it is expensive, even for a bank, to role out across the entire enterprise. There is a hole in the ECM market for financial services that can be filled with either Microsoft Sharepoint or Alfresco. The price factor is important in filling that hole. However, Sharepoint requires development in .NET, which banks are reluctant to swallow.

Alfresco, being a 100% Java application and open to whatever development platform you want, fits much  more neatly into the huge investment that  banks have made in IT. As one investment bank put it, "We have made a huge investment in our Service Oriented Architecture. Alfresco being built as a web services enabled ECM platform fits perfectly with our IT vision."

Comments

[Bryan Ruby]

"They like new things and they search for competitive advantage through experimentation. The second factor has to do with that advantage. With the cost of IT on average at 20% or more, reducing the cost of IT through open source eventually becomes a no brainer."

Interestingly, I blogged about something similar on my own blog today. I think what really makes open source Web CMS especially attractive to the enterprise is that in many ways open source was there first. If you think about it, many organizations that are requesting Web 2.0 features in their propriety systems are getting those ideas from open source CMS such as Alfresco. I think it's difficult for a propriety software company to produce collaboration/social networking software if it really isn't in their own work culture. Open source has the upper hand here and the enterprise is recognizing that.

[James J]

Good financial post. Well done

[Jdddyuwye]

Only we have the best Viagra in our online pharmacy!http://kerneltrap.org/user/17238 Buy cialis
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17254 Generic cialis prices
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17255 Buy cialis online
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17256 Buy cheap cialis
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17257 Buy discount cialis
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17260 Buy soma online
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17261 Online soma
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17262 Cheap soma
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17263 Order soma
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17264 Buy viagra
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17265 Generic viagra
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17266 Cheap viagra
http://kerneltrap.org/user/17267 Viagra discount

[Racel]

[url= http://ryno.krovatka.su ]сиськи[/url]

[Ingijr]

http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3926 buy cialis
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3927 Generic cialis
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3928 Buy Cheap Cialis
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3929 discount cialis
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3930 ORDER CIALIS
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3933 Buy Soma Online
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3935 Cheap Soma
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3936 ORDER SOMA
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3937 generic soma
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3938 Buy Viagra ONLINE
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3939 ORDER VIAGRA
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3940 Buy viagra online
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3941 cheap viagra
http://www.laflash.org/forum/member.php?u=3942 Discount Viagra
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=143 Buy Viagra
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=144 Generic VIAGRA
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=145 Buy viagra online
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=146 Cheap Viagra
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=147 Discount VIAGRA
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=148 Order viagra
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=149 BUY CIALIS ONLINE
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=150 Generic cialis online!
http://scootgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=151 Buy cheap Cialis

[Generic]

http://rocking-offers.com/tds/go.php?sid=2 Order Vlagra for lowest prices!
Major website to order Vlagra online.
Fast, cheap and discreet delivery.
Order Vlagra right now!
http://rocking-offers.com/tds/go.php?sid=2 ORDER VIAGRA ONLINE - CLICK HERE!
http://www.epinions.com/user-ed-expert/show_~View_Profile viagra uk http://www.esnips.com/user/DrViagra