Since its creation, Eureos has relied on Open Source tools: SugarCRM for CRM, Plone for websites and intra/extranets, LimeSurvey for satisfaction surveys or market research (coupled with PSPP). I’m not even talking about our Ubuntu servers and the slew of small tools that, without their developer community, would have cost us a fortune on the “proprietary” market.
However, not everything is rosy in the wonderful world of free software. I would like to offer you a (quick) comparison between two completely opposite Open Source models, both in spirit and economically.
The SugarCRM model
A managing company, free to attract users, paid for essential features
SugarCRM is one of the best-known and most widely used customer relationship management solutions at the moment. It must be said that on paper, the system has no shortage of strengths: everything is there, from capturing leads from the website to email campaigns.
The SugarCRM model: the “Community” version is free, the “pro” and “enterprise” versions are paid. The company therefore makes money from… licenses. And that is where, in my view, the conflict of interest begins, pushing it to “limit” certain developments in the community version in order to encourage purchase.
A simple example: reports. In the community version, it is impossible to create a serious and customized report from cross-queries and present it in a decent format (graph, XML, etc.). What is the point of your CRM if you cannot extract the information properly?
The Plone model
A foundation that manages common interests, high-quality free software, services to go further.
Plone is a Content Management System (CMS) that we use for client websites. It is not the best-known CMS on the market: it is not very “sexy” in terms of appearance, there is not really any mass marketing around the product, and above all, it remains more difficult to access than Joomla or WordPress from a systems point of view. Yet it is a thoroughbred, especially in terms of reliability and security.
Here, there is no free, pro or enterprise version, but a common core, managed by a foundation. So-called “extension” products make it possible to add features. These extensions are provided free of charge by the developer community.
The economic model is simple: the more Plone is used, the more expertise will be needed, and the more the members of the community (the ecosystem around Plone) will be able to sell services.
Good for the user or for the managing company?
As far as I am concerned, I find that the model chosen by Plone is much better for the user that I am, whereas I am very wary of Sugar’s. Economically, if I take stock of the past few years, we have ultimately spent much more on Plone services than on Sugar licenses… but to meet our specific needs, not to get the basic features.
But in marketing terms, there is no contest: SugarCRM’s economic power has made it a globally known solution. Plone is too, but it is not comparable. From there to thinking that there is an opposition between the service provided to the user and the economic performance of the manager or managers…
