Alfresco Declares War On Microsoft SharePoint

Sure, Microsoft SharePoint remains a lucrative opportunity for solutions providers. But even SharePoint — one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing products — is under attack from open source. This time, the aggressor is Alfresco Software Inc. Here’s the scoop.

Alfresco positions itself as:

The company kicked off that attack strategy in July, when Alfresco described plans to support the SharePoint Server 2007 protocols. The attack grew a bit more aggressive when LinuxWorld Expo pulled into San Francisco last week.

During the event, Alfresco had a small demo station within Canonical’s conference booth. From the relative safety of that booth, Alfresco representatives educated hundreds of attendees about the company’s strategy.

Instead of struggling to define where and how Alfresco fits into the content management market, Alfresco representatives kept repeating that same magic phrase:

Even The VAR Guy was repeating Alfresco’s pitch by the time he headed for his flight home. You know, if you say something often enough people start to believe it. Early Alfresco customers — from Activision to XMRadio — seem to be true believers.