WEF Says Yes to Records Management Alfresco Style
WEF Says Yes to Records Management Alfresco Style
December 12, 2006: In a victory for open source, Alfresco now has its enterprise content management software in hand to walk in to 2007 as a Technology Pioneer for the World Economic Forum.
The World Economic Forum selected 47 technology leaders in total for the pioneer program. By basing selection criteria on innovation in developing technology, the Forum looks for technology that has the potential for long-term impact on both society and business.
For Alfresco, it was the open source approach that got them across the line. Though this approach, Alfresco says the software can provide significant financial benefits for organisations in developing countries that are poorly funded.
John Newton, founder and CTO of Alfresco expressed his pride at winning the award in a statement online. The founder should be proud, after co-founding Documentum, the content management firm snapped up by EMC in 2004, he turned to open source software and commenced work on the UK based Alfresco in January 2005.
“In my previous company, we had a clear, but limited vision of who we could help with content management. We want to open this to the world,” says Newton in the statement on what he hopes to gain from being a Technology Pioneer. “I would hope to gain greater visibility to how information can help some of the most pressing problems in the world.”
So just how does Alfresco contribute to the world? Newton believes enterprise content management might be somewhat invisible, but has certainly made an impact. “Financial services companies are much more transparent, reporting the true cost of transactions and where money goes, making all business more efficient as a result,” he says. “Governments are serving their citizens better than ever before, reacting to requests for services and providing greater clarity on where money is going.”
Alfresco see it as taking the benefits of ECM that are currently only seen in the largest of enterprises, and making it available for everyone by eliminating the barriers of price. “Poor governments can serve their citizens just as well as rich governments,” says Newton. “Even _Alfrescosmall companies can comply with government regulation, improving public safety.” p>
Through the program, Newton says he hopes to examine how knowledge sharing can level the playing field for companies outside of the developing world and also figure out how information impacts on global warming and the environment. “My personal interests have always involved economics and politics,” he says. “So I think it will just be a hell of a lot of fun to participate.”