We’re one of the fastest growing software companies in the UK, but for a number of reasons the UK is not an open market for open source software, said John Powell, president and CEO of Alfresco at a Westminster Open Source seminar in the UK.
Powell blamed the failure of UK companies to embrace open source partly on a reluctance to challenge the entrenched software licensing models that sprung up in the 1980s.
Language barriers meant US firms selling into continental Europe needed local partners to do business, ensuring those customers a certain independence from the US way of doing things. UK customers, however, lapped up the proprietary message directly from the sales staff and they are still lapping up that message today.
Meanwhile, the risk-taking, entrepreneurial drive of US firms ensures they are more willing than cautious UK firms to take a punt on open source. If we can get the message out [about open source] it will do the UK a massive service and will create an industry. In other countries, this is driving highly skilled, highly paid jobs, said Powell.
But that requires a shift in attitude from the government, the private sector, and investors. He said US investors were biting our hands off to back the company when it started out, yet Powell said he could not see the same reaction happening in the UK. The UK is really missing out. The profits Alfresco will make will flow back to those US institutions, said Powell.
