ITGumbo: spicing IT up

Last week, OrangeHRM (I really like that name, for some reason) announced that its Open Source Human Resource Management System had been downloaded 50,000 times since the first version was released to SourceForge.net in February 2006. Yet what proved to be most impressive was the growth demonstrated by its international user community which currently spans across 6 continents. This growth has given OrangeHRM the ability to integrate the needs of the global market for HRMS through a vibrant contributor base.

Sujee Saparamadu, CEO of OrangeHRM, spoke to the importance of community when he said "Developing and managing the community is crucial." However, he also made mention of what tends to prove a key challenge for open source efforts, which get on a fast track towards international traction early on, namely keeping up with a globally distributed ecosystem. A quick pace of innovation within an open source project is almost always a positive when there are organized structures in place which can scale in parallel. Channel partners will obviously play a key role as the product takes root in the localities to which it has thus far spread. So while 50,000 downloads may not seem like a prohibitively large number, it stands to reason that with activity across all 6 continents less than 18 months after the initial release, there is even more potential for expansion. A reality which might actually pose as a double edged sword for the young company.

Ironically, at a very early stage in its existence, OrangeHRM is faced with the prospect of figuring out how to scale as a company to keep pace with growth of product adoption levels. And since normally it's the other way around in the beginning, I wouldn't be surprised if the company is successful in attracting a fair amount of interest from the VC community. All despite not having had to pour a great deal of time into building a user community around the project. Yet whether or not OrangeHRM takes on VC funding, it will still be responsible for playing the role of 'benevolent dictator.' Doing so will determine how well this strong wave of initial adoption can be integrated into the company's business strategy. Simply put, it's never entirely easy to turn downloads into dollars, whether you're Red Hat or MySQL or OrangeHRM.

I should probably stop and express that I'm not knocking the progress demonstrated out of the gate by OrangeHRM, rather I'm working through the potential impacts of it. After all, getting open source governance right is very much a process. Where personal interactions with key figures within notable open source communities adds as much insight to such a statement than any opinion I might have developed as an external observer. Additionally, establishing a company around an open source product is no walk in the park, either, the early stages of which tends to entail just as much trial-and-error as any other venture. So even if the market has opened its eyes to the viability of the open source model, there are still a great many barriers to overcome and comparatively few trailblazers who have made the journey to the promise land and back.

At the end of the day, OrangeHRM will have the opportunity to grapple with the opportunities and challenges inherent in having to concomitantly scale a partner network, manage community growth and continue quality product development. Nonetheless, some time will have to pass before it's clear whether, what currently lies ahead was too much too soon or if it was simply a fast start. In the meantime, OrangeHRM is a company worth watching.