Welcome to the Post Status Draft podcast, which you can find on iTunes, Stitcher, and via RSS for your favorite podcatcher. Post Status Draft is hosted by Joe Hoyle — the CTO of Human Made — and Brian Krogsgard.
Today, Joe and Brian discuss WordPress in the “enterprise,” starting with a discussion on what the enterprise even is. We discuss WordPress’s value to the enterprise, and what enterprise level companies are looking for in their technology solutions.
The conversation turns into conspiracy theories and joking around by the 50 minute mark, so don’t be intimidated by the hour and fifteen minute timestamp.
I listened to the recent podcast about WordPress in the Enterprise.I really enjoy your program and look forward to interesting subjects but the emphasis on enterprise and WordPress is confusing to me.
In the context of the podcast:
enterprise = company (clear).
Enterprise = Big Company (clear).
Enterprise Software = Big Company Software (clear).
Enterprise = Good (unclear)
If these declarations are true then my first question/confusion has to be why is chasing the Enterprise a good thing for WordPress? Does anyone think that more than 2% of the people that you might see at a typical WordCamp actually believes that an Enterprise (big company context) is where they want to be?
I mean really – the majority of the people I saw at WordCamp US probably have never been employed by a company with over 50 people (except the vendors). Further, a large number of those have probably cut their technical teeth on WordPress and have never had to go through the meat-grinder of a corporate HR department or a polished, technical interview to get an Enterprise job. An even larger percentage probably do not even report to a company office but instead work from home or a “home office”. Clearly this may be a perception that only I hold but It is probably a pretty accurate assessment of the greater WordPress community.
My next question is; who is saying/suggesting/pushing that the Enterprise is a good place for WordPress to aspire to? Notice I am purposefully using the capitalized Enterprise in the context of this question. If I am even close in guessing that only some small fraction of the WordPress community would actually like a Big Company WordPress position, then who would be happy working/consulting in an Enterprise environment? Or better yet, is the larger WordPress community even engaged in this discussion?
The real question is who stands to gain from a widespread, Enterprise level adaptation of the WordPress stack? In my opinion it would be far less than 1% of the current WordPress community and perhaps a handful of companies in the space. In fact a much greater part of that community would probably be shut out from participating in any Enterprise projects involving WordPress and our smaller companies would need to consolidate and grow larger to be considered viable Enterprise providers.
Personally, I have spent a good deal of time selling to or working for Big Companies using Enterprise Software systems. I have also spent an equal amount of time in small start-ups and micro-companies making (what would turn out to be) Enterprise software. With that experience I can say unequivocally that the current WordPress ecosystem/community is probably the absolute opposite of the Enterprise Software ecosystem.
I will go on further to predict that a large scale adaptation of WordPress by a significant number of Enterprise companies (read Big Companies) will have an extremely negative impact on the WordPress community (read the best part of WordPress). That said, if the community is broken then WordPress will be broken.
Be careful for what you wish for (or someone wishes for you).