The interview
Q: What is your name?
I'm Pierre Baudracco, CEO of Bluemind.
Q: What is your product?
Blue Mind is a collaborative messaging solution, the counterpart to Microsoft's Exchange. It includes email, phone, directory and address books, contacts, video conferencing, calendar, drive, chat, click to call, tasks and other features. Messaging is the most used tool on the Internet, still expanding and growing after so many years. It's a critical service with still major security issues on the one hand and a necessity on the other. It is also mission critical: if messaging systems no longer work, communication and document sharing are directly and severely impacted as are all other collaborative tools.
Q: Are you a market leader? Who do you consider leader in your market? Does GAFAM play any role in your market?
Microsoft's position is ultra-dominant, Outlook and Office suite are near hegemony. Amazon tried to get into it but didn't succeed, Google has tools but not as many users as Microsoft which has seniority, and user habit on their side.
Q: What are the unique selling propositions of your product? Is your solution different or better than competing solutions?
Blue Mind has more than 10 years of R&D under its bealt and developed a stable, robust product that can withstand the test of time and the evolution of technologies (new phones, etc). Today, BlueMInd is recognized as a reliable and quality French alternative, which is evidenced by its ever-increasing number of reference clients (between 400 and 500 currently). In order to reach a scale equivalent to that of Microsoft, a lot of work is still remains to be done.
Q: Which free and open source software solutions do you use?
We are using PostgreSQL (Database), Cyrus IMAP (storage server) and Postfix (mail router).
Q: Can you name users or clients of your solution? Preferably in the CAC40, DAX30, Fortune500, European governments?
We don't have any clients in the CAC40 for the moment because no company is ready to change for an equivalent solution. Microsoft remains the solution of choice for such large volume clients and migration to another solution is no easy task. Bluemind is used however by many foreign governments (Burkina Faso, Algeria, Gabon) as well as industrial companies such as Airbus, Inserm (27K users), Institut Pasteur Lille, City of Marseille, Departmental councils, Laforêt property group.
Q: Do you have a success case among these clients?
Laforêt Real Estate Group was a really successfull implementation.
Q: Why did this client choose your solution rather than the solution of the market leader or GAFAM?
Sovereignty is an issue that concerns more and more users and companies not only in Europe. Moreover, the quality/price ratio of BlueMind, which has attracted a very wide range of clients, is a strong point (versatility, adaptability). The diary management tool, which is a very complicated feature to set up with regards to synchronisation on different media and across user groups attracts a large number of companies. We're also the only solution to offer a mixed collaborative setting between user groups with multiple access levels. Such features have matured in Bluemind for over 10 years into an independant solution with continuity and also perseverance, which shows in clients opting for Bluemind.
Q: What European policies do you suggest to ensure sustainable development of your technology and its adoption?
I would promote and encourage purchasing. SMEs need customers, orders, references and not just subsidies. This means we need the equivalent of the Small Business Act for Europa and encourage growth of small businesses in the same was the US does by giving them a fixed share of all public orders.
In addition I would promote open source and open source publishers for real and not only do lip service.
Q: To what extent are the interoperability projects financed by France and Europe likely to guarantee the development of European cloud technologies?
Interoperability is a basic concept of Open Source and its promotion encourages compliance with standards in order to facilitate exchanges. In absolute terms it should be encouraged, but in reality interoperability is sadly misused to enfore the standard of the strongest.
Q: Can you give us an idea of sales/staff/clients/end users over the last 3 years?
Bluemind has recruited about ten people since January. This rise in staff confirms the viability of the company and our ambition to offer a serious alternative to Microsoft.
Q: Tell us about a successful implementation. How did you implement it, why was it a success, where is this implementation today? Plans for the future? How is the relation with the client? Did the client help you get other clients?
Laforêt Real Estate Group: a privately owned company that operates as a franchise. They needed to improve their tools to simplify communication between all franchisees without too high a cost and they required more than basic messaging. Blue Mind appeared to be a very good compromise: collaborative messaging (email is their primary communication channel), large volume of clients/users (over 6000 locations).
We've been working together for five years now after negotiating for a long time on network topics, cost and particularities of the project. In the end we convinced Laforêt and they migrated to our solution.
This success case also indirectly brought new customers for example in the real estate sector. Les Châlets group began using Bluemind, but also hospitals, private companies, such as Airbus, Thalès, etc. Each new reference brings further new clients and increases our reputation of a solid, reliabile and effective Blue Mind solution.