The Outlook for the UK Drupal Market in 2010

2010 is set to be a very exciting year for all those involved in Drupal. For Ben and I, this is of particular interest as we are launching a Drupal development company in the hope (well, conviction) that demand for Drupal services will only increase.

There are several key themes and developments, which I believe, will affect the uptake of Drupal this year. In this post I will tackle each of these themes and assess how, and to what extent they will affect the market.

The Release of Drupal 7.

It has been two years in the making and in the last few days the alpha version of D7 was released. D6 saw massive improvements over D5, and it was the point at which Drupal started to acquire a critical mass for uptake by large organisations and enterprises. In my opinion, D7 will only build on, and compound this uptake.

A much improved admin interface, built-in custom fields and built-in image handling, will provide the complete package which many people have found lacking in D6. I have lost track of the number of people who have asked me how to ‘do images’ in Drupal or how to give users profiles. The improvements in D7 will make Drupal compare much more favourably to other CMSs, both open source and propriety.

When will we be able to start building on D7? A safe bet would be end of Q2 - to mid Q3. As result of this (and the recession), I suspect some businesses are holding off on building sites on Drupal until D7 becomes available. The release of D6 was, commercially, something of a non-event as critical modules like views, cck and ubercart were not available until several months after the release. Things are looking much better for D7, the initiative to motivate contrib developers to release a D7 version of their modules alongside D7 core, has really paid off.

The upshoot of all this is that I predict there will be a flurry of big names launch sites on D7 from early Q4 onwards, which combined with a much slicker overall Drupal package, will increase interest and uptake by established organisations.

The other affect of the D7 release will be the rush to upgrade from D5 to D6, and for the adventurous few, D6 to D7. Although I mentioned earlier that D6 was where larger organisations (i.e. those that pay for Drupal services) started to use it, a host of start ups, non profits and more daring companies, used D5. Many of these, may, up until now, have not wanted to fix something that was not broken. However, in order to keep their sites secure, they will be forced to upgrade.

The Shift Towards Open Government

Over in the US, the Obama administration has been pushing the concept of Open Government. This incorporates three main ideas: government activity should be transparent, it should involve the public in policy formation and it should executed collaboratively, by involving  other government organisations, NGOs, businesses and individuals.

Anyone that knows Drupal will be able to tell you that Drupal is an ideal tool for doing all of the above. Acquia, were quick to act and launched a specialised program for government agencies.

What about here in the UK? Well, I think it is likely that similar things will be happening here. Before June we are guaranteed a general election, which will almost certainly see a Conservative government gain power. Whilst sweeping open government reforms are unlikely, a shift towards transparency is.

The MPs expenses scandal was a major event in British Politics and no party escaped un-smeared. Combined with the general public’s disgust at bankers pay and bonuses, there appears to be a real appetite, and perhaps even a need, for much greater transparency and accountability. With a post-war record number of MPs standing down , it could be seen as an opportune time to start a fresh, with more accountability. This is backed up by the Conservatives recent stance on transparency in local government and EU spending.

If the government were to find inspiration from the States, we could see an increased interest in Drupal from the public sector in the second half of the year.

The Recession

We may be one of the last countries in the EU, but it is generally accepted that in December '09, the UK emerged from the recession. However, the recovery is set to be a slow one, with reductions in public spending after the election and a wounded financial services sector holding back growth.

This suits me just fine, but that is the subject of another post. How will this impact the market for Drupal?  In December 2009, Goldman Sachs projected IT spending would return to 4% growth, in preparation for the upturn.  This spending, coupled with a more disciplined approach towards costs, the increased acceptance of open source software in the enterprise environment and the shift towards cloud computing, has the potential to increase Drupal adoption. Do not get me wrong, I do not think we will see a trading platform built on Drupal, however for the smaller community sites, both internal and customer facing, Drupal has the potential to become the platform of choice.

A second affect of the recession is how companies are reconsidering how they use their existing marketing budgets. The last 18 months have seen a definite shift towards ‘social marketing’. I think Drupal is well placed to take advantage of this phenomenon. For the price of a short print advertising campaign, a company could build a community site, an e-commerce platform or overhaul their existing site.

A Changing Client Base

Over the past 12 months we have a seen a real change in the type of organisations using Drupal. I have certainly been tracking Dries’ blog with interest, it seems every week there is another big name using Drupal: Nvidia, Intel, Siemens, AT&T the Economist, and of course the Whitehouse.

I think that over 2010 we are going to see Drupal used by many large companies and organisations, but for a specific kind of site. This kind of site is typically non-business-critical and very often not directly revenue generating. As a result, budgets maybe limited and risk tolerance increased. In these situations Drupal fits the bill very nicely. Such sites include product microsites, community sites, developer sites and apps directories.

I think we will also see Drupal adoption spread down the long tail. Smaller organisations, who some day might want a feature rich site, but for now just require a good brochure site with a blog, may find themselves considering a Drupal solution for not much more than a static HTML solution.

One area which I feel will see a reduction in Drupal usage, is where it all started out: small personal sites and clubs. This will be caused by a combination of increased complexity, steeper learning curve and crucially a massive improvement in other packages. I find it increasingly hard to recommend Drupal to someone without a technical background or the budget to pay for a developer. Services such as Squarespace, Wordpress, Posterous and many others are so powerful and easy to use, they provide the perfect solution for 90% of personal needs.

A Changing Supplier Base

Finally, I think we are going to see a change in how Drupal services are supplied here in the UK. Currently, there is a booming market for contractors, with the frequent complaint that there are not enough good developers out there. However, contractors are expensive and by their nature, tend to be highly mobile between projects. For the developer, the role of contractor is less than ideal. Whilst the money is great, there is often no scope for contributing back to Drupal, there is no career progression, job security only extends three months into the future and you are never genuinely considered part of an organisation.

As a result, I think 2010 will see a shift away from the contractor as the main provider of Drupal services. Organisations with existing Drupal sites will build teams in-house which can handle maintenance and on going development and an outside Drupal development company will be brought in to work with the internal team to develop new sites.

Conclusion

To summarise, 2010 will be a very exciting year for all those involved with Drupal. The release of D7 will improve the image of Drupal. More big name companies and public sector organisations will use Drupal despite, or because of, the recession. Drupal sites will be developed less and less by contractors and more by in-house teams and external companies.