From the 'just because people use it, that doesn't make it a commercial success' files:

When I first talk with a vendor (any vendor) they're always talking about the good stuff, their successes and why their technology is better. That's the stuff that makes press releases and PR pitches.

Then there are the failures. The companies that just don't live up to their initial promises and expectations.

To that list, I'm now going to add Qlusters and its openQRM project. This is an open source systems management project that I have written on before and I even interviewed Qlusters CEO Ofer Shoshan in a Q&A last year. Shoshan is no longer the CEO and apparently isn't with Qlusters anymore either.

In a posting on the Sourceforge.net open source repository site Qlusters announced that it wasn't going to support openQRM anymore.

Following release 3.5 - the last release from Qlusters - we hope the community will continue to evolve and develop openQRM together with Matt Rechenburg  openQRM's active project manager, who has been doing a wonderful job not just in driving the community but also in evangelizing and promoting openQRM throughout the industry. Qlusters would like to wish the openQRM project community, and Matt Rechenburg, a future of prosperity and continued success.

It's not like openQRM is not being used either. Sourceforge stats show that the project had more than 129,000 downloads. Apparently downloads alone are not enough for Qlusters, so they cut openQRM loose.

That said the project is open source so users are not left out in the cold. If the community wants to continue with openQRM, they can. It's just that there won't be a commercial vendor behind the project backing it. 

Perhaps this represents an opportunity for Zenoss, Hyperic or Groundwork who also play in the same space to pick up users. Perhaps this is also an opportunity for a different commercial support vendor like OpenLogic or SpikeSource to pick up the project and support this community of users.

Matt Aslett over at the 451 Group has an interesting analysis on the the situation that I completely agree with:

No word yet from Qlusters on its future direction. However, it is not surprising to see changes at the company. It has been particularly quiet since former CTO William Hurley left to become chief open source strategy architect at BMC. In fact, I was more surprised to see an announcement regarding Qlusters than I was the fact that it is getting out of openQRM development.