Chordiant has just released its collaboration product called Mesh (press release), which it says utilizes an open source development style to develop the types of business process automations that enable the collaborative framework.

This seems a fine example of what kinds of products should be developed out in the open. The processes surrounding collaboration are very specific to industries and even individual organizations, so one development team spending two years on a product may not even scratch the surface in terms of really mastering all of these automations. (To put this in persepctive, Oracle’s Collaboration Suite has taken years to develop and has seen little adoption and a lot of criticism.)

An open development network is an obvious choice, since this is not the type of funtionality that is centered around storing sensitive data like an ERP or other financials product. Sure, the collaboration tools will handle sensitive data at times, but it will not be where that data will ultimately lie. But all in all, this just seems another instance of open source concepts seeping into the traditional application world, further blurring the lines between proprietary and open source.