Openbravo Releases 2.50 - Modules Are Here
Open source ERP vendor Openbravo yesterday announced the release of Openbravo 2.50 - you can download it from here. From a product perspective, the most important feature of this release is Modules. Openbravo now provides the platform required to extend its ERP offering, but it’s up to the community and partners to take Openbravo to the next level of ERP by building industry solutions and other generic extensions on top of OB’s modular architecture. An extensive modules library should make OB a more attractive ERP offering and a better competition to proprietary ERP solution, by further cutting costs of implementation projects (modules cut the costs of customization).
From a service prospective, Openbravo redesigned their service offering and renamed it Openbravo Professional Subscription. OB services now target two markets - SMB and the enterprise. The main difference (other than the price , of course) is support for clustering, which is often a necessary (yet not sufficient) condition for critical information systems in the enterprise. The service repackaging lines up Openbravo with other enterprise software vendors, cutting prices and simplifying price structures in times of recession.
ERP Consulting
We started Open Source ERP Guru over a year ago recognizing two things: adoption of open source ERP solutions is going to grow exponentially, and a huge knowledge gap exists around these solutions. Since then, it’s been nothing but good news for the industry. Multiple vendors reported double and triple digit growth, venture money was injected and perhaps most importantly, global partners have lined up and joined forces with the different vendors to provide local implementation services to small-medium businesses.
Obviously, in parallel to the commercial success of the projects, product development have been key to the success of open source ERP offerings. Support for additional business scenarios have been developed, integration with 3rd party software and user experience have improved, and the move toward ease of customization and the development of vertical solutions put these solutions on par with their proprietary, licensed counterparts.
We often get emails from our blog visitors asking questions about a particular solution or needing advice on which open source ERP application should they use. I believe most, if not all of them are using a proprietary ERP solution and are looking to convert, from the obvious reasons.
We would like put our own knowledge around open source ERP solutions to good use, so we will be offering consulting services to companies who consider buying these solutions. Just like in proprietary ERP, it’s never question of which solutions is the best - the real question is which solutions best fits your requirements. With all the knowledge reflected in the pages of this blog, together with our experience in implementing ERP applications, we believe we could help you make a smarter decision in regards to which open source ERP solution is best for you. This is crucial not only for your success, but for the success of the entire open source ERP industry.
We will soon be adding a ’service’ section to this blog with additinal information regarding the consulting services we offer. If you are interested in more information, please contact us by email: consulting@opensourceerpguru.com.
Apache OfBiz Revamps Website
One of our favorite open source ERP solutions is Apache OfBiz. Apache projects are ‘notorius’ for being of very high quality. The Apache web server literally powers the Internet and is considered one of the best applications ever written. OfBiz is Apache’s take on business management software, and can either be used as an out of the box ERP solution, or as a robust framework for building new ERP solutions on top of.
One of Ofbiz’s main areas for improvement was its user interface. Much attention have been put into the underline data structure, business logic and services layer, while the look and feel of the application was somewhat neglected. A few months ago Ofbiz released a themes engine, enabling developers to build and share their own themes with the community. Themes has the potential of making Ofbiz a much more compelling ERP solution, but it really depends on the community’s contribution. A couple of themes releasedby the community can be found here.
The Dusk Of Enterprise Open Source? Oracle Acquires Sun
Several months ago we speculated about a possible acquisition of an open source ERP project by one of IT megavendors - IBM, Sun or Oracle. Much have changed since then, especially for Sun, who lost a lot of its value as a public company and became an easy target for an acquisition.
Rumors of talks between Sun and IBM surfaced a couple of weeks ago, but apparently IBM was not eager enough to put the money on the table. But Oracle was never (and will probably never be) afraid of acquiring other companies.
As of the time of writing it is not clear if it’s officially a done deal, but Oracle is to buy Sun for about 7B$. The implications on enterprise IT are huge, with two dimensions directly related to open source ERP - open source and enterprise applications.
Sun was the leading open source software vendor. It released several high end software products as open source ( the Java programming language, the Open Solaris operating system and many other smaller projects). It also acquired MySQL, the leading open source database software a few months ago. Oracle ,on the other hand, is synonymous with proprietary software, especially in the ERP market.
Openbravo ERP Localization
ERP localization is an important indicator of the maturity of any business application, and of ERP applications specifically.Most efforts going into ERP developments focus on supporting generic functionality, required by as many potential customers as possible. The reality is that if you plan to offer your ERP solution globally, functionality alone is not enough. Support for localization is a necessary (yet not sufficient) condition to widespread adoption of an ERP system.
I got a chance to talk with Richard Morley, open source ERP vendor Openbravo accounting and localization manager. We had an interesting conversation and I learned quite a lot on the subject. Richard has been working in ERP development and consulting for about 11 years. He joined Openbravo late last year.
What is localization
Defining the term localization is not as simple as it might seem. In general, any aspect of an ERP application, whether functionality, data or user interface, that has a different meaning and different usage patterns in diffident countries, is a candidate to be part of a localization. Richard uses a broad definition: “..it is a multitude of factors, it’s not just functionality, it also has to do with language, culture, support, the many factors that drive to claim to have an effective localization. We drive to provide assurance to Openbravo users that this is what they are getting”.
Localization in Openbravo
Openbravo localization is a decentralized project according to Richard, where each local community develops their own localizations, as oppose to most proprietary ERP vendors, where localization is a centralized projects, developed by the vendor itself. Openbravo “focuses on language support and the functional core of Openbravo ,and the capability of the core to go to any particular country”. Richard emphasizes a key guideline in Openrbavo’s localization efforts: Openbravo itself should provide the underlying functionality and tools to make the adjustments required for any particular locale as simple as possible: “view Openbravo as a platform, we believe it is viable in most countries with varying degree of intervention.. we try to simplify the process of fine tuning the application for any particular market of even vertical”.
Openbravo localization covers :”.. the ability to capture the transactional data with sufficient granularity for reporting needs, number handling, rounding rules, tax logic and tax rule including tax on tax and withholding tax, currency management, chart of accounts, and multi cultural aspects - not only language, but also the ability of the UI to present data in away that is culturally excepted: display of number, address format, RTL , date etc.”
Compiere ERP In Amazon’s Cloud
Not only is cloud computing a hot trend these days, it also makes a lot of sense in the context of the open source ERP industry. Cloud, or Software as a Service(SaaS) offerings, appeal mostly to the huge SMB market. Compiere, one of the leading open source ERP vendors, announced it will offer a version of its ERP software to be deployed in the Amazon EC2 cloud.
Compiere’s EC2 offering tries to bring the good from both worlds - traditional on-premise ERP systems and modern SaaS offerings. Most current SaaS platforms run multiple customer instances on the same server. Compiere cloud edition, based on Compiere professional edition, lets customers run their ERP instance on their own virtual, yet private, server.
Openbravo World Conference 2009
Barcelona is an amazing city, some would argue the most attractive tourist destination in the world. You don’t need many excuses to go their - great weather, best football(soccer?) team in the world, and the Dali museum is a short ride away.
Openbravo, one of the leading open source ERP vendors, is holding the 3 days Openbravo World Conference 2009, April 17th, in Barcelona. I was glad to find out that the main theme of the conference is the open source community around the Openbravo project.
The sponsors list is impressive. I was surprised to find Oracle as a gold sponsor. I didn’t know Oracle takes part in several open source initiatives, but I’m still wondering which oracle is sponsoring the event - the successful database maker (Openbravo runs on Oracle’s DB), or the ERP vendor vacuum cleaner. Either way, you must be doing something right when one of the worlds’ largest business software companies sponsors your event. Other sponsors include more obvious sponsors such as IBM, Sun, Talend (open source integration) , Canonical (Ubuntu Linux) and our friends at ERP.com, where I occasionally guest blog.
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Hosted ERP System
I often get visitors to my blog searching for ‘hosted ERP systems’, ‘Openbravo hosting’ or ‘hosted Compiere’. One of the hottest current trends in IT is hosted, or SaaS( software as a service), business software. There are many advantages to using a hosted ERP system, especially for small-medium businesses. We cover the subject of on-demand (hosted) ERP systems in our free ERP training.
Hosting an ERP system is an idea that has been around for years. In the late 90’s, it was called ASP - Application Service Providers. These providers installed business software (CRM,ERP etc.) in their own hosting facility, and offered its customers access to the systems over the Internet, usually for a monthly subscription.
The problem back then was that the Internet infrastructure, in terms of speed, reliability and security, was not mature enough. A few years later, Salesforce.com, a CRM providers, was the first commercially successful business software vendor to deliver their application over the Internet. By that time, the trend was renamed to SaaS - software as a service, and is now part of the Cloud Computing trend.
CRM systems are much more simple than ERP systems, and are easier to offer off the cloud. Additionally, they require much less customization, and uptime requirements are leaner than those of ERP systems. These factors make hosting an ERP system a more challenging issue.
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ERP Training Agenda And Schedule
This is the official free online ERP training agenda and schedules page. If you plan to attend our live ERP sessions, make sure you visit this page to get the latest updates.
Course Name:
ERP 101
Next Sessions:
Thursday, March 19th, 2009, at 16:00 GMT
Sunday, March 8th, 2009, at 15:00 GMT (Completed)
March 3rd, 2009, at 17:00 GMT (Completed)
Next Session Item:
ERP Modules: Manufacturing, Inventory, Sales, Purchasing, Accounting. Includes live ERP demos.
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Open Source ERP E-commerce With Apache OfBiz
E-commerce solutions have been around for several years. Back in the early days of online shopping, during the late years of the last century, E-commerce solutions were stand alone applications, built using modern web technologies. Integration between these systems and ERP systems were cumbersome, unreliable and insecure.
As open source ERP solutions began to emerged in the early 2000’s, web based business software became one of the hottest trend. There were many good reasons for that trend, one of them was the more natural integration with E-commerce solutions, slowly becoming a crucial competitive necessity for any type of business.
All open source ERP solution offer some E-commerce functionality, either as a native module or through an integration with a dedicated, stand alone E-commerce solution. We will cover these solutions in a series of articles, starting with Apache Ofbiz. We will later cover solutions and integration points from Compiere, Openrbavo, xTuple and others.
The reason we chose to start with Apache Ofbiz that it has the best native E-commerce functionality we’ve seen in any ERP system. It almost seems like it’s an E-commerce solution with an ERP extension. Another OfBiz feature we like is the user experience, which is vital to a successful online shopping store. Although the interface is not the most beautiful (OfBiz plans to tackle this issue by introducing themes), interacting with the interface is very smooth and it is very easy to find what your looking for. I believe OfBiz can make an excellent solution if a better looking, more elegant theme is used.
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