Open Source ERP Guru

Compiere is the most popular open source ERP software to date – largest number of downloads, channel partners,consultants and live customers. The first ever ERP software I installed was Compiere, back in 2002. It was quite remarkable back then – for me,ERP software was this huge,complicated software that requires 10 days to install,not mentioning the money you would have to pay for licenses. I desperately looked for a 30-days trial of commercial ERP solutions but soon realized I would have to be the CIO of a 1B$+ company to get any attention from those guys.

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Neogia is one of several open source ERP solution built on top of Apache Open For Business framework (Ofbiz). The Apache open source project provides a set of services required to operate a business – create customer records,products and sales orders, for example. The Apache project does not provide a complete solution but rather the building blocks for a real ERP application. I feel that applications built on top of OFbiz have a good chance to be successful. Apache open source projects provide commercial-grade, robust solutions that power the almost infinite growth of the Internet. Applications such as the Apache web server, Tomcat and Lucene are all top-notch applications, offering quality,ease of use and ROI that few commercial products can compete with. I hope that OFBiz will evolve to become as important to the business community as other Apache projects are to the Internet. 

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Adempiere is a spin-off project from Compiere, arguably the most popular open source ERP solution on the market today. Whenever that kind of spin-off happens, especially from an open source project, you know that the members that left are hungry. They are hungry to prove they can do things better than the original project,otherwise they would not have left. Going to Adempiere’s website, I was anxious to see how the Adempiere project is doing.

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One of most exciting things about open source ERP software are free downloads. No commercial solution will allow you to just go to their website,click on ‘Download’, go to a Wiki page that gives you step-by-step installation instructions, and then,within an hour or so,you have your own ERP system!

I started my installtion process by visiting Openbravo’s website, although I knew the actual downloads of the Openbravo software were hosted on Sourceforge servers.

The way I see it, if you consider yourself an open source ERP solution, your homepage should have a visible,top-level link called “Download”. Clicking it should take you straight to the download page. OpenBravo did just that – on their homepage,in the top right-hand side, a link to the download page,taking you straight to the Sourceforge download page. Nice!!

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