Take the 451 Group's CAOS Open Source Adoption survey

The 451 Group, a consulting and research company with a strong focus on open source is conducting another round of its CAOS Open Source Adoption survey.

I am extending their invitation to any of you who is a decision maker in software procurement.

Given current economic conditions there is considerable interest in open source software and whether open source licensing can help users lower the cost of enterprise computing compared to traditional proprietary licensing.

The 451 Group would like you to contribute to its CAOS Open Source Adoption Survey covering end user attitudes to the potential financial benefits of open source. The survey can be found here

In return for your contribution, you will receive a copy of the research results, which will be delivered in an update to our second Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) research report "Cost Conscious, A practical guide for understanding and calculating the financial benefits of open source for enterprise IT projects". You will also receive an invite to a special 451 Group Webinar at which we discuss these results.

The survey includes about 20 questions. We are not asking for details of specific projects, so no sensitive data will be revealed. We are asking about the benefits and risks of open source in general, and how you evaluated the cost of open source in any relevant projects. All responses are of course confidential. The survey will be available for the next two weeks, but please complete it at your earliest convenience.

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Best regards,

Matthew Aslett/Jay Lyman
CAOS (Commercial Adoption of Open Source)
The 451 Group

SAP looks at Openbravo for clients

Traditional proprietary players like Microsoft Dynamics and SAP tend to naysay and vehemently deny that open source is an alternative to their software. They state publicly that open source is irrelevant in their market and say it should be ignored.

Yet behind the curtains, they behave otherwise. The public denial is just a poor attempt to hide the facts.

It has come to our attention that SAP is running a campaign in SourceForge, where Openbravo downloads are hosted, to capture leads for them. You can see a screenshot below.



We all have seen that SAP's sales have been declining quarter after quarter for the past several quarters; are they getting so desperate that they need Openbravo to generate leads for them in their own home market? The campaign is so obtrusive that some even sent us comments asking whether actually Openbravo ERP was developed by SAP itself. LOL

Every day Openbravo Business Partners are winning more and more bids against SAP. Clients in the mid market are doing the side by side comparison and trusting our comprehensive, innovative, and cost-effective solution.

We have a long way to go, however SAP knows clients are going our way. Wether you are looking for an ERP for your company or a system integrator looking for growth opportunities the time has come to realize Openbravo is truly opening the ERP's future.

Openbravo on the cloud

As you might know, Openbravo ERP has been commercially available for cloud deployment since early 2008. Openbravo Professional Subscription has offered an appliance than can be deployed on any popular virtual cloud and notably on Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (aka Amazon EC2).

We have used this capability extensively both with clients and internally for a long time, with awesome results:

• We have reduced our infrastructure costs significantly
• We have eliminated hardware maintenance costs
• We have reduced the time to deploy a new system, drasticaly simplifying the procurement process

As an example, our on-line demo is hosted in the Amazon EC2 cloud.

Today I found an interesting 5 minutes video which explains the advantages of deploying aplication like Openbravo in the cloud.

This video is presented by rPath. Openbravo partners with rPath to enable its Professional Subscription for cloud deployment.

Openbravo SMB Network 2.40 is available

Some weeks ago, we announced the availability of Openbravo SMB Network 2.40, the professional subscription service for Openbravo ERP 2.40.

Openbravo SMB Network 2.40 is now the recommended choice for SMEs who want to deploy Openbravo ERP for production use.

Compared with the previous release, Openbravo ERP 2.40 provides:

• Improvements in the user interface for better productivity, including full keyboard navigation and better visual feedback in the user interface
• Better support for international deployments with better support for multi-schema accounting, withholding tax, VAT register or international bank account numbers
• More out-of-the-box reports and functionalities like purchase requisitions support, goods receipt by PO number, enhanced projects & services module or historical salary category
• Enhanced and more out-of-the-box reports
• More capabilities built into the platform like enhanced security, audit trails and additional web services

For more details, you can read the complete release notes for Openbravo ERP 2.40.

Additionally, the Openbravo ERP SMB Network 2.40 appliance contains significant improvements compared to the previous edition, notably

• Updated Administration Console
  
  
  • New, cleaner look and feel
  • Improved usability with better user feedback


• Improved performance per GHz
  
  • Native support for 64 bit architecture
  • Latest versions of Ant, Tomcat, Apache and Oracle

Existing Openbravo Network subscribers can migrate their systems to the latest Openbravo ERP release and receive support with he same level enjoyed in the previous release without the need to pay additional fees. However, it is important to notice that the upgrade process will require a development project that clients will need to contract to their system integrator of reference on the basis of the need to update custom code developed for them. Therefore clients should only upgrade to the latest release if the new functionalities available offer an immediate return on investment.

Go Professional! Buy Openbravo Network.

Disaster recovery with Openbravo SMB Network

The fact that Openbravo ERP is a mission critical application means that it is very important to have a disaster recovery plan.

Usually, and certainly more frequently than it should be, this type of plan is just an afterthought. Quite frankly, it is also very common that the recovery process is not fully tested or documented.

In those rare cases where the plan is properly laid out, System Integrators have generally required a large number of consulting hours to craft it and clients are rarely happy with the expenditure this entails.

Luckily, Openbravo SMB Network includes a nice functionality that offers this facility without the need to develop any complex process. Using the Administration Console, system back-ups can be scheduled regularly. These back-ups can be done against a remote file server for increased reliability.

In case of disaster, a simple restore process enables you to have a fully functional system up and running again in a matter of hours. Another neat benefit of the Openbravo SMB Network appliance.

Go Professional! Ensure the systems you are managing are properly protected.

I run a heavily cutomized Openbravo ERP system. Is Openbravo Network right for me?

This is one of the most frequent questions I get from (prospective) customers. Fortunately for everyone, the answer is a clear "YES".

One of the strengths of Openbravo ERP is the freedom to adapt it to every company's specific needs without limitation. This involves configuring the system's metadata, and very frequently, developing new functionalities to meet those specific requirements that make every company unique. On some occasions, the customizations done on top of the "standard" version are very significant.

However, this does not mean that you cannot benefit from Openbravo Network, the professional subscription service that has been designed to keep your system up-to-date and bug-free for a predictable cost.

Firstly, the service is built around the concept of system stability. The updates are designed to intricately target only the lines that require a fix, minimizing the likelihood of collision with custom developments. Therefore, in most of the cases, updates are silently applied without any conflict.

Secondly, the service is based on a ground-breaking application of source code management tools which are now part of Openbravo ERP. This approach provides a very granular and structured way to manage code conflicts during the update process, which help consultants apply fixes even when they are for the very same files that have been customized.

Attempting to undertake manual maintenance of a production system is simply not realistic, and too risky. Very often, only a handful of customer-reported bugs get fixed and the system is not properly patched. The situation gets much worse when several systems are maintained in parallel for several clients, and inevitably the quality of the manual maintenance process starts begins to deteriorate.

Openbravo Network has been designed to ensure Openbravo systems can be properly maintained so that they are fully up to date, with the quality required for a mission critical application, and in the most cost efficient way.

Go Professional! Buy Openbravo Network.

Openbravo Network: Commercial and Community symbiosis

During the launch of Openbravo Network, many mistakenly interpreted Openbravo adopting a closed source development model. This is not our strategy because we believe there is a better way.

My previous post is a very illustrative example of how customers benefit from having an open community, and how the community benefits from having customers funding it.

All bugs fixed for Openbravo ERP are available in the development trunk and incorporated in the newest release of Openbravo ERP, which typically occur twice a year.

Openbravo Network clients benefit from having regular and timely access to bug fixes, both for bugs reported by them or reported by the community. They get the benefits from using a product which is subject to public scrutiny and at the same time enjoy production grade SLAs (Service Level Agreements).

Community benefits from the effort funded by Openbravo Network customers to fix bugs, which are readily available in the development trunk and periodically packaged whenever a new release is published (or even before, if –occasionally- a community maintenance patch is published).

If you use Openbravo ERP and want to see it improve, engage in the community.

If you use Openbravo ERP and want production grade support, subscribe to Openbravo Network.

You are helping yourself in both cases.

300 fixes

During the past months, since the official launch of Openbravo Network –the subscription support service for Openbravo ERP–, our clients have received patches containing:

• 214 Openbravo ERP fixes
• 35 Linux component updates*
• 5 Operating Environment updates (in Oracle Database, Apache Server, Tomcat, Ant and Java)*

In total, these account for more than 300 fixes, including a few security and critical ones.

Bugs fixed include those reported by Openbravo Network clients and bugs reported by the Openbravo ERP community. Bugs reported by our clients are treated according to production grade SLAs (Service Level Agreements) to ensure fixes are available on time.

For Openbravo SMB Network clients, fixes also include patches for the operating environment, which in many amateur implementations is not well kept up to date, eventually exposing the system to security threats.

Before fixes are released, a rigorous quality assurance process certifies there are no compatibility conflicts and they are production ready.

For Openbravo SMB Network clients, patches can be easily applied from Openbravo Network’s administration console. Also, because the Openbravo SMB Network One environment is a highly standardized configuration, we can test the patches in exactly the same environment our customers have. This dramatically improves the effectiveness of our quality assurance process, optimizing it for production usage.

Overall, this service, recommended for any professional Openbravo ERP implementation, is designed to ensure the system stays updated, bug free and secure.

* Only available for Openbravo SMB Network One customers
* Note that component updates typically contain several fixes each one

Go Professional with Openbravo Network

It has been a while since we introduced Openbravo Network, the subscription service for those seeking professional support to for Openbravo ERP. Today I am blogging about it because we are extending the Openbravo Network family with additional editions targeting different client needs. With this extension, there is now a solution for everyone.

All editions of the Openbravo Network family of products include access to certified updates and upgrades for Openbravo ERP, a lifecycle guarantee, bug fixing guarantee, and IP Indemnification.

Openbravo SMB Network One, which has been available since early this year, is the recommended choice for small and mid-sized businesses looking for a complete solution in a fine-tuned appliance architecture. It is easy to install, includes all the software required to run the system (including the operating system and the database), and provides a web based administration console to manage the whole maintenance process.

Openbravo Basic Network, a recent addition to the family, is the recommended choice for those with complex hardware configurations, or who require the freedom to configure the operating environment to certain specifications.

An Openbravo Network contract for those ISVs or OEMs who want to embed Openbravo ERP in their solutions is also available upon request.

Openbravo Network is a very innovative concept in the industry, because it keeps the open source nature of Openbravo ERP, but reconciles it with the advantages of professional paid support, something many clients require and appreciate. Many of them have already realized that professional open source is the best way to combine the freedom of open source with the strict demands of a mission critical production environment, as it is ultimately also the most cost effective way to do it.

If you want to learn more about the Openbravo Network family, you can check out www.openbravo.com/network

Green Openbravo becomes Red Hot

Today we have received the official confirmation that Openbravo is a winner for the acclaimed Red Herring 100 Europe 2007 award. The prize recognizes the 100 most promising start-ups driving the future of technology.

We are obviously very honoured to receive such an award, together with a host of very talented entrepreneurs. Our friends at BitRock for example are also on the list.

Starting up an ambitious company is not an easy task, and is obviously plaged with many doubts and uncertainties. This is the kind of thrill that makes the journey wortwhile but you certainly need, from time to time, that indepedent judges tell you are on the right track.

Receiving this prize is clearly a positive feedback for all the team at Openbravo and a good tribute to the hard work we are putting to achieve our goal of transforming the dynamics (sorry Microsoft, no pun intended) of enterprise software.

Let's hope this is only the beginning!

SAP's carpet

Today I am in Hannover, where Openbravo is participating in the largest European tradeshow, CeBIT.

The show is breathtaking for its gigantic size. There are 25 halls dedicated to IT categories such as telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, solutions for financial services or the public administration. More than 6,000 companies are exhibiting there. The largest area is dedicated to Enterprise Software and spans across 8 halls.

SAP has deployed a flabbergasting booth (jumbo booth I should call it), which occupies almost half a pavilion. The infrastructure is a tribute to the sheer power of the company, and must have required a millionaire budget to set up. Even the carpet of the whole area has been specially manufactured to sport the SAP logo on it!

Ultimately, these marketing dollars all come from the bills paid by SAP's customers. This brings me to the point I wanted to make in this post: Can a different business model enable a more efficient use of those resources? Proprietary licensed software benefits from large economies of scale that require tremendous marketing effort. Open Source, on the contrary, focuses on development and leaves marketing mainly to the positive word of mouth derived from a good product.

No matter how successful Openbravo becomes, I don't think it will ever have a customized rug. On the other hand, I don't believe Openbravo will need one to convince its customers about the quality of its product...

To Share or Not To Share

Last Friday I had the pleasure to participate in a roundtable to discuss about “Ideas, Enterprises and Open Knowledge”. The roundtable was part of the Powerful Ideas Summit (see my previous post).

A number of powerful ideas (honoring the name of the event) were put forward, but I would like to single out here one of the thesis of John Perry Barlow (a real character and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation) about the benefits of sharing.

He talked about the dynamics of intellectual property as opposed to physical property, and highlighted an interesting difference. Whereas with physical goods, its value increases with the scarcity, with intellectual property exactly the opposite happens. The value of an idea increases with its diffusion. Obviously there are many businesses based on owning ideas (call it licenses, patents or copyrights). And very profitable businesses indeed: software and pharmaceutical companies among them. However, these businesses are still successful because their ideas have reached a wide dissemination: Windows and Office for Microsoft or Aspirin for Bayer to name a couple of examples

In my keynote, titled “Building Global Open Source Enterprises” I also presented a similar argument: “Sharing your assets, strengthens your business”. This is a counterintuitive argument to many, but I can tell you that every day I see more tangible evidence that the statement is true. What other, more powerful, mechanisms exist to spread an idea than freely sharing it (with the help of the Internet, I might add)?

For me, being an entrepreneur who is trying to build a successful business following this concept, the beauty of it is that sharing is not an attitude easily replicated by your competitors. Many businessmen are not prepared (or even afraid) to embrace this concept, or they don’t know how to do it (Should I share all or just a part of my knowledge? What tools should I use to ensure that sharing is an activity that works both ways in and out of the company?)