Often I get asked the question why people refer to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as a true “enterprise resource planning” solution if it doesn’t entail human resources management (HRM)—after all, every organization needs to manage its people, its products and services, and its finances. It seems that open source manufacturing and distribution ERP provider xTuple aims to offer true ERP, having recently announced a new technology integration partnership with a popular open source HRM software, OrangeHRM. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever hear of a company or government agency’s computer systems falling victim to some individuals’ malicious activities? In spite of the frequent news documenting these events, many organizations don’t prioritize the security of their own systems. Vendors such as Rapid7, McAfee, or Qualys offer different types of software to assess, manage, or curtail your information technology (IT) systems’ vulnerabilities. I recently saw a demonstration of Rapid7’s products and would like to highlight a bit of what they can be used to do toward efforts at hardening IT systems. Read the rest of this entry »

These days, amid the austerity, cuts, and general malaise, it is refreshing to hear about the whopping annual growth of a manufacturing-oriented enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor. Sure, one can discount the magnitude of this upbeat news—this particular vendor is still budding, if you compare it to SAP, Oracle, or Infor—but I welcome this it(and so should any ERP vendor). More impressively, the vendor in case, xTuple, has also been tirelessly delivering new features for customers, and all the tinkering in the lab isn’t keeping it from ringing the cash register.

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Nuxeo sees its content management product as the base for organizations to create their own content-centric business applications. The company offers some interesting tools to aid in this process, which I’ll get to in a moment. Nuxeo also offers its own distinct modules for document management, case management, digital asset management, and with the recent version 5.5, for social collaboration. Read the rest of this entry »

TEC is offering a new report profiling the software vendor MODX and its Revolution WCM system. This report is now available to download (free) from TEC’s library of reports.

The MODX Web content management system is a relatively new commercial open source offering. It’s designed with an emphasis on customizability. Although MODX has a large community using its systems in small and medium-sized deployments, it’s targeting higher traffic deployments with its latest versions of Revolution.

To find out more about MODX’s commercial services, support, and partners, as well as some analysis of its Revolution product, read the complete report.

Openbravo ERP is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution on the less expensive side of the spectrum, which is valued by distribution and retail industries as well as by manufacturing, services, public-sector, and nonprofit organizations.

I caught up with Openbravo’s John Fandl recently about the company’s latest iteration of its ERP solution (version 3). In the past, we’ve mostly mentioned Openbravo as a peer to other open source ERP vendors, but it deserves to be considered in its own right. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about Consona Corporation’s recent acquisition of leading open source and cloud computing enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider Compiere. After reading a slew of speculative blog posts (including the one from TEC’s free and open source [FOSS] buff and advocate Josh Chalifour), I had an incisive briefing with Consona’s CEO Jeff Tognoni, to give the company a fair chance to explain its strategy and the rationale behind the acquisition.

In Part 1, Tognoni first dispelled any idea that Consona’s intentions were to to copy the much larger and also acquisitive vendor Infor, as suggested by the related ERP Graveyard blog post. Thereafter, he explained that his interest in Compiere’s cloud platform coincided with (and was validated by) the recent launch of Consona’s CRM Cloud leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) for the server infrastructure and platform.

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In early June Consona Corporation’s analyst relationship (AR) contact forewarned me about the company’s upcoming acquisition of a “leading open-source and cloud computing enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor” and asked about my availability for a briefing once the acquisition was closed. After consultation with TEC’s free and open source software (FOSS) buff Josh Chalifour, we quickly identified Compiere [evaluate this product] as the most likely target (not to say prey).

Namely, this open source software vendor had been eerily quiet for a while (and ignoring our repeated calls for update briefings) and lately there had been much less activity within its once vibrant FOSS user community. The rumors about Compiere running out of “dough” and looking for a white knight had also floated occasionally. Once the acquisition was made official on June 16, 2010, Josh was swift with his blog post that mostly talked about the abovementioned observations prior to the merger and gave some speculations about Compiere’s future under Consona.

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In the enterprise open source space, a notable change came to light today affecting Compiere users and partners. Consona announced its acquisition of Compiere.

Compiere started back in 1999. One of its founders explained to me that the company’s business (circa 2004) largely came from support, migration, and priority requests from clients. An integral component of the delivery model was Compiere’s partners. So Compiere focused on providing second-level support to their network of local partners. These areas are where I’m most curious about Compiere’s move to the Consona fold. Read the rest of this entry »

I love end of year predictions. Whether they’re right or wrong is one thing, but it’s valuable to imagine various scenarios of what might happen. Taking the time to consider and connect what has happened with what might happen, opens new insights.

Having said that, I’m not going to make a 2010 prediction about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). I do, however, want to share some stats about demand trends for enterprise FOSS platforms between 2008 and 2009. I want to see how those jibe with predictions from some other analysts. And maybe, if you squint real hard at the changes between the ‘08 and ‘09 stats, you’ll get some ideas about what will happen in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

In a call yesterday with xTuple’s Ned Lilly, we had a chance to catch up on the open source ERP vendor’s current business. I wanted to say a word about the company’s recently launched xChange online store, which I think is a smart way for an open source enterprise software vendor to provide clients convenient access to community and partner innovations. It may also be a cost-effective means for acquiring specific ERP-related functionality and services as needed.  Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced the SAP-sponsored expert panel discussion that explored reasons to maintain IT investments even during difficult economic times. The Harvard Business Review (HBR) article by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson entitled “Investing in the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference” was the main supplement and starting point of the discussion.

As I mentioned in Part 1, in a nutshell, the panel logically (and not surprisingly) argued that enterprises should use IT tools to innovate and create differentiation, especially during a difficult economy.  Moreover, a long-term SAP analyst relationship contact privately solicited my opinion on the extent to which these esteemed academics understand our industry.

According to the “you asked for it” motto, here is the continuation of my thoughts that was parlayed into a blog post to be shared with our readers too.

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Making the blog rounds today: points about enterprise software purchasing in response to poor economic conditions. I’m thinking about the relationship to free and open source (FOSS) enterprise systems as well as the pricing and priorities companies are facing in terms of their means for purchasing and implementing things like ERP systems.

Curt Monash’s NetworkWorld.com article predicted a rocky September for IT vendors. He didn’t pursue a level of granularity that distinguished types of enterprise software but if you look at some of the recent news from both proprietary and open source vendors you get the impression that organizations buying these systems are acting as Monash suggests.

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The Hague Declaration, recently published by The Digital Standards organization, proposes that all governments adhere to free and open standards for IT activities. Something that strikes me about Digistan’s declaration is its basis in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and not a technical document. The three things The Hague Declaration calls on all governments to do, are as follows. Read the rest of this entry »

The ZDNet article on PLM/BPM vendor, Aras, covers reasons this former proprietary vendor decided to open source its Innovator products. Two points that stuck out for me, concern what open sourcing enabled Aras to do. Read the rest of this entry »