Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Open Source Enterprise Systems coming together

Sure enough, there had to be something going on. Stephen Shankland just published a very interesting article at cnet news on the topic. It covers the creation of Open Solutions Alliance, which brings together many OS EIS projects.

I believe this is an interesting and promising venture. I will closely follow its moves.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

How are ERP, CRM, BI and CMS merging?

It seems to me that ERP, CRM, BI, and CMS should tend to merge into single framework systems.

What is being talked about this subject? What examples are already popular. I am sure SAP, Oracle, and the big players are aware of this. But what about the Open Source Community?

What is the name for such a framework or system? I guess it should be something like EIS (Enterprise Information Systems), or something like that.

Wikipedia's definition of EIS is quite vague for the term, so I think it could easily be adapted.

I would like to name it, to facilitate the discussion.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Opportunity for Open Source ERP?

The Register had an interesting article today, from Quocirca's Sharon Crawford, about a recent high merger and acquisitions activities of traditional ERP suppliers.

It does not mention the possibility of considering an OS solutions, which, as an IT director, I certainly would.

But it does make some very interesting remarks:
"If you think your supplier is ripe for takeover, or if it has already been bought, you might be considering a change to another supplier"

Although it continued to mention only big vendors, it says later:
"There must be a well-defined product roadmap and it is important you can see and influence the continued development plans."

I totally agree with that, and I believe those are two strong arguments for considering an Open Source solution.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

OS ERP "impact on organizations" research

Today I learned that Salvador Bueno and Dolores Gallego, Assistant Professors in Business Administration Department in Pablo de Olavide University, are conducting a research that involves an analysis about Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning (OS ERP) and its impact at an organization.

It would be very useful for their work that any OS ERP user completes their online questionnaire at:

http://aramis.upo.es/general/centros_depart/departamentos/invest/oss/

It is great to know other people are working on this subject. Salvador and Dolores work is certainly going to throw some light on the question of OSERP maturity. I will post about the outcome as soon as I get the chance.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Too little news

I wonder why there are so few mainstream media news about Open Source ERP; even when some OSERP systems rank very high as the most active projects in sourceforge.

I have not read a single news about the topic during the whole week.

I am starting to think about two possible explanations:
  1. The market does not perceive the systems to be mature enough for serious consideration (as it has with Operating Systems or even Office Suites).
  2. The systems really aren't mature enough for serious consideration.