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So how much accounting, sales order processing, customer relations management, HR, payroll,stock control and other business related software is available on a Mac? Or Linux?

Glad you asked!

My personal favorite in the ERP world is xTuple (formerly Open Mfg). They even have a free QuickBooks-Like version. Speaking as an ERP software dev. myself, this package is strong enough that I have seriously considered becoming a VAR for it.

Then, there are the longstanding AccountEdge/MYOB, and AppGen/Custom Suite (AppGen Custom Suite is pretty cool, IMHO). I also see FlexWare Accounting, which has a Manufacturing add-on. Don't know much about FlexWare; but it looks pretty complete.

Then there are the interesting database/app-generation systems, such as Omnis (which had the whole idea of "web apps" NAILED more than a decade ago), and, last but certainly not least, 4D, also sporting a wonderful web-app solution. Both are big database-oriented Application-Creation packages that have marched along for years, never quite getting traction, but never quite falling over, either! In fact, 4D's web server was eventually spun-off into its own product (name escapes me, sorry!), and has the enviable reputation of not only being faster that snot, but also has never been hacked... Both Omnis and 4D embraced the concept of being able to "publish" applications directly on the web, such that the apps retained all, or nearly all, of the look-and-feel of the "desktop" versions. Quite cool, actually.

And the hidden advantage is that pretty much all, if not all, of the Mac business software is actually cross-platform; so you get platform-independence "for free". What's not to like about that?!?

As far as CAD/CAE tools go, there are several choices. My personal favorite is VectorWorks, which whips all-over AutoCAD (but maybe not so much on Inventor). I have a longstanding Mac consulting client, who has to live in a world of architects who use AutoCAD, and he has zero problems using VectorWorks with their files, import or export. The only "problem" is that VectorWorks actually supports many things that AutoCAD does not; so he has to be somewhat careful not to use features that AutoCAD (by all rights, should, but) does not support. In fact, when AutoCAD became available (again) for Macs, he wasn't the slightest bit interested in switching away from VectorWorks. And although not widely known in this country, the extremely high-end CAD/CAM/CAE system Siemens PLM NX/UG (Unigraphics) has been available on OS X since at least 2009, and is also available on Linux.

And let's not forget Qt. It's a royal pain to develop in; but you can certainly churn out some pretty complex cross-platform apps in the environment. Eagle PCB is a good example of how advanced a Qt-based app can get... As a (now former, I guess) embedded developer, I used to lament the lack of good (or really, ANY) development tools for Macs. But even that has been (slowly) changing. Microchip now supports both Macs and Linux with MPLab X (helped along considerably by the acquisition of Hi-Tech, and their cross-platform C Compilers). And BTW, Microchip even addresses the question of "Why not just

> replacing IE, Outlook, MS Office, and MSN messenger [on Windows] does some differences

Actually, you're right, it makes a lot of difference, by cutting off attack paths for viruses and ad/spyware. Good point!

> things I miss and/or have not found good free/opensouce solutions for:

> antivirus (never liked AVG)

It wouldn't surprise me if the Open Source antivirus products are weak. It's a question of motivation -- most developers would choose to be improving good software, to make it more virus-proof, rather than creating band-aids for Microsoft's mess.

> book-keeping(small company, products,prices,inventory,payroll normal stuff)...

There is a growing number of small business accounting solutions for Linux:

See: Linux - Accounting Software

The list includes some known names, such as Accpac, and Appgen.

I've also heard good things about the Open Source project SQL-Ledger. Because it stores its data in an SQL database (such as PostgreSQL), you can create your own reports, using, for example, the OpenOffice Database tool. Or, because it's Open Source, you can get even more adventurous, and customize it for your business.

> software for doing labels and stickers (haven't really looked)

There is support in this area. See Printing Avery labels with Linux.

The only "native" equivalent software I've found so far (and I've looked extensively) is a product called MyBooks from Appgen: http://www.appgen.com/aptus/my_books_professional_ linux2.htm However, the linux version is a client/server product, meaning you have to have a server running in the background to use the program, even if it's being run on one machine. I tried out the Windows version which was decent, but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work right on my Linux box and didn't feel it was worth struggling with. In the end I gave up and decided to use GnuCash for the books and OpenOffice for inventory tracking.

I'm stuck with my current crippled version of QuickBooks. Any open source equivalents out there that you'd recommend?

Appgen MyBooks Professional. Not affiliated with them, just a customer who's also looking at their AccPAC killer for his day job, Appgen Custom Suite.

Brief comparison:

Visual Basic generates one executable file which runs strictly on the Windows operating system. Appgen creates parameter files which run within the Appgen Run Time engine (Appgen is more like Java in this area). The Appgen Run Time is available for multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OSX, Linux (multiple distributions and UNIX (multiple vendors and versions).

Appgen and Visual Basic both use a screen painter to layout the screen display, and both have screen properties and functions which tie with each screen field.

Appgen 4GL development is fully integrated with the Appgen Database system; VB has no integrated database.

Although Visual Basic can be fully integrated with MS Access to work in a manner similar to Appgen, the Access database limitation on handling large quantities of data significantly reduces the value of this feature.

And it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux natively. None of this WINE nonsense. Clicky.

Not affiliated with them by any means, just a happy customer. I'm planning on eliminating AccPAC and MiSYS at my office for their Appgen Custom Suite since it too is multiplatform, modular and you can get a developer license without the hassles that AccPAC has.

here are some other (cross-platform) small business alternatives

MYOB

CheckMark

Appgen

MoneyWorks

Oh well! We'll see what happens with the code escrow. Could be a huge advantage if it works out, or if some VARs buy it because they'll most likely want to open the source. Thanks!

I think that Appgen's MyBooks Professional is an excellent replacement for QuickBooks.

Check it out at Appgen MyBooks Professional

Also see MyBooks. It's intended as a Quickbooks replacement from small business on up to sub-ERP small and medium enterprise. It's written in Java so it runs even on FreeBSD and OS/2. Its backend is SQL. If you buy the high end package, you get the source code.

The mail spool for a 15k-user ISP in southwestern Ontario is running on Slack9 + LVM (Reiserfs). It exports the spool via NFS and the edge servers (SMTP+IMAP4+POP3, virus+spamscan) mount the spool directly over ipsec. No issues. I can grow the filesystem, take snapshots and it all just works. The PostgreSQL database is also on an LVM volume, but I haven't had to do much with it related to LVM yet, as pg_dump works live.

I have a number of other mail spools for businesses around the area (probably a half dozen to 10 or so) -- around 100-300 users each. Same story, backups are very nice when you can just take a snapshot.

I'm currently evaluating Appgen Custom Suite as a replacement for our current Accpac and Misys accounting and inventory/manufacturing infrastructure. LVM is very nice here for growing the db partition and snapshotting means the system is only down for seconds instead of the time it'd take to dump the entire db to tape.

All in all, I am very pleased with LVM. I do all my LVM on software RAID1 or hardware RAID5, but there's been no interaction or badness show up so far. I realize it's possible to do RAID1 with LVM but there's no documentation on how to "un-fail" the volume after a drive fails or how to manage it, so until then md or the hardware tools will have to do. :-)

Um, the previous owner of MoneyDance, Appgen, has such a program. It's called MyBooks.

$99 for a 5 user license. You can use it standalone on one machine, of course, but to get the most bang for your $99, you need to install the server version on a Linux box, and the clients on your choice of Linux, MacOSX, or Windows.

I've been running it for a year, and it's been fantastic.

Quicken is also supported.
That's a biggie.

Why? With Appgen running natively on win32, mac and linux it seems that Quicken/Quickbooks has some competition. I know that I am looking at the larger package to replace the shite that AccPAC/MiSYS is at this company.

If you had followed some of the other links suggested in this thread, you would have noticed that AppGen's MyBooks runs on Linux as well as MacOS and Windows, and will import/read Quickbook files. It has a bit too much MSMoney-style whizbang graphics for my taste, but I would rather that than Intuit's anti-consumer practices.

Have you looked at Appgen? I am currently evaluating them as a Quickbooks/Quicken replacement, and even as a MySYS/AccPAC replacement. Multiplatform, modular, reads Quicken files natively, seems to know what a Canadian is... So far so good.

Why do people keep buying this stuff when they're just going to complain about it?

Exactly.

I haven't had time to fully use this yet, but I am considering purchasing: AppGen MyBooks (www.appgen.com) which has a Windows/OS X/Linux accounting program. Looks nice to me.

It all depends on how complex you want to allow the exercise to become, and how many transactions you will be processing. You don't say, so I can't advise properly, but I'd probably go with Appgen Professional. I looked over some products from them a few years ago and was really impressed. Not cheap, but a fair price for a quality product. Runs on several platforms including Linux.

25 hours for multiple attempts to get Windows installed. About two hours to get about 7 Gig worth of Suse Linux installed(entire professional version, 7 CDs). Windows had me hunting down drivers all over the place. Problems with the adaptec raid card, problems with the monitor drivers. Problems, problems, problems. Partition problems, more problems. 25 hours later from 5 am to 6 am next day without break, Windows finally working (but still has problems with a separate windows partition for swap), and it takes under two hours to install SuSE Linux, all 7 CDs of the professional version, dual boot to the windows system. I get openoffice.org, staroffice, multiple browsers, editors, compilers, servers, im chat clients, games, more word processors, email clients, email servers, apache, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, translators, calculators, da Gimp, Acrobat file creation possibilities, VNC server and client, backup programs that work, anti-popup browsers that work, video tools, audio/multimedia tools, and so much more. All included with the OS.

I get a rock stable system, uptimes measured in months (except for security patches (which reset my uptime for some reason even though I don't reboot), my web server has been up for six months, since first install, and I know next to nothing about web serving).

My printer was automatically detected and ready to print thanks to cups (and it is an obscure, discontinued Minolta printer), sound works, video works, everything works. Windows, driver insanity. Had to hunt down video driver (download from manufacturer site from different computer), had to figure out why it was running in emulation mode (problem with the adaptec card, took multiple installs of driver downloaded from adaptec site), had to dig out motherboard drivers, printer drivers, CDRW drivers, modem drivers, lan drivers, sound card drivers, and more. Had to download updated versions of acrobat, winzip, WinSCP, Putty, and about a dozen other programs. Had to further install Windows versions of word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation apps, and email client/virus detection software (NOT, only use Linux for email, hence don't need email client or virus detection software).

Over a thousand dollars worth of Windows software, and about a hundred worth of Linux software, and I can legally run it on more than one computer.

The only thing still holding me to Windows is Quickbooks Pro (now solved since I've discovered MyBooks by Appgen, and now that Crossover Office supports Quickbooks, and Quickbooks Pro will immediately follow), Dreamweaver (Quanta and Bluefish are not quite there yet), and Corel Draw. That's it. That's what I need to ditch MS for good, and never look back.

Good question. Especially when things like Appgen and MyBooks and Moneydance!

I would begin by saying I don't know where to begin, but lately I've begun to many posts that way....

Well, since you wanted the site to be navigable in ways that would make it user-friendly and have it look good, IE was pretty much the only browser that could support that.

You're joking.. right? In what way is IE the only browser that will support that?

Even within the abortion known as NS4, there were/are lots of sites that do both gracefully.

NS6, Mozilla, iCab, Opera etc are all as easy to work with as IE (from a user OR developer standpoint). Easier, in some cases.

Sure, we could have waited until all the Java virtual machines worked the same way on all browswers and made one big Java applet, but they have a better chance of creating the web standard that supports a lot of the UI features we use before that happens.

You have apparently been hiding under a rock for the last 3-4 years. No one has really touted Java as a solution for cross-platform in-browser deployment on the client side since then -- although some people have quietly deployed full-fledged applications using Java. Web standards folks are not the applet people; applet people almost don't exist these days.

So everyone complains that Microsoft has historically stolen and extended instead of innovating like they say they do. Now, as it turns out, IE is actually innovative because of its rich set of features, making web applications easier to make. Now they are complaining that it is too innovative. If you can't compete, complain I guess.

Which innovative features of IE are you refering too? Which aren't related to any of the web standards, or aren't simply different in some arbitrary way? Put simply, what can I do in IE that I can't do in any other browser?

It doesn't work because the browser she is using only supports the capabilities set forth by some standards comittee. You know, a bunch of people sitting around a round table, arguing about some base set of features the web should have.

Because if it's designed by people who don't work for a large company more concerned with their bottom line than a useful evolution of the web, they must be a bunch of pontificating, innefectual, ivory-tower eggheads, right?

I suspect I've been trolled...

I've been narfing around with Appgen MyBooks for the last couple of days. It seems to be a very complete package with Linux, Windows and Mac OS X versions.

I installed the package on my Linux server and installed the client app (it is client-server) on Windows and Linux. I created a company and turned on access control. I was able to connect to the same database on both Linux and Windows. It uses host based authentication for access to the database. When I connected to the server from the Windows box, it asked for server, username and password. It actually seems to use some form of record locking. When I had a quote open on the Linux system, and tried to open the same quote on Windows, it complained that it was already open and would only allow read-only access. It also seems to have functionality for importing QuickBooks data but I haven't been able to test this.

There are additional functions for an accountant to get many different reports. I can't imagine that an accountant that can drive QuickBooks wouldn't be able to run MyBooks with a small amount of startup effort.

My wife (3rd year Business student) checked it out and said that it looks pretty complete. I downloaded only the basic MyBooks demo version but the purchase is only $99 for a five user license. There is a professional version that seems to have payroll added to the functionality for $799 for a 10 user license. The web site is not terribly good at explaining the difference between the two packages but considering another poster's comments about payroll being difficult to do, I would imagine that the payroll portion could cost the extra $$

The application seems to be written in Java (it installs a JRE) and performs identically in Linux and Windows. I can only imagine that Mac OS X is similar.

I am researching this package since I'm looking for alternatives to things like Symix for my customers. Unless I find some show stoppers, it looks like this is what I'm going to recommend to them.

NOTE: I'm not an accountant, nor do I play one on television...

Cheers!

"Don't make me angry... you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
-David Banner

here is a link to their feature matrix as compared to quick books.

oh, and best of all, MyBooks runs on whatever platform you choose. Their developers actually listen to customer requests, and you can get tech support without forking out your credit card number!

here is a link to their feature matrix as compared to quick books.

oh, and best of all, MyBooks runs on whatever platform you choose. Their developers actually listen to customer requests, and you can get tech support without forking out your credit card number!

Appgen has software packages from a home user to a business application. Linux, MacOS, or Windows.

An "accounting" package is not enough these days. Lets face it, developing relationships with customers is what it's all about. Which means that getting information in and out of your systems in the quickest possible manner is what will win in the face of competition. Enterprise Resource Planning systems from the likes of SAP and Oracle are what give big business the edge. Sure you don't have $250K to spend on solutions from these guys but Appgen, Compiere, and GNU Enterprise are bringing these kind of systems to the masses. The most promising at the moment seems to be Compiere but it does require some up-front costs - (nothing a small business could'nt handle if they were planning on a Windows deployment anyway). Check them out!

Has anyone run both these packages on Linux to compare, and then compare against MYOB. My guess is MYOB has a lot more features, and is very stable on windows.

I have tried quicken for windows, but unfortunately it was always crashing. I have tried reinstalling windows and quicken, loading the most up to date patches, but to no avail. So we finally migrated to MYOB with no problems).

There may be no purchasing price, but there is a pretty hefty cost when it comes to trying to get all of the dependency issues resolved and get it to compile right. Until then, I'm content to shell out cash for something that will actually install that I can use anywhere I need to.

Yes there is: Appgen. And you're right about the "huge cost to redo [them] for Linux" but the cost of maintianing them now is pretty close to the cost of converting them. TCO is so much better with Linux it's scary.

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ADP DOES NOT know how to design programs. I've used PCPers and HRizon. Blah!

I'd suggest again that you look at Appgen.

http://www.appgen.com

http://www.appgen.com

My CPA sent this to me a few months ago and hi-lighted the Linux plug. Seems that they are providing what you are looking for.

Has anyone used this product?