Graabein asks:
"I'm part of an effort to startup a VoIP provider. We've decided to use Open Source Software wherever possible. Production is not a problem, we can handle the VoIP network itself, POTS termination, web sites, email systems, all the usual stuff. The business side of things is another matter entirely. We need to be able to handle Customer Relationship data, manage subscriptions, handle invoicing and accounts, have a web shop of sorts, online billing, credit card transactions, and more. Whatever system we use has to be able to handle national standards for accounting, or at least be possible to modify to do so. We've looked at Compiere, but our business types are not impressed. Neither am I, for that matter. Requiring an Oracle license is one thing (database independence is 'in development', but it has been for a long time, with no discernable progress), not working properly with Mozilla is another (you need IE to use it fully in HTML mode). What other options are there?"
"Our business types are full of suggestions for supposedly excellent and well suited systems, however they all have in common that they require Windows on the client. If we choose one of those systems our OSS policy is pretty much moot and OSS has been relegated to (some) servers in the computer room and that's about it. I don't mind running these business functions on a Windows server if that is the best system for the job, but having to run Windows on every client in order to access the data is simply not acceptable.
We want Linux and OpenOffice on every desktop. We want to be able to access customer data from a variety of clients, even including Windows. The same goes for Accounting data, HR data, QA data, you name it. Do we have to write our own system from scratch? I'm not sure that is very realistic."
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It costs you a couple bucks for some Windows licenses. In the grand scheme of your business, it is an insignificant cost.
It is also a business expense which makes it tax-deductible, so the actual cost is even lower than the price you pay up front for those licenses.
Suck it up and join the rest of the business world.
I have been pwned because my
I know this kind of sounds strange, but absolutely the first thing you need to do is either have everyone's cooperation, or just make the changes and make people deal with them. People are very reluctant to change, and that's the biggest problem. When you have everyone in a company used to doing their business in Windows using MS Office, you're going to have a hard time getting them to change without just going ahead with the changes. It goes against everything they teach you in school (I was a business major), but people just won't change unless they're forced. That even goes for the higher-up in the company. I'm the director of IS at my company, and you really have to go over the benefits of open source to those above you, because they know only the pay-for-the-license way of doing business. For everyone else, even though OpenOffice is so much better than many Windows programs, they're still hung-up on MS Works from 1996, because that's all they know, and they don't even care to become more productive. I guess the only point I'm trying to make is that you can't just get the average person to change...they have to be made to.
Phprojekt is another good one to check out too. I've used it for a few small time projects and most people have found it relatively easy to understand. The thing I like most about Phprojekt over OpenGroupware is the install docs are much easier to understand, and for the most part it's worked straight from the tarball.
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
Your internal IT should never ever never be a gating item for letting your business department do what it needs to do. If the chairman of the board likes MS Word and just doesn't "get" Open Office, then the amount of his and your time that you burn trying to show him the light will forever outweigh the cost you would have paid to get him a Crossover license and a copy of Word and keep him happy and concentrating on what he is supposed to be doing.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
VMWare $280
WindowsXP License $180
Quickbooks Pro $300
Not risking a business to save $760, priceless.
In the end you'll get more out of doing it right the first time than you will by screwing up your accounting/etc and hiring someone (or wasting someone's time) to fix it.
You're not really asking for a flame, but I think you're disinsightful.
Open Source developers do business as well. Many developers run their business of OSS, or create OSS outside of their work time. Of course, when someone CREATE a business package, they'll have to know what to do with it. But I would agree that in some cases, the searching user would need some insight in what a product needs to offer.
What would customers know? Do you advertise on your enterprise site that you use this-and-that Inc. Accounting Software? Besides, OSS isn't insecure by default, by all means. And, in many countries, like Norway (mine), you own your own information. If a business f**ks up handling your information, they're up in their knees in lawsuits in no time, if users want that.
Bottom line, Open Source is Open Development, not Open Access.
Simple answer: what you are looking for does not (yet) exist.
There are a lot of fancy applications on the net, none of them any usefull for your purposes (and please prove me wrong, I'd though I had been pretty thorough)
Having looked at the same problem for my own small business I'd say that if your business is essential to you, you either start asking for quotations for companies that can deliver a solution to fits your purposes or find a stock application that does most of what you need. (and does it in a way that most members of staff understand it)
Look at the price, and see if its matches your needs and budget.
As you are setting up your own business, you should NOT be fooling around trying to recreate the wheel; you will need al your energy to focus on your business and hope that it doesn't go belly up.
One sure way of doing that is having a dozen incompatible systems hide all your major business information from you, your customers, and your staff.
By the way, good luck getting your company going! It will be great to have more people using and contributing to open source projects.
Don't count on a "web interface" equalling "will run on any platform". I've lost count of the number of "web enabled" applications that only work in I.E. Some vendors seem to think the purpose of a web interface is so you don't have to install new software on your Windows PC (giving them the benefit of the doubt vs just plain laziness/poor qa), whereas it _should_ mean it's platform and browser independent.
Personally, if it will only run on I.E. in Windows (wine/xover office notwithstanding), what's the point - may as well run a Windows app.
If a company goes to the trouble of making a web interface, it ought to be done "right", so any web browser that follows http/html standards can run it. It's not _that_ hard to do.
You will likely need windows for some things, unfortunatly. Fortunatly Wine works very well for a lot of window programs, and since you are looking for which one you use, you can demand Wine compatability from the start.
Don't be a jerk instisting on all open source, you have a buisness to run, and that means spending money once in a while. Don't waste your money (except by sending it to me....), but don't be too frugal either. If you can only get what you need from a pay software, buy it and get on with your buieness.
P.S. buy Crossover as your wine implimentation, those guys put a lot of support into wine and should be helped. (Or alternativly you can get WineX, but they focus on games so I doupt you care about their advantages)
Any HTML app that requires IE might as well have a big banner that says "THIS PRODUCT WAS DEVELOPED BY AMATEURS!". It's user hostile. AND Mozilla is a better browser. You can actually do more with Mozilla than IE, since Mozilla has better standards support.
Some 'tards still don't get it.
If you are a startup looking to get into the VoIP market, chances are almost all of your customers are going to be running some kind of Windows based computer.
While I applaud open source and use it myself wherever I can personally, and in our offices, we still all have Windows machines on our desks.
If 95% of your customer base (and honestly the number is probably higher) is using Windows to either use your product, learn about your product, or do things like manage their accounts it is foolhearted to not have that technology available yourself.
Our servers and backend systems all run Linux, and yes it does save us money, but don't handicap your business' already statistically slim chances for success by not using a platform most of your customers will!
Your accountants and your tech staff are totally different people right? If the accountants want to use Windows, and your techs want to use Linux, why not?
I can totally understand the desire to be in total control of the software on your mission critical VoIP system, and Open Source makes a lot of sense. But forcing accountants who know zip about it to use Linux is foolhardy; the time wasted fumbling with an unfamiliar system will dwarf any savings (financial and spiritual) gained by using some open source thing.
...we get it all the time, customer wanting xyz because it's the latest buzzword, or their friend uses it or they've been seduced by an evil marketing-droid.
If it fits in with what they need to do and will give them more bang for their buck then go for it. However, sometimes they don't realise that solution xyz has problems efg and that actually solution hij would not only alleviate those problems but cost them less to have supported.
Hopefully they will eventually come around to the fact that they didn't know what they heck they were doing when they specced xyz, that you are indeed the expert and ask for your assistance, net result? Everything will be right as rain.
Now if they won't budge on wanting xyz, and it will be a PITA to support, you have to ask yourself:-
how much will it cost me to offer that support?
and: how much business (on top of the current project) will I see as a direct result of taking them on?
If it will cost you more than it will bring in, it's time to either outsource it or let the customer know you can't do it for the price they want. They'll probably thank you for your honesty and come back to you when everyone else says the same.
I am NaN
If you really want Linux on the clients, but can't replace certain Windows apps, invest in a big Windows server running Citrix. It's expensive, but presumably you'll make back some of that cost in reduced maintenance.
We want Linux and OpenOffice on every desktop. We want to be able to access customer data from a variety of clients, even including Windows. The same goes for Accounting data, HR data, QA data, you name it. Do we have to write our own system from scratch? I'm not sure that is very realistic."
It seems to me that you need to figure out why you want to use OSS because if you hinder the business unit's ability to interact with clients (internal and external) you're not going to be in business long enough for it to matter. Find the right and best product for the job regardless of whether it's open or closed.
If you think you have no time for any of this item or no bucks to pay for someone else to workout on what prevent you to use it, you may be happy with a commercial package you will pay someone to install with the great advantage to open an incident report or bug report when you will be stuck with it. Or open a design change request, hoping the software vendor will consider it in any coming release of his product.
There is no such thing like a free lunch!
Achille Talon
Hop!
This and the fact that most geeks do not need the software is why it will not be written anytime soon. No one wants to do the boring drudge work involved to make it usable. Just look that the ever-increasing number of half-finished OSS projects for proof. Onces the sexy code is written, development slows, documentation is neglected, and developers move on to the Next Big Thing.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
taustin: Then you don't want to run a business, you want to preach a crusade. And the two are mutually exclusive.
Sorry, but I just don't buy the idea that using something other than microsoft windows automatically makes you a religious crusader, and I reject your assertion that using something other than microsoft products, and running business, are "mutually exclusive" -
Amazon.com is running a fairly successful business on Linux. IBM, Oracle and Novell are are moving to linux on the desktop, but taustin is itching to set them straight, because according to him, their current direction is "mutually exclusive" with running a business.
taustin, perhaps you should contact the CIOs of those firms and have a word with them about the impossibility of running a business on Linux?
The problem with that is that YOU will end up spending an inordinate amount of time & resources (as opposed to not spending any time at all, with a package solution)...This guy's business should not be wasting time building up their own interface to an SQL database. That defeats the whole point... Also, building your own SQL interface is not as easy as it sounds. The people who will be using it (business types) won't know SQL so it has to be easy to use, check basic errors, etc.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
IMO, browser-based interfaces lack in the usability front. They are simply not rich enough.
They work fine on the web because they are a compromise: I give you a site with a rather dull interface , but you get to it without installing custom software AND ALSO you are presented with a familiar and simple user interface (click links, scroll pages, fill up form fields, submit info), so you can catch on quickly with my site, because it work quite similarly to other sites you have visited before (an important aspect that some flash-based and some overworked DHTML-based sites seem to overlook).
Of course, the software used internally in a business has both more demands and less limitations.
It has less limitations because you can install wathever software you want (you have tech support, and don't depend on the end user failing to install the latest plugin). You don't have severe bandwidth limitations. You can standarize on a single platform for your clients, and on a single screen resolution (or, if it is not single, at least can be a known and definite set). You don't need to engineer your application to be run in a restrictive security sandbox, so you can have full control of the devices attached to your computer. For instance, you can make the application print an invoice as part of a transaction, without explicit user intervention (no "print" dialog), automatically selecting certain parameters (paper size, margins, resolution), not allowing the user to mess with them. The application you build can also have a steeper learning curve, because you won't have casual users (potential customers that have to figure out how things work on their own, and that you'll loose if they get annoyed), but permanent users that are your employees and can be trained.
The user interface of business software has higher demands too. If you fill in an online purchase form twice a week, you can put up with a clumsy user interface. But if that is your job, and you process purchase orders from 9 to 5, you'll need something better than the average HTML form. For instance, when a customer tells their name over the phone, you type the first three letters and a list of those customers that meet the citeria is instantly displayed for an easier selection. Also, you might want your text to be spell checked as you type when fou fill a text area. If you have used both SQL-Ledger and GNU cash, or PhpMyAdmin and mysqlcc, or any web-mail and any mail program, or groups.google.com and any newsreader then you should know what I'm talking about: even the best engineered web application falls short to almost all rich GUI applications.
Of course, in the future web interfaces might evolve to become richer (XForms, for intance), but until then, selecting a web-based architecture for internal business use certainly can hurt productivity.
Having said all this, I must also point out that it depends on what you call "a Browser-based application". I have taken for granted that the original poster meant a HTML-based application as opposed to, say, an application consisting in a single page containing a java applet or ActiveX control.
Online calendaring is the tool of the incompetent manager.
Meetings with huge groups of people are monumental wastes of time & energy.
I can't even count the number of "show & tell" staff meetings that I wasted my time on over the years. At one meeting, where the attendees were mostly contract staff, we estimated that one droning staff meeting cost about $50/minute with no discernable value.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
So I suppose you *could* say "It's more important for everything to be OSS, I guess we will just live without a [blank] system", but I'm not sure that's a valid business decision anymore.
You have created a false dilemna. You suggest there are only two options: non-OSS or nothing. That simply isn't true. All your talk about egg timers and burning money is also unwise. It is fairly obvious that the original poster should not just grab QuickBooks while s/he is at Walmart because it is convenient. Nor should a startup jump in with PeopleSoft or SAP or GnuCash, or anybody without a reasonably thorough investigation. Two or three days of waiting for Slashdot suggestions is a minor effort in the larger research.
The original poster is leary of building from scratch. I think that should be re-considered. Every off the shelf solution involves considerable "business process re-engineering." In other words, you have to force your business to work the way the software was built. Universities adopting Peoplesoft have found that they could not pay their faculty "9 over 12" because Peoplesoft wasn't built that way. Professors accustomed to working 9 months, but receiving paycheck all year long suddenly are forced into larger paydays for 9 months, then nothing for 3 months. Don't like it? Pay a lot of money to have the system modified, or do it yourself.
Ask Chevron how much in house programming it took to get SAP to allow vendor payment authorization the way Chevron had always done it before. Ask Fisher Price how many in house programmers it takes to get Keenan/Arbor to handle sales promotions that Keenan/Arbor didn't envision when they built the framework. Ask your local utility how much work it takes to tie your billing and provisioning together. See if they've even achieved it! It's pretty tough when you don't own the source. Oh yeah, and watch what happens when your vendor of choice releases an update to one of the modules. It wipes out all the "fixes" and customizations you have added. Don't cry to them. They can't possibly support every customer's customizations.
Now go ask Verio how five programmers can build a system from scratch that includes ordering, provisioning, and billing with global currency and pricing support in an amazing way that fits the company perfectly, while 200 hired experts struggle on to get a name-brand shrink-wrapped solution out of the planning stages. Granted, five full-time developers isn't cheap. But I can guarantee that no matter what you choose, you will need a team of developers to make it work. And when the solution is not homegrown, that team has to include highly paid outside "consultants."
Build your own system from scratch to fit your company. Don't build/rebuild your company to fit your system.
Oh, and about needing it to work on clients of many platforms... One word: Mozilla. It's a super nice client. From custom XUL apps to n-tier web apps, Mozilla is awesome! And it runs on more platforms than I can name. Of course, there aren't too many proprietary systems out there that have taken advantage of the platform advantages of Mozilla, but did I mention that you can build you own system?
Or... you could just outsource the whole thing to India.
While I know a completely OS env sounds great, don't tease yourself. If this is a business, only use OS where it can/should be used. Otherwise do what is needed.
Business is about money, and OS isn't always the best choice.
Whatever you do in the end, don't make the same mistake that tech-oriented people always make. Namely, putting the technology ahead of the business. There is no point of using OSS just because you want to. What comes first is the business. What is best for the business? If it is Windows, that's what you should go with. If OSS works out better, that's what you should use. Also, don't forget that you can have a mix. For example, you can use some Windows software for the business process tasks (say CRM or something) but use linux (openoffice,etc) for basic desktop use. Depending on what you need, you can pull your customer data from the Windows database (say MySQL, or MS SQL Server, or Oracle) into a linux application (this depends on what your final business software allows).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
If you think that you won't spend any time at all with an off-the-shelf solution, think again.
The cost of adopting said solutions to your business workflow will easily be a multiple of the package price.
Hah, tell me about it. It's a battle I fight everyday at work.
A small group of people who believe it's very much okay to write things that simply don't work in other browser. There's no consideration for Accessibility, Usability or standards. The HTML is a huge mess, doesn't conform to anything, has a mixture of upper and lower case tags, properties with single quotes, double quotes, no quotes. Heavy use of IFRAME, heavy use of JavaScript, pop-ups, no consideration for colour blind users, no ability to change font size.
Join the Free Software Foundation
No - doubles are just as lousy, in the long run.
Use Int64s.
$92,233,720,368,547,758.07 to -$92,233,720,368,547,758.08 should be enough range for most folks. Most governments, too.
Education is the silver bullet.
I hear many people on slashdot harp on the benefits of OSS in one breath, and then complain about their jobs in the next. Wouldn't it make sense for these people to get a job writing software and getting paid for it, instead of writing high quality software for free and then earning money doing something they hate?
Absolutely! Once geeks realize that OSS is not just a toy but a means to make a good living, we will see the latent OSS revolution take place. For this to happen, however, we must truly collaborate and strike out on our own.
If you look around, most of the best OSS is that written by people who are being paid for their efforts one way or the other. Always remember this: OSS is not about a free lunch. It's about meeting needs in the most efficient way possible.
For core OSS business software, we need an organization like Apache that serves as a highly professional center of collaboration, funding, and outside contribution.
This and the fact that most geeks do not need the software is why it will not be written anytime soon. No one wants to do the boring drudge work involved to make it usable. Just look that the ever-increasing number of half-finished OSS projects for proof. Onces the sexy code is written, development slows, documentation is neglected, and developers move on to the Next Big Thing.
The fundamental problem here is that many (most?) geeks view OSS as just free software / free lunch / hobby. Sure, nobody wants to do the drudge work, but there's big money in that drudge work! Consulting / development of OSS can be a very lucrative business, but most geeks are afraid to try! As a result, all the OSS business software sucks terribly. Let me be even more to the point: this is holding back the entire OSS revolution.
Remember: Open Source Software is not about a free lunch. It's about meeting your needs as efficiently as possible!
What we need is professional, Apache-style collaboration on a single complete and modular OSS business software solution. It must be designed with modern software architecture and not cut any corners whatsoever. That means professional n-tier design and not crappy, monolithic, web-based PHP/*SQL nonsense. Think J2EE but using entirely FOSS. Right now, the only project that is anywhere close to moving in the right direction is GNU Enterprise (www.gnuenterprise.org) but it needs a lot of development help before it can become usable. The other option is JBoss, an OSS J2EE solution, but it still requires the Sun JDK as the OSS JDK's are all way behind. J2EE is also massively complicated with a steep learning curve and kinda fails the KISS principle in my opinion.