Seeking Next Gen Online Order Entry Software?

kwandar asks: "Our company is a small/medium sized software developer that markets its products around the world. The order/sales system is an outdated DOS-based system, with limited capabilities. We would like to replace this with one that provides new features like: CRM; customer support services; bug reporting; bug tracking; order entry; accounting reporting; and hooks into some form of licensing software. Ideally it would be web based so that all ordering can be done over one system, whether by a customer, our foreign distributors, or ourselves. Have any of my fellow readers been through this and hunted down software, that worked in a software sales environment. Can anyone recommend an all-in-one solution, or several solutions (open source preferred) which can be integrated with minimal effort?"

Comments

Try Zoovy

[gru3hunt3r]

If you're looking for something next generation then your best fit is probably http://www.zoovy.com/Zoovy.com.

Pros: Both a .Net desktop client (Vista friendly!) specifically for order entry and warehouse management, as well as a very powerful website hosting content engine that is fully AJAX / Web 2.0.

Remote staff can also login to the web interface which is Web 2.0/Ajax to manage orders and do other tasks such as update the website.

Also works with Amazon, GoogleBase, eBay, etc. to increase your visibility online.
Been in business for 7 years, and keeps current - subscription model, no upgrade fees to stay on top of the latest and greatest.

Cons:
Closed source, but with plenty of developer hooks via REST/SOAP.
Certainly not free (as some of the other solutions here are) but has good support.

TinyERP and/or selfmade

[Qbertino]

Check out TinyERP. To me it looks like the most promissing ERP OSS solution using the most recent of the feasable technologies. IIRC it's also integrated with the Joomla CMS and VirtueMart, Joomlas prime 3rd party shop extension.

It's either that with maybe even more solutions added to the mix or you roll your own entirely out of one package. Check out the Zope Application Server (www.zope.org) for that and look the various PHP, Python, Whatnot webframeworks such as django, cakephp, symfony, turbogears, etc.

The last SMB ERP/CRM/Bllling system I built was written as a large extension to a small commercial PHP CMS. If you look into the processes thouroughly and do a clean design it's not that difficult to model a custom ERP around your specific business case. Especially with the possibilities of the modern OSS languages and frameworks it isn't. We're currently building various plattforms and business webapps on top of PHP5 and MySQL5 and with the mostly OSS tools where using (Eclipse, MySQL Desktop Apps, Navicat, Winmerge, Nusphere) and a proper pipeline setup (SVN, local, staging & live systems) I get the growing feeling that practically anything is possible. Don't dissmis the possibilty of building your own system entirely.
Planning and carefull testing of business applications is crucial, but they are not a mistery reserved for SAP.

Re:Intractable 'solution'

[king-manic]

Wow, You just dictated my exact experience coding a small and "simple" order system to keep track of stock request spiraled into a inventory system and they then wanted it to auto order stock. etc..