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Ask Slashdot: Business Software for Linux?
Delta asks: "I am currently looking into starting a company of my own and need a whole new area of software, to mange contacts, run billing systems, so I need software like SuperOffice and Point-of-Sale systems, but I want to run Unix! Can anyone recommend such software? And perhaps a good schedule prog? It's pretty obvious that I would need stability, I cannot have the system go belly up, as any bussiness would soon follow in such a case. Another advantage would be the ability to use the databases through a web interface, or being able to carry local copies on laptops and so on. All software under this topic is of huge intrest." Can Linux be used for those generic purposes in a sales-oriented business (read: Linux as cash-register?)
They are using linux-based cash registers. The UI looks like curses-based stuff, pretty simple and functional.Go check it up.
The company is Information Management Systems, Inc.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I'm no Java fan, but from where we've seen so far J-Commerce's JStore series may be just what you need. Check it out at:
http://www.j-commerce.com
It has a complete POS setup that expands from mom and pop stores to good-sized chains. Best of all, it's got great interoperability, with ODBC and JDBC support, with other systems.
Steven, Senior Technology Editor, Sm@rt Reseller
Wow is that dated. The newer versions (presumably after microsoft strong armed them) of quicken install IE4 automatically, and are not usable without it. For no good technical reason, Intuit has deeply tied their product to IE. Remind you of somebody else yet?
Well then I can set up a mailing list and we can get a thread going on this if ya want. You can figure out how to email me ;)
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Of course we remember the recent announcement of Linux SAP R/3.
Come on. A little more development work me things.
But since Linux is used primarily for servers and is getting more popular for the desktop as well, you'd think someone would have a mind to develop and market an app which can seamlessly take data from the e-commerce side of a site, verify a cybercash deposit, into order fulfillment, over to write correspondence, UPS shipping labels, then add in a UPS functionality that allows you to feed the data back to the site so that customers can track thier package. This currently requires too much damn copy/paste using windows apps or re-entry of data to be fun. I haven't learned of any Linux apps which do all these functions and sorry if I'm ruffling feathers here, but I'm not going to switch back and forth between OSs to accomplish minor tasks related to completing the same job. The minumum shared data is of course, the customer demographic.
Is there even an accounting program out that just includes UPS label making as an integrated function?
Someone will slap me down here, either for asking for too much, not being a programmer, or expecting too little. I don't see a viable solution on the horizon for such a product, but I'd pay as much as $600 for it if it did all that. I wouldn't pay what the large companies want, which is in excess of $2500, plus a % of sales.
That's nearly always the case with questions asked in Ask Slashdot. Everything can be looked up. The real use of this forum is (in my opinion) that one can get answers from ppl who have real-life experience with the issue. That is valuable information one cannot get by reading those websites.
0x or or snor perron?!
I was not aware Borland had GPL'ed Paradox! Don't waste your time bending someone elses code if you can't distribute it or use it commercially. Most all commercial/retail licenses prohibit any re-use or re-writing of code.
Rick B.
At Linux Expo, I talked to a company called Proven Software, Inc that sells/supports an accounting package called Proven CHOICE, I believe it has POS capabilities too. Their web site is http://www.provenacct.com
We need the following:
Probably a few other things, too, but I'm sure you'll think of them and give suggestions as see fit.
Accounting software: Needs Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, needs to be able to figure out who owes what and what is owed to who; print capability would be nice. Sounds like it shouldn't be too hard, but this is a pretty simle view; I probably left a whole bunch of stuff out.
You might want to integrate time tracking and sales commissions into this, but then it gets more complicated. Do things the Unix way: Write a program that does one thing and does it right.
Contact Management: What you do with this depends on how you want to manage your contacts. You'll probably want company-wide read access with a more tightly controlled edit access.
Cash Register: We need a mini-HOWTO on how to implement
Point-of-Sale system: This is probably going to be the biggest pain. It needs to know a lot of things. Info about the inventory (How many blue guitars do we have in stock?), the price list, the tax rates in each area where you operate. Plus, depending on the business, you might want it to work with touch screens. (Then again, you might not need that.)
-Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
check around for articles on slashdot and other sites about Burlington Coat Factory rolling out linux to all POS machines in the company. If i remember right, at the time it was the largest mainstream coporate rollout of linux into production environments. Course, as usual, i could be wrong. the point is that it has been done. i remember seeing at ALE last year a company that has CC proccesing software (similar to ICVerify) for that particular purpose. Back to burlington, I think they wrote thier own package though. It wouldnt be too hard to write something like this in php3 or whatnot and have it private network webenabled. If you do that, you have a host of contact management web apps to read and borrow code from or get ideas from. Just a few ideas.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Check out AppGen. Costs some $$$ but is generally a well built application. Has modules for General Ledger, Accounts Recievable, Billing, etc. Basically any business function needed. And it runs on Linux!
W. Sandman III
I think #2 lists almost everything mentioned thus far and includes the simple things up to the big boys with lots of modules. It needs more work, as AppGen gets no description while others get more reasonable detail.
This is only vaporware at the moment, but we're duscussing business software and the needs around it on our mailing list. If you're interested in that topic, please join us.
There is a company from Canada that wrote a Point of sale system in tcl/tk. The company is called Linux Canada Inc. at http://www.linuxcanada.com.
There is is another company that did the same thing but I have not been able to find the for about 1 year.
Good Luck
Bryan
Get a life get Linux
As for the POS software you're looking for, there are quite a few options available.
Samco has an extensive offering of business accounting applications that work with Linux, including POS. Check out the screenshots of their POS module. J.S. Software provides accounting and POS software, and they support Linux. LinuxPOS from Linux Canada is also available.
Funny how all three of these companies are Canadian. Don't worry about accounting tax differences too much, though--Canadian companies (have to) create software with other countries' tax laws in mind.