Posts by Josep Mitja:

Openbravo reaches 1.5 million downloads

January 13th, 2010

Today we have reached an accumulated 1.5 M downloads.

Cumulative downloads, and even better -monthly download rate-, is a great indicator of an open source project's interest. We are very proud to reach this figure after the first publication of code in April 2006. I interpret it as a sign of our long-term commitment to becoming the leading ERP in the space.

Also, since October 2006, Openbravo ERP has been on a monthly basis the open source ERP hosted in SourceForge with the highest download rate in the category. This is no less than 39 months in a row that the public has continued to choose Openbravo ERP over other alternatives. One download at a time, Openbravo is earning a solid reputation, and customers all over the world are joining in.

Thanks again and keep in mind this is just the beginning!

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Take the 451 Group’s CAOS Open Source Adoption survey

November 5th, 2009 The 451 Group, a consulting and research company with a strong focus on open source is conducting another round of its CAOS Open Source Adoption survey.

I am extending their invitation to any of you who is a decision maker in software procurement.



Given current economic conditions there is considerable interest in open source software and whether open source licensing can help users lower the cost of enterprise computing compared to traditional proprietary licensing.

The 451 Group would like you to contribute to its CAOS Open Source Adoption Survey covering end user attitudes to the potential financial benefits of open source. The survey can be found here

In return for your contribution, you will receive a copy of the research results, which will be delivered in an update to our second Commercial Adoption of Open Source (CAOS) research report "Cost Conscious, A practical guide for understanding and calculating the financial benefits of open source for enterprise IT projects". You will also receive an invite to a special 451 Group Webinar at which we discuss these results.

The survey includes about 20 questions. We are not asking for details of specific projects, so no sensitive data will be revealed. We are asking about the benefits and risks of open source in general, and how you evaluated the cost of open source in any relevant projects. All responses are of course confidential. The survey will be available for the next two weeks, but please complete it at your earliest convenience.

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Best regards,

Matthew Aslett/Jay Lyman
CAOS (Commercial Adoption of Open Source)
The 451 Group

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SAP looks at Openbravo for clients

September 21st, 2009 Traditional proprietary players like Microsoft Dynamics and SAP tend to naysay and vehemently deny that open source is an alternative to their software. They state publicly that open source is irrelevant in their market and say it should be ignored.

Yet behind the curtains, they behave otherwise. The public denial is just a poor attempt to hide the facts.

It has come to our attention that SAP is running a campaign in SourceForge, where Openbravo downloads are hosted, to capture leads for them. You can see a screenshot below.



We all have seen that SAP's sales have been declining quarter after quarter for the past several quarters; are they getting so desperate that they need Openbravo to generate leads for them in their own home market? The campaign is so obtrusive that some even sent us comments asking whether actually Openbravo ERP was developed by SAP itself. LOL

Every day Openbravo Business Partners are winning more and more bids against SAP. Clients in the mid market are doing the side by side comparison and trusting our comprehensive, innovative, and cost-effective solution.

We have a long way to go, however SAP knows clients are going our way. Wether you are looking for an ERP for your company or a system integrator looking for growth opportunities the time has come to realize Openbravo is truly opening the ERP's future.

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Openbravo wins prestigious 2009 BOSSIE award

September 2nd, 2009


Again, Openbravo has won an InforWorld's BOSSIE award to the Best of Open Source Enterprise Software. This is the second time Openbravo is presented with this award, one of the most renowned in the open source industry.






The jury reasoned:

"Openbravo impresses with a well-developed POS (point-of-sale) solution, procurement and warehouse management tools, financial and accounting features, and production logistics for shop floor oversight. Further, Openbravo's plug-in architecture offers the same sort of extensive modularity found in SugarCRM and traditional commercial applications from the likes of SAP and Oracle. That means your developers can extend system functionality without worrying about stepping on core functionality. And the entire Openbravo system is supported by a healthy set of alerts, role-based user provisioning and access control, and a good Web-based UI."
All of us at Openbravo and our ecosystem are very happy and honored by the award. We have invested a lot of resources and effort in building one of the best products, and providing all the community tools and professional services to ensure Openbravo truly becomes an alternative to proprietary ERPs. We have achieved a lot, but there is still a lot more to be done! Hopefully we can do it together.


Thanks for your support!

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Openbravo on the cloud

August 13th, 2009 As you might know, Openbravo ERP has been commercially available for cloud deployment since early 2008. Openbravo Professional Subscription has offered an appliance than can be deployed on any popular virtual cloud and notably on Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (aka Amazon EC2).

We have used this capability extensively both with clients and internally for a long time, with awesome results:
• We have reduced our infrastructure costs significantly
• We have eliminated hardware maintenance costs
• We have reduced the time to deploy a new system, drasticaly simplifying the procurement process
As an example, our on-line demo is hosted in the Amazon EC2 cloud.

Today I found an interesting 5 minutes video which explains the advantages of deploying aplication like Openbravo in the cloud.




This video is presented by rPath. Openbravo partners with rPath to enable its Professional Subscription for cloud deployment.

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Buidling Great Communities

March 24th, 2009 Tomorrow Paolo Juvara and I will bet at the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco, CA.

OSBC is the premier strategy event for the open source industry. It was founded in 2003 by Matt Asay, who is an Openbravo advisor. Paolo and I plan to meet several of our peers to exchange ideas and best practices.

Additionally, I will participate in a panel to discuss the nuances of community building. The panel will be moderated by Stormy Peters, Executive Director and the Gnome Foundation.

Key ideas I will voice include:

• The importance for all the company to become "community" and embrace community processes and communication channels
• The importance to lead and set example if you want others to follow
• The importance of recognition and meritocracy
• The importance to invest in tools to lower collaboration barriers

I bet you recognize some of the initiatives we are taking in Openbravo to make the above statements a reality.

I will share my learnings after the conference in a follow-on post.

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Openbravo SMB Network 2.40 is available

December 1st, 2008 Some weeks ago, we announced the availability of Openbravo SMB Network 2.40, the professional subscription service for Openbravo ERP 2.40.

Openbravo SMB Network 2.40 is now the recommended choice for SMEs who want to deploy Openbravo ERP for production use.

Compared with the previous release, Openbravo ERP 2.40 provides:

• Improvements in the user interface for better productivity, including full keyboard navigation and better visual feedback in the user interface
• Better support for international deployments with better support for multi-schema accounting, withholding tax, VAT register or international bank account numbers
• More out-of-the-box reports and functionalities like purchase requisitions support, goods receipt by PO number, enhanced projects & services module or historical salary category
• Enhanced and more out-of-the-box reports
• More capabilities built into the platform like enhanced security, audit trails and additional web services
For more details, you can read the complete release notes for Openbravo ERP 2.40.

Additionally, the Openbravo ERP SMB Network 2.40 appliance contains significant improvements compared to the previous edition, notably

• Updated Administration Console
  
  
  • New, cleaner look and feel
  • Improved usability with better user feedback


• Improved performance per GHz
  
  • Native support for 64 bit architecture
  • Latest versions of Ant, Tomcat, Apache and Oracle
Existing Openbravo Network subscribers can migrate their systems to the latest Openbravo ERP release and receive support with he same level enjoyed in the previous release without the need to pay additional fees. However, it is important to notice that the upgrade process will require a development project that clients will need to contract to their system integrator of reference on the basis of the need to update custom code developed for them. Therefore clients should only upgrade to the latest release if the new functionalities available offer an immediate return on investment.

Go Professional! Buy Openbravo Network.

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Disaster recovery with Openbravo SMB Network

October 8th, 2008 The fact that Openbravo ERP is a mission critical application means that it is very important to have a disaster recovery plan.

Usually, and certainly more frequently than it should be, this type of plan is just an afterthought. Quite frankly, it is also very common that the recovery process is not fully tested or documented.

In those rare cases where the plan is properly laid out, System Integrators have generally required a large number of consulting hours to craft it and clients are rarely happy with the expenditure this entails.

Luckily, Openbravo SMB Network includes a nice functionality that offers this facility without the need to develop any complex process. Using the Administration Console, system back-ups can be scheduled regularly. These back-ups can be done against a remote file server for increased reliability.

In case of disaster, a simple restore process enables you to have a fully functional system up and running again in a matter of hours. Another neat benefit of the Openbravo SMB Network appliance.

Go Professional! Ensure the systems you are managing are properly protected.

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I run a heavily cutomized Openbravo ERP system. Is Openbravo Network right for me?

September 23rd, 2008 This is one of the most frequent questions I get from (prospective) customers. Fortunately for everyone, the answer is a clear "YES".

One of the strengths of Openbravo ERP is the freedom to adapt it to every company's specific needs without limitation. This involves configuring the system's metadata, and very frequently, developing new functionalities to meet those specific requirements that make every company unique. On some occasions, the customizations done on top of the "standard" version are very significant.

However, this does not mean that you cannot benefit from Openbravo Network, the professional subscription service that has been designed to keep your system up-to-date and bug-free for a predictable cost.

Firstly, the service is built around the concept of system stability. The updates are designed to intricately target only the lines that require a fix, minimizing the likelihood of collision with custom developments. Therefore, in most of the cases, updates are silently applied without any conflict.

Secondly, the service is based on a ground-breaking application of source code management tools which are now part of Openbravo ERP. This approach provides a very granular and structured way to manage code conflicts during the update process, which help consultants apply fixes even when they are for the very same files that have been customized.

Attempting to undertake manual maintenance of a production system is simply not realistic, and too risky. Very often, only a handful of customer-reported bugs get fixed and the system is not properly patched. The situation gets much worse when several systems are maintained in parallel for several clients, and inevitably the quality of the manual maintenance process starts begins to deteriorate.

Openbravo Network has been designed to ensure Openbravo systems can be properly maintained so that they are fully up to date, with the quality required for a mission critical application, and in the most cost efficient way.

Go Professional! Buy Openbravo Network.

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The future of Open Source in Europe

September 20th, 2008
Next Wednesday 24th September, I will be in Paris to attend the Paris Capital du Libre event.

I will participate in a panel to discuss the future of Open Source in Europe.

You can find the agenda for the event here.

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