Phil,
In other words, OFBiz is more than what you were looking for. Enterprise
class solutions are very different in nature from small business oriented
software. It doesn't sound like you're looking for a Blue Martini or ATG
type of thing, even less an ERP-like solution such as SAP or Oracle
Financials, or even something like Great Plains or Navision. Sage Software
is interesting because they have different product lines that draw this
line. It sounds like you're looking for something more on a scale (perhaps
not scope) of Sage Peachtree rather than Save Accpac or MAS 90.
There is a HUGE difference in how these different types of software are
"installed" and used.
Just like it was for you it's not uncommon for people to have a bad
experience with enterprise class software when they first look at it. It is
WAY more complex than they want. Medium and larger sized businesses automate
things that small businesses often don't even consider. That's the nature of
the business side of things, and the software for different types of
businesses has to match the complexity of the businesses it targets.
It doesn't mean OFBiz is bad, it's just not what you want. And that's
totally fine. Don't worry, I've been discouraging small businesses from
using OFBiz for many years now and early on had long conversations with many
of them.
It's not that OFBiz has no use in the small business world, but most small
businesses need something that is meant for businesses like theirs,
something that takes from a pool of many thousands of data elements and
processes and pulls out just the dozens or hundreds they need for their
particular business.
I'm copying the user mailing list on this just as I did on my last reply,
and as you mentioned you were trying to do. A lot of people run into this
problem. Some respond by realizing their experience was bad because their
expectations were simply not realistic. They adjust their expectations and
their understanding in increases and future related experiences are better.
Some respond by complaining and attacking and their understanding gets even
further away from reality than it was before and future related experiences
get worse and worse.
-David
Philip Garrow wrote:
Hi David:
I hope more clearly stated:
The promise of OfBiz is its use for businesses of all sizes.
I understand that it is not an OOTB solution, and at the same time I
hoped
that my skills in software development and network administration would
allow me to install and configure and configure OfBiz to have at least
some
baseline functionality from which I could learn and study further, they
weren't. OfBiz is large, complex and beyond my skills to begin working
with, and being a skilled computer tech, this means they are beyond all
but
the most specifically trained developers.
Next, I sought developers familiar with OfBiz to develop the back-end
for my
business. Their solutions were twice my budget, and once complete could
only be supported by the small count of developers familiar with OfBiz.
Finally, following your advice I posted a request for help to learn
OfBiz to
the user list and received no replies, no support for learning OfBiz.
In the end it made better business sense for me to use a well supported
OOTB
solution, which cost me half the amount to install and configure, even
for
my very complex requirements.
In summation, in my experience there is no circumstance under which I
could
recommend OfBiz as a useful tool for running a business or as a useful
course of study for anyone interested in software development for
business.
Until the learning curve for OfBiz can be softened, the cost for
commercial
development reduced, and the training for new developers better
supported, I
feel that OfBiz is just a bunch of Java Macros for a very few software
geeks.
Despite my initial excitement for using and learning OfBiz, it has been
a
disappointment for me. I hope I was clearer in this letter.
Regards, Phil Garrow
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-----Original Message-----
From: David E Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:18 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Something I tried to post to the list...
Phil,
Thanks for writing. I'm not sure I understood the idea you were trying
to
communicate, so let me re-phrase it back to you:
It sounds like you're saying that OFBiz didn't fit your requirements
well
and the complexity and scope seems better suited to businesses larger
than
yours, or maybe more accurately, businesses with more complex and wider
scoped software needs than what your business has.
Does that sound about like what you were trying to say?
If so I can totally understand that, and I totally agree with you.
OFBiz
is really not meant to be a system used OOTB by small businesses. We
have
tried to communicate this clearly with text front and center and on the
OFBiz home page (http://ofbiz.apache.org) under the "Introduction: What
is
Apache OFBiz?" heading.
There is a good chance the text there doesn't clearly represent that.
Do
you have any ideas about how we could better communicate this?
-David
Philip Garrow wrote:
Hi David:
I tried to post the following message to the list and it bounced
saying
that
it looked like spam to the list filters. I don't know what I am doing
wrong; I felt that someone should read this sentiment.
Regards, Phil Garrow
RE: Help with Ofbiz
Hi:
I too was excited about Ofbiz when I found out about it. I was
searching
for a web based solution on which to run my business and I thought I
found
it. It turns out that what I found was unuseably complex, although
promising. I then sought a programmer to help me customize Ofbiz as
needed.
I, like you, balked at a price tag of nearly $30,000.00 to do the work
needed. I then thought that I would put in the time needed to learn
Ofbiz
to be able to program the back end of my site... and to allow me to
earn
those high consulting fees. I completed a computer science degree ten
years
ago and spent a year and a half updating my skills learning Object
Oriented
Programming in Java in 2003. Even with this, I was unable to make any
progress trying to work through David Jones's tutorial. So I posted
to
the
Ofbiz list for help getting starting with Ofbiz and got no replies...
nothing... I spent a month reading about Ofbiz, struggling to get
started,
and then decided that my time was really better spent running my
business
rather than put any more time in to this marginally supported
framework.
I
sought and found a commercial solution and for less than a third of
the
cost
of customizing Ofbiz, and providing almost everything I needed. It is
my
opinion that until Ofbiz can do what is needed to soften the steep
start-up
curve it will remain just a set of back-end libraries for a small
number
of
programmers, not a useful tool for small businesses. Kind of like a
phrase
book for those who study Sanskrit, not fulfilling the promise of
making
open-source software accessible to the masses. Good luck with Ofbiz.
If
you are interested in the solution that I found then check out PDG
Commerce.
I don't make a nickel on that suggestion.
Just my $0.02 Phil Garrow
-----Original Message-----
From: EPaulson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 5:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Help with Ofbiz
I am new to Ofbiz as a user. A few months ago I was fortunate enough
to have a friend install and configure Ofbiz for my business. I
switched my entire
operation over to the Ofbiz framework out of sheer
optimism/excitement
for
the powerful potention it offers. I have spent countless hours over
the
past
few years with toying with different OOTB eCommerce solutions...only
to
find
that there was always some annoying limitation with each and every
one
of
them. Ofbiz, I thought, was going to be the solution I had been
looking
for
the past several years. Finally...I can have EXACTLY what I need to
operate
my business the way I envision. Now the dilemma....
I am not sure if it's the version I am running OR if it's a
configuration issue, but a healthy chunk of Ofbiz features do not
function on my site. To just name one...content management. I cannot
add alt tags, policy pages,etc.
Now, my friend is too busy to work on my site regardless of an hourly
fee.
The seemingly few of dev. familiar with OFB are also too busy.
Documentation/training videos are too advanced for me unfortunately.
I am willing to put in the time to learn, but I fear that it would
take years for me to get where I need to be in order to customize OFB
for my business...AND
I don't even know where to begin.
It's frustrating to be dependant on others that have the necessary
knowledge to help you, BUT they are too busy unless I can un-ass $30K
on up to become
a top-level project myself. Please understand, I have the utmost
respect
for anyone that has the knowledge/background necessary to be able to
navigate through development/implemention of Ofb AND I completely
understand
that small business owners like myself cannot expect the same
attention
as
companies with big budgets. It's unreasonable for me to expect the
luxury
of
a tailor-made ERP solution without paying what it's worth.
1) Is there anyone that has the time AND is willing to spend one-two
hours per week consulting me on Ofbiz via phone/email/livechat,etc.?
(walk me through the process of setup/config. and customization from
time to time.
If YES or if you have some positive suggestions than please email me
directly with rates/availability. I would like to delete this post
soon, so please do not respond with a post.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
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