Hi Phil,
As I know, OFBiz is a service oriented platform, which means it's
generally in a direct sale business model or by solution providers.
Here is a graph which can explain why you feel unhappy with OFBiz:
Low Customer Value High
|<------------------------------------------>|
| |
|
Volumn Sale VAR&SP direct sale
| |
|
|<------------------------------------------>|
ERP Vendors
OFBiz is here
As you see, obviously you belong to the low end customers in ERP market,
so select a product you can get from a software distributor/reseller is
a wise choice.
This is a free lesson special to you.
Hope you can use this knowledge to position your own business as well.
Just my 2 cents.
Shi Jinghai/Beijing Langhua Ltd.
在 2007-08-16四的 17:18 -0600，David E Jones写道：
> 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.
> >> --
> >
> > No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.11.19/956 - Release Date: 8/16/2007
> > 9:48 AM
> >
> >
