I have to agree with Ruth on this one. The question is, what is the
OFBiz "community", is it users or developers? The question has lots of
implications, and deserves careful thought.
If venture capitalists (a community I know something about) are willing
to invest $3MM euro to increase OpenERP market share, then 1) they see a
product that can increase its revenues (and profits) by at least 10-100X
in the next 3-5 years, and 2) they see a path to liquidity (public
offering or sale), whereby they expect to recoup their investment.
I agree with Jacques that OpenERP is an inferior solution. Yet he loses
contracts to OpenERP. Why? Partly because OpenERP looks more polished
and finished, and appearances are in fact important. However, the
bigger issue is that OpenERP is more user-friendly (meaning more
inviting to users, who are not developers).
The general perception in the OFBiz community seems to be that if you
want an ERP solution, you will need to customize it. For that, you need
a developer, and we are those developers. So if you want an OFBiz
solution, pay us and we'll get you a custom OFBiz solution-- otherwise,
don't waste our time.
Sorry, but that attitude is ass-backwards. You have the cart driving
the horse. Even record and movie companies (the most ass-backward
marketing people on the planet) know that they don't get people to buy
records without radio play, or movie tickets without trailers. Even
low-life drug dealers grasp the simple marketing concept of the "loss
leader"-- you can get more people using your product by giving it away
for free, initially. In my business, we give away lots of free samples
because it it the best way to get people converted to our products.
People need to know up front what value they are going to get, and also
how much it is going to cost.
As an end-user with OpenERP, you get that information (I looked hard at
OpenERP a few months ago), but with OFBiz, you really don't. You have
to look really hard (under the hood) to see the things that make OFBiz
better, and as developers, you probably all know what those advantages
are. OFBiz's weaknesses, on the other hand, are right on the surface--
the very things that Ruth complains about.
Choosing any ERP solution is a hard, painful task, and the initial
difficulty of evaluating and customizing OFBiz makes it a harder choice
than most. Inertia (personal and institutional) definitely works
against acceptance and adoption of OFBiz, initially.
If OFBiz had a polished, truly "OOTB" solution, then users could try it
and (hopefully) find it immediately useful, at least for some limited
applications. Once the nose of the camel gets inside the tent, the rest
of the body will follow. use breeds curiosity, and the incremental cost
(other than learning curve) of using more features and applications is
zero, so the learning process is encouraged. Soon, the customer is
fully committed and using OFBiz for many things, but inevitably, there
are some customizations they would like to make. Cha-ching! Customers
create themselves. Instead of a "missionary sale", you have more
customers than you can service, and they are looking for you, instead of
the reverse.
That is the difference between OpenERP and OFBiz in a nutshell. From a
user's perspective, OpenERP delivers benefits first and costs later,
while OFBiz demands costs up front and delivers the benefits later.
Which way do you think is the FASTEST path to a LARGE user community?
The venture capitalists have already cast THEIR vote.
On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 14:31 -0500, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Anil:
I'm sure this will start an avalanche of responses all directing vitriol
towards me. Rest assured I don't take any attacks personally:
First off, IMHO, encouraging community contributions IS a problem for
OFBiz. The "community" as you so correctly point out is one of software
developers. There is much more to bringing a product to market, or more
importantly, surviving to play another day, than software development
and copious amounts of code contributed to a source code repository.
Secondly, OFBiz will never survive, let alone grow, if there are no new
adopters (end-users, service providers or whatever you want to call
them). I further argue that the project won't get any new adopters by
sticking its collective head in the sand and ignoring real world issues
like release management, quality control and my favorite, documentation
and training.
And to your point about selling "services". I'm curious. Since you
brought it up, what services does HotWax sell that help promote the
health and well being of the OFBiz project? Or is that not what you do?
Maybe I don't understand.
Well I for one feel really comfortable saying that I sell a "product"
that helps promote the health and well being of OFBiz. Probably the only
one out there? Not only that, my product is reasonably priced to
encourage new OFBiz adopters. If you can afford to buy a week's worth of
Starbuck lattes, you can afford to purchase my product. Does that make
me a "Company" backing OFBiz? LOL!
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Find me on the web at http://www.myofbiz.com or Google keyword "myofbiz"
[email protected]
Regards,
Ruth
Anil Patel wrote:
> Here is another blog http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10458449-16.html
>
> One interesting issue these Company driven projects are struggling (evedent
from reading these blogs) with is, encourage
> community to contribute. In Ofbiz we don't have this issue, Ofbiz is build on the
concept of "Community driven software
> development"
>
> I feel confident that OfBiz will live longer and grow much more quickly then
usual software open source software dragged by
> corporations. Ofbiz service providers can focus on their core activity "Sell
services", and not really wonder around to get
> funding to keep project alive and moving.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel
> HotWax Media Inc
> Find us on the web at www.hotwaxmedia.com or Google Keyword "ofbiz"
>
> On Feb 24, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Anil Patel wrote:
>
>
>> Jacques,
>> Why do you think so?
>>
>> It does not take too long to use 3M euros. And they are trying to make
community contribution thing work for them, We got it
>> working for years.
>>
>> In case of OpenERP, One provider is dominating the community. In case of
Apache Ofbiz we don't encourage that. Its up to
>> providers to decide how they want to use OfBiz for building their business.
>>
>> Thanks and Regards
>> Anil Patel
>> HotWax Media Inc
>> Find us on the web at www.hotwaxmedia.com or Google Keyword "ofbiz"
>>
>> On Feb 24, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Maybe the future of OFBiz in Europe (and even in USA it seems) will be
harder...
>>>
>>> http://fptiny.blogspot.com/2010/02/openerp-raises-3-million-euros.html
>>>
>>> Or maybe this ERP will not be Open-Source longer in the future...
>>>
>>> Actually it was the last of the Open-Source ERPs to not follow this way (though
I"m not sure for ERP5)
>>>
>>> The strategy :
http://robertogaloppini.net/2009/06/01/open-source-business-strategy-openerp-and-long-term-sustainability/
>>>
>>> Jacques
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
--
Matt Warnock <[email protected]>
RidgeCrest Herbals, Inc.
