Open Source ERP???

June 22, 2007
Everybody knows, right? What are some of the things everybody knows? Well, in control system integration, everybody knows that SAP is the ERP system you must have experience with. But the truth is that SAP is for big enterprises. Even SAP admits as much, because you have to be over $300 million a year before they'll even talk to you directly. Otherwise, they send you to their integration partners. But if you have to go to an integration partner to get SAP (read, expensive), wouldn't it be nice...
Everybody knows, right? What are some of the things everybody knows? Well, in control system integration, everybody knows that SAP is the ERP system you must have experience with. But the truth is that SAP is for big enterprises. Even SAP admits as much, because you have to be over $300 million a year before they'll even talk to you directly. Otherwise, they send you to their integration partners. But if you have to go to an integration partner to get SAP (read, expensive), wouldn't it be nice if there was an ERP system for the rest of us? Those companies (both vendor and end user) who aren't ExxonMobil or Procter and Gamble? "Joe's Chemical Co." or any of the bottom three-quarters of the Control Top 50... Well, it appears there is. An ERP system for the rest of us, that is. Slashdot reported that one of the top 10 open source software products (as measured by activity on Slashdot's parent, SourceForge.com anyway) is a no-kidding open source ERP system! The software is called OpenBravo, and a cursory examination of its modules indicates that it is as capable as SAP, and, of course, is far less expensive. System integrators wanting an offering to the SME market, or smaller automation vendors wanting to integrate their own manufacturing enterprises might seriously want to take a close look at this.