Compiere: the open source ERP alternative

Compiere, in Italian, means to accomplish, fulfill, deliver. The seven-year old open source ERP, which provides integrated customer relationship management (CRM), partner relations management (PRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and online analysis processing (OLAP) for free, may sound too good to be true.

Designed and written by Jorg Janke, a 20-year software veteran who believes unlike most commercial software companies, where about 50 percent to 70 percent of the total costs are attributed to sales people and pre-sales engineers, Compiere doesn't have such baggage to carry. Linux World Middle East spoke to Janke about his creation, open source ERP and the value it promises to business users.

When one talks of ERP, we hear of Oracle/PeopleSoft, SAP, SSA Global (Baan), or CRM we hear of Siebel, Microsoft, Maximizer, ACCPAC and others. Open source ERP for that matter, Compiere are rarely on the radar of CIOs.

That depends on your research. There is just one fully fledged open source ERP system: Compiere, which is actually covered or mentioned by most analysts. It is a fully integrated ERP & CRM system for small-medium sized companies and distribution chains (e.g. franchise business) providing supply chain, accounting, order and project management, e-commerce integrated with partner (customer, supplier) management. Compiere was designed from scratch for companies worldwide as a packaged application (i.e. not based on a customer solution as most competitors). We provide full multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-org, multi-tax, multi-accounting and reporting functionality with the ability to customize and extend the application easily. Do you think businesses are ready for open source business applications, when many are still mulling over the open source platform Linux itself?

ERP decisions are based on functionality and cost of ownership. Here we have significant advantages. Open Source applications also significantly reduce your risk -- due to vendor independence, there is no single point of failure and Compiere cannot be merged out of existence. Compiere Incorporated [the parent company] also offer commercial support to eliminate the risk of open source applications. Since the Compiere went live in 1999, how many users does it does it have? Of these how many are paying users?

We have more then 800,000 downloads, over 50 partners who can help you to implement Compiere and several hundred companies who signed up for our commercial support. There are quite a few more companies using or relying on Compiere's open source community.

Developing and supporting ERP/CRM solution can be expensive. On top of that, you are giving away your apps for free. What is Compiere's business model?

We as Compiere Inc. offer support and training for the Compiere product. This funds the development. The license is free, but you have to pay to get help implementing it. Our 50 plus partners worldwide help companies to implement Compiere efficiently. What are your company's plans and plans for Compiere as a product?

We are moving to Portland, Oregon to get better access to resources to fulfill the growing demand for Compiere support and services. We are also busy recruiting new partners to be able to meet the demand. Partners are our only distribution channel. All companies who signed up as a partner and concentrated on Compiere services are expanding -- in contrast to resellers of traditional ERP packages.

In terms of Compiere, we are constantly enhancing functionality and will improve manufacturing functionality significantly this year. We will also productize the database and application server independence. We will support Oracle, Cloudscape, DB/2 and Microsoft SQL Server as well as JBoss, Websphere and Oracle Application Server out-of-the-box. For other databases and application servers, we are providing a porting kit. Compiere is not the only contender in this space. ERP 5, Fisterra, CK-ERP and other open source suites seem to be competing with you. Furthermore, most of the major ERP vendors are now supporting Linux actively. How is Compiere faring in this market scenario?

Compiere is available on Windows, Unix, Apple and Linux. Compiere is by far the number one ERP application in terms of downloads, use, functionality, completeness and acceptance. We have customers in various industries -- retail, distribution, services, utilities, and even manufacturing. What are the biggest issues you face convincing companies to adopt open source applications?

The open source model raises questions. It takes a bit for people to understand that they get the same as closed applications (the ComPiere support guarantees uptime and help if required) -- just with significantly reduced risk and cost of ownership. Everything is open -- no hidden agenda or surprise. Compiere is a "normal" application just based on a service model rather then a license model.