Hi Ruth,
I think there are two main issues which slow the adoption of ofbiz:
1 - lack of quality documentation
2 - the community focus
The problem with the lack of quality documentation is well known and
needs no further discusssion.
In my experience, there is a problem with the ofbiz community focus.
Communities such as those surrounding ubuntu and adempiere seem to be
focused on making the product the best it can possibly be. Ofbiz
community seems to be focused on making ofbiz generate as much
consulting revenue as possible and not on making ofbiz a great shrink
wrapped product. For example, end users having to use svn and patches
so to keep their systems up to date is crazy. Also, end users typically
want stability, yet the advice on the mailing lists is to Ofbiz to use
trunk. I will say though that help on the mailing lists is fantastic
(even if the same questions are answered over-and-over again due to the
lack of documentation).
I think that until the above issues are resolved, adoption of this
fantastic framework will be slow.
Cheers,
Chris
Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Chris:
Thanks for the info and the endorsement.
One question: Do you consider long term operational costs (support and
maintenance) when you bid a job? I'm trying to understand if there is
any value in a single OFBiz solution vs. supporting multiple
applications/databases. Or is that something that your client's don't
really care about? Do you have any thoughts on that?
re: Job boards. It is true that OFBiz doesn't seem to get much "air
time". Ok, truth be told - here in the US - I don't think I've ever
seen a job requirement for OFBiz. I certainly would be the first to
respond to opportunities for OFBiz integrator/developers if I ever saw
any. Writing books does not pay very well :-( I think the only thing
that will cure this is time. The more new adopters we get, the more
likely OFBiz will be brought into the enterprise and become
mainstream. And then the secret will be out and everyone will be
salivating all over it - just like the do with Spring and Hibernate.
Regards,
Ruth
Christopher Snow wrote:
Hi Ruth,
I spend a lot of time learning. I am learning new systems all the
time and to date I have implemented a multitude of opensource
solutions . I enjoy learning, I enjoy new technologies. The
knowledge I need I normally get from reading books. I have found
that it is just not cost effective (i.e. time effective) to try to
learn from trial and error, reading wikis or studying source code. I
normally do not attend training courses because I can't afford the
lost consulting time. Ebooks are great, you can print out a chapter,
stick it in your back pocket and read it waiting for a train.
In my mind, the best thing that has made ofbiz accessible to me are
your books and the book from Jonathon Wong. Unfortunately these
resources cover maybe 10% of the total knowledge needed to implement
ofbiz.
When looking at returns, as a contractor, I usually notice what
skills the UK job boards are asking for. I have seen a few jobs
recently asking for adempiere and compiere skills. I have not seen
many jobs requiring ofbiz skills, but I do have a number of small
companies that want bespoke enterprise application development that
suits the ofbiz framework.
As for investment cost:
Adempiere functional implementation: ebook cost* - £20. Time to
read - 40 hours.
*http://www.packtpub.com/adempiere-3-4-erp-solutions/book
Ofbiz functional implementation: training cost $$$$, additional
time to learn from wiki, source code etc - 300 hours (this is a wild
guess).
Cheers,
Chris
Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hello Christopher:
I'm wondering, since I've never had to use the OFBiz accounting
features to run a business, if you have analyzed the ROI on learning
and supporting another platform and software application such as
OpenBravo vs. dealing with the gaps in OFBiz accounting.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
[email protected]
http://www.myofbiz.com
Olivier Tremblay wrote:
I wonder what will be decided. I need to be able to import from
Quickbooks too, so importation is a feature I'm looking for too.
Hm. So many aspects to consider in such an enormous system. :P
Le 2009-11-11 à 11:23, Christopher Snow a écrit :
The main problem I had with accounting is that for most of the
accounting features you had to use trunk, but trunk is unstable
which is a problem when you are trying to learning something new.
There was little documentation on the accounting component, and
when something doesn't work you don't know if you are doing
something wrong, if it's a bug, or if it's a feature.
Olivier Tremblay wrote:
I'm not an accountant at all, I did explore the features but it
looked pretty good. Which features seemed lacking to you most?
Le 2009-11-11 à 11:04, Christopher Snow a écrit :
My experience:
Ecommerce tends to be the main strength and focus of ofbiz.
Ofbiz accounting is the most immature area. I gave up on ofbiz
accounting and am now looking at OpenBravo / Adempiere.
Ofbiz is a fantastic enterprise application development
framework if you want to create your own apps.
Ofbiz needs a lot of customization to fit to an individual
business. There is very little documentation on the business
processes within ofbiz so you will have to spend a lot of time
working things out or pay for help.
Olivier Tremblay wrote:
Actually, we're not sure how deep we want to use it, but we
need it for accounting, project management, and pretty much the
whole business flow (which is, if I'm not mistaken, precisely
the point of OFBiz).
Le 2009-11-11 à 10:31, Harmeet Bedi a écrit :
Emforium(http://www.allinsoftware.com/), out of Waterloo
Ontario is.
Good platform but it has a learning curve. A lot depends on
how you want to use it. Our usage of ofbiz is very broad and
deep. Not sure if you are thinking o using only ecommerce side
of it or more or less.
Harmeet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Olivier Tremblay" <[email protected]>
To: "OFBiz Newsletter" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 10:03:27 AM GMT -05:00
US/Canada Eastern
Subject: OFBiz in Canada?
Hello all!
Just wondering if some of the readers here were using OFBiz in
Canada,
or even better, in Quebec! My company is considering the use
of OFBiz,
and as such I'm in charge of researching on the matter. We
would like
to hear from your experience!
Thank you all. :)
Olivier Tremblay
