It's official: Oracle buying Siebel

Maybe it should be the ERP/CRM graveyard: http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5860113.html

Did you get our mailer?

So this is our response to the ERP Graveyard - mailing out free software!

If you got this CD in the mail, congratulations - that means you were on the right kind of ERP Solution Provider mailing list to begin with (whoopee!), and more importantly, you've saved the time and hassle of downloading the software from our website.

If you didn't get the CD, you can download the software at www.openmfg.com/solRegister - but as you might have guessed from the URL, we do ask you to fill out a little form first.

Anyway, it's a fully functional demo of the OpenMFG ERP software. We think you'll find it covers most of the bases of what you'd expect to see in an ERP for small to midsized manufacturers and distributors - and maybe a few things that will surprise you. It runs on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X ... and everybody, customers and VAR partners, gets the source code.

If your customer wants to make a change - or better yet, wants to pay you to make the change, we'll work with you to make sure the enhancement gets back into the main (supported) product.

So even if (heaven forbid) the great and powerful OpenMFG ends up in the graveyard someday, you and your customer are protected. You've got the source code, and you've got a global community of users and developers to continue to work with.

Now there's a cheery thought.

Can't tell the players without a scorecard

So one good place to start might be with an inventory of dead (or extremely sleepy) ERP systems. I propose the following categories:

1. Companies acquired, ERP product and customer base in limbo. This is the most common category. Examples: Baan, MANMAN.
   
2. Company not actively investing in the product, future in question. Example: Qube.
   
3. Company and/or product is just gone. Example: Flexware.
   

Under category #1, there are a couple of primary aggregator/offenders:

• SSA (Baan, BPICS, MANMAN, MK, CAS, KBM, PRISM, many other products in ALL CAPS)
  
• infor (formerly Agilisys), acquirers of MAPICS, Frontstep/Symix, Lilly VISUAL, BRAIN, NxTrend, daly.commerce, FACTS, SCT, etc.)
• Oracle (JD Edwards, Peoplesoft, many more just outside the scope of our ERP study)
• Microsoft (Great Plains, Navision)
• Sage (MAS 90/200, ACCPAC, Peachtree, Platinum, BusinessWorks, BusinessVision, ACT!, SalesLogix, many more niche products)
  
• Epicor (ROI Manage 2000, Scala, Avante, ManFact, DataFlo)
  
• Exact (Alliance/Mfg, MAX, Macola, JobBoss)

I know there are lots and lots I'm leaving out. Comments, additions?

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog on the ever-shrinking world of Enterprise Resource Planning software vendors. In addition to maintaining an up-to-date "deathwatch" on ERP software at all levels of the marketplace, I'd like for this blog to be a resource for people looking for help once their company's mission-critical software has gone dark.

By way of full disclosure, my company offers an open source-based system called OpenMFG. The idea, whether you're a VAR or a corporate end-user, is that you don't have to worry about what happens to us as a company. You've got the source code, you've got a community of users and developers that know the product, and as such you've got security.

More to come shortly.