Update as of July 31 2009
A work-in-progress site is up on http://weberp.org.in/weberp2009/
Volunteers to help complete the content are welcome.
We have been a bit busy lately, but hope to complete it in the next 2-3 weeks.
Creating a new WebERP website
This is an attempt to paraphrase a longer discussion on the discussion forum: Full discussion thread in context.
Need to support developers
- Developers are "trying to figure out how to make money working with webERP. Up to now I have made my living installing and customizing proprietary accounting packages. I have done a few customizations for webERP but so far have not been able to make much revenue working with webERP. I suppose Open Source Software just has not done well in the United States. I have not figured out how people make money giving software away. For that matter, I have not learned how to make money selling it either".
- "it is very difficult to make money by supporting free software. The types that are drawn to it are often those who don't mind doing things for themselves.Without an incentive for consultants we lose evangelists and remain out of the mainstream.
Need to make WebERP more appealing to business users
- Most business people will either not be aware or only very slightly aware of open source at all, and so will not think to look there for ERP
software. Open source ERP does have the potential of a revenue stream, its a question of marketing it to the right people who are going to take the decisions.
- WebERP is ... easy to understand, low key, ideal for small businesses. Also ... weberp is php based..
- If weberp is installed in a hosted situation with possibilities to have special mods (like a webshop integration) their could be some nice
potential for small businesses as I was unable to find a normally priced commercial alternative. The things I would improve/add/need are:
- better graphical look (more dare I say it web 2.0)
- better user interaction
- option to import bank statements
- option to do my tax return reports from webErp
If you want to attract serious corporate clients, maybe you need to re-evaluate:
1) web presentation
2) logo and identity
3) customers like myself may be willing to pay to get specialty work done. Paypal and others offer and easy way to methods to pay for services, why not sell customizing services directly through the weberp site instead of having customers run around trying to find the services 3rd party. This applies to hosting also. You might try and run the site as a broker for the weberp services. Developers and hosting services pay a fee to get listed, There are my websites that do this in the trading and manufacturing business. It should be possible to do it here. Instead of using the userlist, a customer could enter a open a ticket and pay for the service either as a yearly subscription or number of tickets or whatever. You can decide by issue if this falls into common support (done for free) or specialty support (done for a fee). I know this is done on 3rd party websites now, but why not do it directly on the weberp site.
4) for me, there seems to be a lack of info on the detail settings of the system. Setting up customers, suppliers, items, etc is pretty intuitive, but some of the fine points of currencies, etc are very hard to get info on and are trial and error. If you want to have more adoption, this needs to be clearer. I agree that money in open source is made from specialty add ons, but that means you need mass adoption to get the business. Basic documentation needs to be there.
5) regarding the shopping cart: There have been many discussions here about integrating with OSC, zencart, joomla, vtiger. This is the first I have heard of the joomla cart you are referring to. It would have been great to know this a couple of months ago. I just finished a site using joomla and virtuemart and would have been really interested in using this. Now, I have used alot of resources doing the virtuemart and do not want to go through it again. I searched joomla extensions and read the weberp userlist emails, but heard nothing about this. maybe this should be a section on the web page.
6) your community has a variety of resources. you may not be good at marketing but the marketers may not be good at code or accounting. think of a barter system where the community can contribute and you may not need that large VC money to get things done. This system could also run on the site.
Once a layout is decided on, customization, template change, etc are straightforward. Plus a large amount of available extensions for future development. Also, it is easier to make it a collaborative effort without the work falling on one developer.
Promoting the project by revitalizing the project image/web presence might be one of the best ways to support developer/consultants. Also, a clearing house where developers/consultants are able to promote their services and where customers are able to find reliable manpower to get their system up, running and customized might also support developers/consultants alot.
I am not suggesting changing the project into a commercial interest. But, it does need some funding, if even to pay for hosting services, webpage development. The project may be at a point where you can distinguish between non-earning and non-profit.
There maybe a gap in the market that some open source projects do not address well. You have the developers with a great app on one side and you have customers looking for the project and services on the other. Putting the two together through a functional, efficient portal does not necessarily mean becoming commercial. Yet there seem to be successful projects like the CRM projects joomla, OSC etc., discussed above. Joomla is still open source, yet there are many commercial developers and consultants making money from the project. I have many sites running it. Sometimes I use it for free, when I need something special, I pay for it. Seems it works out for everyone. Maybe you don't have to look to far to find a model you can adopt.
webERP is the project/software - it is open-source and always will be - it is not a commercial organisation and I have reservations about making any association between webERP and commercial interests.
The primary goal of the makeover would be to improve WebERP's perception as a "business friendly" product, and highlight how business users (and software professionals - we may want to keep that as a separate section) would benefit. Joomla is excellent for putting together a support site since blogging is native to Joomla and there are several forum modules.
Support could be kept in threads to make searching for solutions much easier than searching emails. I agree with the idea of keeping
commercial interests separate. Maybe we need two sites. One for webERP and one for commercial interests. It would be nice to have one placefor potential customers to try Joomla-webERP integrations and to post any other CM-webERP integrations. Perhaps have a separate site for each CM-webERP integration.
The wiki is great for attracting IT pros. A more commercial looking site would help make webERP seem like more of a commercial product and
therefore might attract paying customers. The more money we attract to the project the better it will be for everyone.
