opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM Quarterly Update

In the last three months we have taken important steps to finishing opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM Version 1.4. Key new developments include:

Upgraded to New Release of Apache OFBiz, Tomcat, and Funambol

We have upgraded opentaps to the new releases of Apache Tomcat (6.0.16), Apache OFBiz (09.04), and Funambol (8.01) The new version of Apache OFBiz brings us the following additional features:

• support for LDAP
• support for deployment on Geronimo, IBM Websphere Community Edition, Glassfish, JBoss, and Tomcat
• support for OWASP security framework
• a project management application
• a human resources application
• integration with eBay
• integration with Google base
• support for Google check out

Along with the new version of Apache OFBiz, we have also updated opentaps to support the new OWASP security features.

The new version of Funambol brings us the ability to sync and share contacts, calendars, email, and pictures with both popular desktop apps, such as Outlook, and web-based email, including Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail.

License Change to Affero GPL v3

Related to the Funambol upgrade, opentaps has changed its license from the Honest Public License (HPL) to the GNU Affero General Public License v3.

opentaps 1.4 is Coming Soon

With these upgrades, opentaps 1.4 is almost done. We will be enhancing some of the user interface with Google Web Toolkit and implementing keyword search for the opentaps applications, and then opentaps 1.4 will be officially released. In the meantime, another preview release of opentaps 1.4 will be available within the next week or so.

New Case Study about opentaps

In this new case study about opentaps, a manufacturing company with 200 employees switched from its legacy mainframe ERP system to opentaps, and in the process consolidated its IT infrastructure, reduce costs, and connected to its partners globally.

Wishlist for opentaps

We recently had a community discussion of a wish list for opentaps. What’s really interesting is that people are asking for a smaller and a bigger opentaps at the same time — “smaller” as in easier to use and easier to customize, “bigger” as in more features and functionality.

This may look like a contradiction, but it’s really not: If we could make opentaps easier for new users and developers to work with, we would have more third-party add-ons and modules for opentaps, which would in turn give us many additional features.  The key to doing all this is a strong underlying architecture which is modular, intuitive for developers to work with and extend, and maintainable.

From opentaps version 1.0 to 1.4, we  taken some important steps in this direction.  At the framework level, we have added support for spring, hibernate, and Google Web Toolkit among others, and started building an object-oriented domain driven architecture.  After the release of opentaps 1.4, we will be exploring some new technologies  to make opentaps more modular and easier to customize and extend.

Finally, special thanks to Claude Feistel of Integrasphere for his help with the opentaps Users Manual.