openerp-community team mailing list archive

[Robin Bahadur <robin.bahadur@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Daniel,

     Good thought.
+1
On 2 Mar 2014 04:19, "Daniel Reis" <dgreis@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>  Let me start saying that I'm a huge OpenERP fan.
> I though twice before participating, but I feel some obligation in sharing
> my findings on this issue.
>
> OpenERP is doing a great work on the product, and all product serious
> users should giving their share for this.
> But, unfortunately, right now I can't advise anyone I know to buy
> Enterprise contract.
> I honestly hope that this could change soon.
>
> I can explain why, and  I'll also add some comparisons with Microsoft's
> NAV strategy (in fact, OpenERP is a closer competitor to NAV than it is to
> AX or SAP).
>
> *1) The OEE SaaS option is unusable:*
> It does not support localizations, it doesn't allow for serious
> customizations.
> So, it doesn't let me comply with my local legal requirements.
>
> *2) OEE service does not support localizations.*
> This is a real show stopper.
> I don't mind localizations to be built by third-parties (as they are), but
> I expect the product vendor to validate these and give some level of
> support or guarantee. Every other ERP vendor I know does that.
> Localization features are mission critical, and OEE is void of value in
> that space. It doesn't even cover version migrations.
> If I have to pay a partner for this support, I'd might be better off
> getting all product support from him.
> Microsoft NAV and AX themselves often have localizations provided and
> maintained by partners. But Microsoft certifies these localizations, and
> includes them in the produc's maintenance fee. And Microsoft doesn't do
> direct sales: it's always sold through an integrator. How the maintenance
> fee gets divided between core and localizations evolution is abstracted for
> the final customer.
>
> *3) OEE is expensive*
> At least for the business case I studied, so I have numbers to back up
> this claim.
> From the 6th year on, OEE total cost gets more expensive than buying
> Microsoft NAV licenses.
> And Microsoft supports localization, which OpenERP doesn't.
> On a SaaS cloud hosted, the assessment conclusions could be different, but
> as per #1, that is not an option.
> And note that NAV targets the middle market. For the SME market the
> pricing issue gets even trickier.
>
>
> I mean to be constructive, so I do have some suggestions for improvement:
>
> *a) Have a community modules certification programme*
> Let partners build localizations, but have them reviewed and certified.
> This will make it viabale for OpenERP SA to also provide version
> migrations as part of OEE.
> Also should provide some guarantee on basic maintenance (bugfixing) in
> case the authors go out of business.
> This will boost it's value for Customers.
> I know that Microsoft does this and uses a third-party entity to do the
> certification process, and it's similar to what App Stores do.
>
> *b) Price differentiation by geographic region.*
> It doesn't make sense to have the same prices for South America and North
> America.
> It also doesn't make sense to have the same prices for Portugal and for
> Germany.
> I can tell you what Microsoft is doing: they also have a fixed list price
> (at least for Europe).
> But they use different discount policies to adapt to each market's needs:
> I have seen quotes starting with 30% discount on list price, but in
> stronger economies such as Germany you're lucky if you can close the deal
> with a 5% or 10% discount.
>
> *c) Accomodate different customers types in the pricing policy*
> The new "business apps" user category is different from the standard "ERP"
> users.
> They have very different perceptions of the product's value, but can grow
> in modules used and eventually become full "ERP" users.
> These users expect a more App-oriented pricing model, at least until they
> reach a usage level that makes them prefer the "ERP" pricing.
> I believe that "business apps" and "quickstart" over SaaS" concepts are
> powerful and can be strategic for OpenERP's growth.
> But OpenERP is missing a few things for that to take off: certified
> modules and localizations usable on SaaS; support for dev / productions
> environments on SaaS, with tooling for packaging changes and deploying
> between them; improve the GUI customization tools (view editors are partly
> broken; some field changes are impossible).
>
>
> The more I think on it, the more I believe that module certification can
> have a multiplier effect on several revenue stream for OpenERP.
>
> I hope this gets to be helpful in some way.
>
> Best to all
> /DR
>
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