Profoss / Events / November 2008 ERP / Speakers / Ron Kramer / Ron Kramer interview

Ron Kramer interview

What's your daily job, and how is it related to open source ERP?

My daily job is entrepreneur building a business around opensource business software services. Further more I'm project manager in implementation projects.

How was Openbravo started? Was it supported by a company from the start?

 

Openbravo was started as a project in the University of Navarra where the technological framework was developed. In August of 2001, Nicolas Serrano, Ismael Ciordia and Moncho Aguinaga founded Tecnicia (today known as Openbravo) to specifically apply this framework to the world of Enterprise Management Systems resulting in the creation and launching of Openbravo ERP as we know it today.

 

Then in 2005, two entrepreneurs with a huge experience in building start-ups worldwide decided to analyze the opportunity to expand Openbravo's operations based on an innovative open source business model. In early 2006, these two entrepreneurs decided to join Openbravo with the objective of opening ERPs future!

 

In January 2006, Openbravo reached a € 5M ($ 6,4M) series A financing agreement with SODENA - a Government of Navarra (where Openbravo has its headquarters) instrument for business development. The proceeds - the largest ever for an open source ERP company - were used to fuel the software development and international growth of the company.

Does it have external contributors, does it have an active community?

Openbravo develops the core of the product, however thanks to numerous contributors, the product is continuously being improved. Openbravo is proud to say that it benefits from a very active community, most clearly demonstrated by its ranking as the most downloaded open source ERP project on SourceForge. Openbravo’s wiki holds a wealth of information about how to contribute to the project, from localizations, bug reports and fixes, to developing new functionalities, features and verticals, just to name a few.

 

Openbravo recognizes the importance in building a strong relationship with its community, which is why Openbravo put so much effort in maintaining our wiki up-to-date, while hosting events, participate in forums and use a wide variety of channels to maximize collaboration with community members. Openbravo is now working with a wide range of customers, partners and a community of developers that play a key role in driving Openbravo ERP to its leading position in open source ERP.

Which companies are targetted by Openbravo?

Openbravo can target companies of all sizes and industries, but has built a niche among SMEs, due to its lower cost compared to proprietary software and its high adaptability because of its open source nature. It also caters to any or a combination of the following characteristics:

  • multi-site with international trade or even presence
  • distributed users due to Openbravo’s web interface (mobile sales people, working out of the office, etc.)
  • with requirements beyond accounting and commercial (orders, invoices and payments management)
  • a relatively high number of named users
  • some of them with specific requirements which are not well covered with traditional proprietary packages (as we have partners that develop specialize)

Openbravo ERP has already garnered a lots of success stories in the following areas: Procurement & Distribution, Manufacturing, Public Administration, Professional Services, among others.