ned's blog

The chart above shows the incredible results of our haxTuple bug derby.  The orange line is the number of open bugs; the red line is the number of bugs fixed during the contest.  As you can see, the lines crossed on the very last day of the contest - 324 bugs fixed, and just 313 remaining (out of over 10,000 over the life of the company).

A big part of the reason for this surge was our haxTuple winner, Scott Zuke of Core Services Group.  Core is an xTuple partner in western Michigan, and is also behind the forthcoming Time and Expense functionality (more on that later!)  As soon as we can get our hands on one (we've placed our pre-order), Scott will receive the iPad grand prize.  (No, not that one!)

But it was a photo finish - for the last week or so, it was back and forth between Scott and Alfredo Martinez, of Yucatán, Mexico.  Alfredo oversees the xTuple implementation at a large furniture manufacturer there, and recently became a partner as well.

We had great participation from a number of other users, including other partners, customers, and open source community contributors.  A big thanks to everyone that participated!  On the off chance that people will occasionally find additional bugs in the software, we look forward to doing this again with a future release of xTuple! Read more »

There's a headline that will wake up a lot of people ;-)

But seriously, we're interested in starting a more active dialog with community members on something that's very close to our hearts as a business:  making money.  You might even call it a Goal.  Yes, we want to make the world a better place for business software users - but we also want to make sure we're striking the right balance of customer and community user value.

To that end, we'd really appreciate it if you could answer one question.  Put very simply, what would you be willing to pay for? Read more »

xTuple, creators of the leading open source ERP, accounting, and CRM system, is looking for a few good hackers.  By "hackers," of course, we mean developers willing to get involved in source code.  The classical use of the term. Read more »

Attention iPhone users!  Now you can get the world's only iTunes app for the xTuple ERP system. 

Announcing iTuple - fully integrated xTuple CRM!  Easily sync your iPhone or iPod Touch with your company's xTuple ERP database (PostBooks, Standard, or Manufacturing) ... including the full CRM Address Book of contacts and corporate relationships, as well as personal To-Do items assigned from within the CRM module.  All contact information is "live" on the iPhone; telephone numbers can be dialed, and emails to contacts created, with a touch of the iTuple record.  CRM addresses in iTuple are also fully integrated with the Google Maps application. Read more »

It's important to understand the advantages and drawbacks of using consulting firms to advise and assist your business.

First, the drawbacks:  Some would say that consulting companies tend to run up their hours, and milk their customers for every last penny - that they cloak their deliverables in buzz-speak and gobbledygook, and live in terror of their clients discovering that they're not really that smart.

As for advantages, well, some others might say that consultants can be of some help, sometime.

<Thud.>

Not a very fair or rigorous analysis, was it?  You can imagine how I felt after reading Eric Kimberling's "Debunking myths about open source ERP software."

  Read more »