Introduction
The Free and open source software (FOSS) movements continue to change much about the software industry, some would say "disrupt much about the software industry." From development processes; to customer demand and support; to business models; to innovation and invention; to social, political, and legal implications; we are in the midst of reconsidering the interconnection of these elements. It started with the birth of a few concepts, licenses, and software programs, but the community these enable, is what makes its growing impact persist.
The community, a term bandied about at some point in almost every discussion or article concerning open source, is rarely given the credence required in arguments considering the real power and utility of FOSS. I hope to shed a little light on what the community means and how to harness, or better, take part in its potential.
I'll start by covering what a FOSS community is. Namely, who it includes, what it involves, and why FOSS practices enable such a community. The second portion of the article will cover what this community means to the software user, organizations that buy into a FOSS implementation, and why it is so powerful. Finally, it will be time to address the software company that sponsors the open source project itself. How does a sponsor establish, maintain, and leverage its community?
This is Part One of a four-part note. To better understand how the community works and how to keep it flourishing, extensive interviews with FOSS community leaders will follow this article in parts two, three, and four. I'm referring to Jeff Bates of SourceForge.net, the OSTG, and co-founder of Slashdot; as well as two people within CollabNet's employ, Karl Fogel, a founding developer of the Subversion project, and Louis Surez-Potts, community development manager of the OpenOffice.org project.
Who is the Community?
It's easy to see that the community includes developers writing programs and others creating supporting materials, but it also includes end users, software or enterprise services companies, consultants, resellers, and the list continues on and on. Any of these people or groups may access the guts of an open source project and may contribute to the project. In the open source context, the distinctions between software vendors, consulting organizations, and client organizations must be understood differently than one normally would by the traditional buyer/seller boundaries entrenched in the software industry. Furthermore, the notion of companies extending their development processes to include customers' input cannot just be lip service, as a customer can now contribute to a software project and potentially see its contribution incorporated into the software release.
I'd like to assert a new distinction. The basic and broad taxonomy of the software industry's entities has changed from one that included demarcations such as software supplier, consumer, and consultant (or some type of third party, which for example, helps select or implement the software); to a taxonomy that includes a software supplier, consumer, consultant, and now a core project team.
We'll see that this core project team plays a crucial role in the world of Free and open source software. The core project team, in this context, coordinates its community and is responsible for guiding the direction of its particular open source project. The community may have been formed by a software company or it may have formed independently but regardless, it typically thrives from the labor of a company's developers, by resellers, by consultants, by clients of a sponsoring company, and other individuals.
What it Involves—from the Start
The benefit of FOSS communities is the inherently collaborative means by which they must achieve their results. Let's begin with the individual programmer; later I'll expand this to entire organizations. A lone programmer may accomplish a lot, but one programmer cannot do everything. Once other programmers can access the source of a program they may make improvements, add new features, fix bugs, or completely develop new and innovative uses for the project that may not have been envisioned at all by the original programmer.
Compare this, for example, to what artists have long grasped; inspiration can be provoked by different sources, so exposure to, and the interplay of ideas between different peoples' work is vital for one's own new work. Similarly in writing code, one programmer may learn techniques by studying another's code. If our lone programmer's code gets the attention of someone with a similar problem to solve, she benefits because the new person can collaborate with her to close the gap on a problem. Likewise, if the software project isn't entirely satisfying someone's needs, that person can adapt it for his own sake.
By nature, the guts of an open source project are exposed to the public. When a programmer licenses her code under a FOSS license, she is at least asserting her recognition of the possibility that other people may want to study, modify, or otherwise use code she has written. If she did not care to enable other programmers with that possibility, she would not need to put the extra effort into licensing her code with a Free or open source license. This is important to keep in mind, because in the programmer's recognition of how other programmers might be interested in her efforts, we can start considering why the FOSS community is what it is. Namely, it's a community working on projects in a way that transcends the boundaries of the software industry (I labeled these boundaries in what I called a taxonomy earlier).
Different skills come to play in this process too. Take documentation—a programmer might be very skilled in writing code, but perhaps she does not have the skills or time to write a manual for the people that will use the program. Someone else, possibly a user, might decide to write documentation for his own use, why not contribute it back to the source of the project, that way if there is an error, someone could uncover it and others can add to it based on their own knowledge and skills. This is just a little bit of the collaborative work that takes place within a FOSS community. Remember that because the community is a superset of companies and all others that choose to participate, its potential size far outstrips any single one of the world's largest software organizations. Let's see how our programmer's recognition of what her peers might want to do with her code, enables this community to develop.
FOSS Galvanizes Communities
Why does Free and open source software galvanize communities? It not only permits but, in a sense, encourages people's freedom to engage with software in ways that would not be permissible under a non-FOSS style of license. That means the development process expands to an extensive range of people that would normally be prevented from contributing. FOSS licenses often include provisions that ensure the modifications people make, perpetuate the freely accessible nature of the software's source code. The more people work with such projects, the more such licenses aid the project's growth.
Since the Internet is the medium for communication and collaboration, the open source developer finds herself with an immense pool of potentially interested (or as the case may be, uninterested) parties, which also leads to some peculiarities in both managing and encouraging open source communities. I will highlight these as the corresponding interviews will further discuss in-depth.
Establishing Community
Let's look at this from the perspective of a company that wants to provide open source software. Such a company wants to develop a software solution to address some issue its founders have a bit of expertise handling. Its founders wonder about a few things like:
- What can I do to get my product into the market quickly?
- How can I introduce my solution to the widest number of potential clients possible?
- How do I compete with established competitors?
- How can I take advantage of top development and support methods?
Establishing and nourishing a successful FOSS community can help ease many of the concerns above. This is not without its pitfalls, and when not done with care, can lead to difficulties coordinating the project or even the self-destruction of the project. When done well however, the project can catch the attention of savvy developers, getting an extra push toward its introduction to clients, and find itself launched within a massive viral marketing-like and distribution strategy—namely, the result of the infinitely reproducible Free and open source software.
A company centered around providing or servicing open source solutions participates in a community, which enables it to introduce its product to more clients than other methods afford, as well as tap into that superset pool of potential developers and quality assurance personnel. It can distribute its product incurring little cost to do so. Using FOSS licensing promotes extensive and cost-effective distribution of software solutions because everybody is free to redistribute said solutions. Thus, distribution is not limited by points of contact such as proprietary vendors or networks of VARs, rather it is expanded beyond those boundaries to include its entire user base as potential distributors.
It's not difficult to see the benefits this distribution method potentially garners a company trying to make itself known amidst a mature software industry. Look at the publicly available statistics on Sourceforge.net. This open source development hub alone boasts stats on its front page of more than 1 million users (as of this writing). Open source enterprise darlings have racked up downloads of their products over the last few years in the neighborhood of, Compiere over 800,000 and SugarCRM closing in on 200,000. The OpenOffice.org office productivity suite has counted over 40 million downloads of its source and software since inception in 2003. Not only do most Linux distributions come pre-packaged with hundreds of such applications, it would be difficult to find a major distribution, which didn't include OpenOffice.org. This is simply to say, there are a lot of people and companies in the world being exposed to, and trying out these systems. While I will not address how such a distribution method relates to revenue, there are plenty of examples (refer to the business models of Red Hat, SugarCRM, ComPiere, or IBM).
Support is a similar story. Companies are rising to support, implement, and customize open source solutions; such services are available with the expertise, for example, of companies like Red Hat. These businesses are enabled via the wide distribution and the development methodology, which is a function of the community—it is the community providing ideas and labor. And the fact is, support and implementation practitioners are not indebted to the open source community, they are part of it.
In supporting a software solution that a) encourages the freedom to participate in making the software into what the customer needs, and b) typically can be obtained and used by any customer without a prohibitive cost barrier, a company providing a service around open source software knows that in seeking business prospects, its clients may have not only sampled its software but already adopted it—certain of existing needs.
Assuming the notion of open sourcing its product appeals to a company, enjoying any advantage of being part of the FOSS community entails an awareness of how to participate. How does it attract developers to its project? Once the project starts gaining traction, how will it keep the interest of people contributing to the project and ensure the project continues on track? What happens when competitors get ahold of the project? What can the initiating company do to engage clients as part of its community and thus support a more complete offering? Because a company decides its project will be open source, does that mean it will attract massive quantities of programmers wanting to build it and improve it? The answer to the last question is a definitive no. Open source is far from a magic formula for brewing software. We can see answers to the other questions from the experience of the community itself, let's consider them.
It's time to recall the notion I put forth at the beginning of this piece regarding the taxonomy of entities in the software industry, namely the distinction of a core project team. In the FOSS community sense, this is the team coordinating the project among its participants. The existence of such a project team and community manager seems to have evolved from the development requirements of groups who are not only physically dispersed but sometimes have differing objectives toward collaborating on a project. This person or team has a number of responsibilities that will be key to ensuring the project's success. Any company that doesn't take care to heed these things will have a hard go at breathing life into its open source project or reaping any rewards from it.
- Engage developers or support people, and other contributors in ongoing, meaningful discussion about their work and the project's direction
This seems to be the top item on the list for maintaining developer interest. The individuals I spoke with for this article were unanimous in claiming that a thriving project needs both regular communication and recognition between its participants. Participants must be a part of the decision-making process. The project needs its managers to respect the efforts of its community. When the managers do not engage the developer community with interesting challenges, constructive feedback, and especially, positive recognition or high-quality criticism, the developers will indeed lose interest and leave the project—diminishing the activity of its community.
- Ensure there is a low barrier toward participating
The easier it is for developers to get an understanding of a project and contribute, the more likely it is to hold their interest. This involves basic technical requirements for the infrastructure to make it both easy and possible to be involved in the project. It includes usable access to things like file repositories, bug trackers, discussion mailing lists, and other tools related to a development process that takes place entirely via the Internet.
It's important to remember that FOSS development gains the critical mass it requires, by-and-large from taking place through collaboration that would not exist without the worldwide connectivity of the Internet. This implies a responsibility on would-be developers to uncover the methods employed by a given project's community for contributing to that project; if they cannot easily understand and use these, they will probably give up on the project.
- Make the community aware of project roadmaps
It sounds simple but it's sometimes neglected. The roadmap showing the project's targets and milestones achieved, offers developers a sense of the problems, tasks, and challenges on which to latch their interest. It's also important for the sake of the end user. When users can understand the direction in which the software development is aiming, it helps them decide whether it will align with their needs down the road, whether it will be a good choice to pursue. Indeed, users ought to be provided a means for influencing the roadmap. After all, users are as much a part of the community as developers, and their feedback will help drive improvements to the software.
- Seed credibility by communicating clearly and honestly between the various groups participating in the project (this includes sponsoring companies, individual developers, end users, support personnel, etc.)
When the project is initiated by a sponsoring company, clear communication and participation help demonstrate to developers outside of the company's employ that the project, while perhaps guided by an active group within the company, does not intend to just sponge off of the work of others. Users and third party support should see that their participation in the project can go two-ways. For example, if an end user organization deploys the project's software internally, with the understanding that one of its strengths is its open source community, the organization's decision will be positively reinforced when that community is maintained in a healthy, constructive manner, and not ignored to the point of disappearing.
When the open source project is started by a company as a focal point around which it builds business, it cannot afford to alienate any part of its community because that implies the risk of also losing its clients. This can even include its competitors, since they may be just as much a part of the community. It will be in the competitors' interests to contribute in a like manner to the project—their interest toward its improvement is as great as anyone else's. This would be a case where the core project team or community manager takes on the role of liaison. Since a hallmark of Free software licenses is that they perpetuate the openness of changes, additions, improvements, etc. in the software, the source of such changes, whether it be competitor, client, or individual developer, is beside the point.
One way that this can be exhibited is for the sponsoring company not to give its developers special advantages over others in the community. For example, Karl Fogel mentioned CollabNet does not give its own developers rights toward committing changes to the open source Subversion project without going through the same community process, which includes "posting patches, receiving review, being nominated for commit access, and being voted on by all the existing committers."
- Verify that the software matters
A company initiating or sponsoring an open source project generally does so for one of two reasons. Either it needs a software solution or some type of custom add-on to an already developed system for its own use, or it intends to build or maintain business around supplying, implementing, consulting, or offering some otherwise related service based on the software.
In the first case, the technology matters to the company itself. However, if it doesn't matter to anyone else, the company may have a difficult task in fostering a community. There are a number of reasons they may have chosen to develop it as a FOSS system. For example, if the requirements for developing the software are outside the company's real business focus, it may not want to direct the necessary amount of its employees' efforts toward developing the software completely in-house. Because the software may be potentially useful to others, the idea that an extended community can contribute to its improvement suggests at least the potential of a cost benefit toward obtaining the software. That is, the company may dedicate some development resources to the project and bring it to fruition with the aid of the community, but would not seek a third party from which to purchase the software.
In the second case, the impact may be greater. If a company intends to maintain or build business around supplying or offering services based on the software, it had better determine that the software will matter to its audience. If nobody cares about the software it will be very difficult for the company to attract developers, users, competitors, and build its community.
The User/Consumer Entity
Finally, of all the pluses we entertain FOSS means to the enterprise business world, things like cost savings, absence of vendor lock-in, security, reliability, and perhaps a lower likelihood of future support problems, the most important and fundamental aspect is the community.
End-user organizations don't believe that a vendor just giving you access to its source code is providing even remotely the same thing as obtaining Free and open source software. You will be a singular instance, isolated from the collaborative growth of a real community. You will be the proverbial child raised by wolves, maturing with no conception of how to operate in human society. What do I mean? There are vendors who will provide software, allowing their clients to view some or all of the source code, under certain agreements, which in fact restrict the client's freedom to modify, reuse, redistribute, or share it with others. Licenses with restrictions on modification, redistribution, and sharing prevent entities from forming a FOSS-style community. In some instances, such vendors will even use wording that promotes the impression that their licenses are somehow similar or "as good as" Free or open source counterparts. In many cases, vendors themselves will say that many clients never have an interest in modifying the source code so, the vendor would argue, it's really not that important. This however, is just side-stepping the real issue and has little to do with what is really important about FOSS access to source code.
The real importance is that the ability to examine, modify, and redistribute the software's source code fertilizes the interplay of ideas, development innovations, and promotes cost-effective labor collaboration across a boundary-less global community (even if the impetus for these things does not come from the end user). It permits those involved, an expanded capacity to address their objectives with access to greater sources of support. As the basis upon which the community builds, it is the disruptive type of FOSS source code availability, which has put software solutions within a more accessible reach of user organizations. And that ought to be appreciated by any software consumer.
This concludes Part One of a four-part note. Part Two features an interview with Jeff Bates, Vice President of Editorial Operations for the Open Source Technology Group (OSTG). Jeff Bates's experience in developing and managing SourceForge.net and Slashdot communities sheds light on maintaining participants' interest as well as the technology, which is useful in aiding development efforts. Parts Three and Four feature two people within CollabNet's employ, Karl Fogel, a founding developer of the Subversion project, and Louis Surez-Potts, community development manager of the OpenOffice.org project.
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Part Two: Market Impact Continued | Scala and Microsoft Become (Not So) Strange CRM Bedfellows | Epicor Conducts Its Own ROI Acquisition Rationale
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | Epicor Conducts Its Own ROI Acquisition Rationale
Part Two: Market Impact | Epicor Conducts Its Own ROI Acquisition Rationale | Lose the Starry Eyes, Analyze: Reviewing the Ideal Candidate for EMR Innovations ProcessPro | RTI's CRM Applications Rivals The Major League Providers | IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire For SMEs
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire For SMEs
Part Two: Market Impact | IBM Express-es Its Candid Desire For SMEs | Best Software Delivers More Insights To Its Partners
(As Well As To The Market)
Part Five: Challenges and User Recommendations | Best Software Delivers More Insights To Its Partners
(As Well As To The Market)
Part Four: Market Impact Continued | Best Software Delivers More Insights To Its Partners (As Well As To The Market)
Part Three: Market Impact | Best Software Delivers More Insights To Its Partners (As Well As To The Market)
Part Two: Event Summary Continued | Best Software Delivers More Insights To Its Partners
(As Well As To The Market) | Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''
Part Four: Market Impact Summary and User Recommendations | Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''
Part Three: Market Impact On SSA GT | Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''
Part Two: Market Impact On Baan | Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side'' | To Gain Market Share in the Mid-Market, SAP Leaves No Stone Unturned | Welcome to the CRM Mid-Market Abyss-PeopleSoft | Frantic Merger-Mania Spiced Up With Vendettas Leaves Customers Anxious | Lose the Starry Eyes, Analyze: Reviewing the Ideal Candidate for Metasystems ICIM | Epicor Reaches Better Vista From This Vantage Point
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | Epicor Reaches Better Vista From This Vantage Point
Part Two: Market Impact | Epicor Reaches Better Vista From This Vantage Point | A User Centric WorkWise Customer Conference | ROI Systems Defies The Odds Through Delighted Customers
Part Three: Strengths, Challenges and User Recommendations | ROI Systems Defies The Odds Through Delighted Customers
Part Two: Market Impact | ROI Systems Defies The Odds Through Delighted Customers | Adonix + CIMPRO = A Feature-Rich Process ERP Product, But With Challenges | SCE Leaders Partner To See Beyond Their Portfolio
Part Two: Market Impact | Baan Seeking A New Foster Home -- A Déjà vu Or Not Quite?
Part Three: Market Impact and User Recommendations | Baan Seeking A New Foster Home -- A Déjà vu Or Not Quite?
Part Two: Baan Under Invensys | Baan Seeking A New Foster Home -- A Déjà vu Or Not Quite? | Microsoft Convergence 2003 portrayed an Enterprise Solutions crossroad! | Commerce One Conducts Its Soul-Searching Metamorphosis
Part Two: Challenges and User Recommendations | Commerce One Conducts Its Soul-Searching Metamorphosis | Cincom Acknowledges There Is A Composite Applications Environ-ment Out There
Part Two: Challenges and User Recommendations | Cincom Acknowledges There Is A Composite Applications Environ-ment Out There | Lose the Starry Eyes, Analyze: Reviewing the Ideal Candidate for a Pronto Solution | Is J.D. Edwards's CRM 2.0 (With more than 200 Enhancements) Good News? | Ramco Ships Technology And Products.
Part Two: User and Vendor Recommendations | Ramco Ships Technology And Products.
Is This The Future Of Enterprise Applications? | SYSPRO - Awaiting Positive IMPACT From Its Brand Unification
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | SYSPRO - Awaiting Positive IMPACT From Its Brand Unification
Part Two: Market Impact | SYSPRO - Awaiting Positive IMPACT From Its Brand Unification | SAP Weaves Microsoft .NET And IBM WebSphere Into Its ESA Tapestry
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | SAP Weaves Microsoft .NET And IBM WebSphere Into Its ESA Tapestry
Part Two: Market Impact | SAP Weaves Microsoft .NET And IBM WebSphere Into Its ESA Tapestry | Lilly Software - Product Enhancements Remain Its Order 'Du Jour'
Part Four: Challenges and User Recommendations | Lilly Software - Product Enhancements Remain Its Order 'Du Jour'
Part Three: Competitive Analysis | Lilly Software - Product Enhancements Remain Its Order 'Du Jour'
Part Two: Market Impact | Lilly Software - Product Enhancements Remain Its Order 'Du Jour' | Will Adonix Provide A Warmer Home To CIMPRO?
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations | Will Adonix Provide A Warmer Home To CIMPRO?
Part Two: Market Impact | Will Adonix Provide A Warmer Home To CIMPRO? | ACCPAC -- Being Much More Than Meets The Eye
Part Four: Challenges and User Recommendations | ACCPAC -- Being Much More Than Meets The Eye
Part Three: Market Impact | ACCPAC -- Being Much More Than Meets The Eye
Part Two: Announcements Continued | ACCPAC -- Being Much More Than Meets The Eye | Ramco Systems' Users - Winning Big And Speaking Out In Las Vegas | Made2Manage Affirms Its Technological Astuteness
Part 3: Challenges and User Recommendations | Made2Manage Affirms Its Technological Astuteness
Part 2: Strategy | Made2Manage Affirms Its Technological Astuteness | MAPICS To Leap Forward In A Frontstep Way
Part 3: Challenges and User Recommendations | MAPICS To Leap Forward In A Frontstep Way
Part 2: Market Impact | MAPICS To Leap Forward In A Frontstep Way | Best Software To Hold Competition At Bay
Part Four: Challenges & User Recommendations | Best Software To Hold Competition At Bay
Part Three: Market Impact | Best Software To Hold Competition At Bay
Part Two: Strategy | Best Software To Hold Competition At Bay | Ross Systems Shows Poise in 'Big Easy' | Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?
Part Four: Challenges and User Recommendations. | Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?
Part Three: Complementary Products | Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?
Part Two: Market Impact | Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions? | Epicor Picks Clarus' Bargain At The Software Flea Market
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Epicor Picks Clarus' Bargain At The Software Flea Market | Cincom Asserts Expertise In CRM For Complex Manufacturers
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Cincom Asserts Expertise In CRM For Complex Manufacturers | Vendor Analysis: Kaspersky Anti-Virus Products Examined | MAPICS Moving On Pragmatically
Part 4: Competition and User Recommendations | MAPICS Moving On Pragmatically
Part 3: Challenges | MAPICS Moving On Pragmatically
Part 2: Market Impact | MAPICS Moving On Pragmatically | Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions
Part 4: User Recommendations | Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions
Part 3: Challenges | Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions
Part 2: Market Impact | Microsoft Lays Enforced-Concrete Foundation For Its Business Solutions | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation
Part 4: Challenges and User Recommendations | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation
Part 3: Market Impact | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation
Part 2: FOCUS Announcements Continued | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation | PeopleSoft Internationalizes Its Mid-Market Forays
Part 2: Challenges & User Recommendations | PeopleSoft Internationalizes Its Mid-Market Forays | Frontstep Ups The .NET Ante
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Frontstep Ups The .NET Ante | Will Glovia Glow Again Through Its Hub And VARs?
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Will Glovia Glow Again Through Its Hub And VARs? | Lose the Starry-Eyes, Analyze:An Ideal Customer for Relevant INFIMACS | IFS To Be At Customers' (Web) Service | Bootcamp for the Pros; Why Ernst & Young Will Lead Security Auditing Standards | Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility
Part 3: Challenges and User Recommendations | SAP Farms More Business Out Amid Its Staff Reductions | Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility
Part 2: Market Impact | Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility | SAP Opens The ‘Miss Congeniality’ Contest | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW. Part 2: Market Impact | PeopleSoft Remains Rock-Hard And Economy Proof | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW | Glovia On B2B Reinventing Trail | Kewill And Microsoft Great Plains To Further Mutually Complement | Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers. Part 2: Market Impact | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 2: Market Impact and User Recommendations | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 1: Recent Developments | Clarity of Vision: Clarify Sold to Amdocs by Nortel | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 2 of 2 | Way To Go, Ross Systems! | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 1 of 2 | MAPICS Unifies The Brand And Interacts For CRM Solutions | IFS Glows Amidst The Mid-Market Gloom | Oracle Makes A U-Turn At The 'All Things To All People' Exit | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: SAP AG | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: Baan and Parent Company, Invensys | Frontstep Still Awaiting Better Times | Will V8 Help SSA GT Regain Lost Ground? | PeopleSoft Keeps Truckin’ On A Potholed Road Ahead | Epicor Shows Resilience When It Needs It The Most | J.D. Edwards Fires Siebel, Hires YOU | SAP Thrives On Competitors' Plight, In Part | Made2Manage Manages Throughout Soft Market | Microsoft Great Plains Procures eProcure At Last | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 5: Challenges and User Recommendations | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 4: SAP's Strategy | i2, SAP, Oracle Poised For Showdown in Q4 | SAP – A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 3: Market Impact | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 2: Expanding Functionality | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 1: Alliances | PeopleSoft Supply Chain Is Music To Mid Market Ears | It Is Possible - SAP And Baan Strange Bedfellows | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 3: The Challenge of Gaining Competitive Advantage | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 2: The Implications | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 1: The News | Baan Achieves A Speedy Recovery Despite The Tough Times | Will QAD Finally Get The Break (-Even)? | ROI Systems - A Little ERP Fellow That Gets By | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 3: Predictions and Recommendations | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 2: Strengths and Challenges | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 1: About PeopleSoft | Epicor To Try The Divestiture Tack, Too | MAPICS Clings To Its Customers' Loyalty | SAP Remains One Of The Market’s Beacons Of Hope | SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN | IBM Buys What’s Left of Informix | Invensys Announces New Division - Baan Process | SAP Acquires TopTier To Further Broaden Its Horizons | Oracle Sails Slower In The Low Tide, But Mayday Signal Is Quite Far-Fetched | IFS Aspires To Capture North American Market Against The Low Tide | Is Intentia Truly Industry’s First In Food Traceability? | QAD Finally Breaks The Red Ink Streak, But… | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 2: Evaluating Epicor | J.D. Edwards Saved By SCM, Narrowly, And Only For Now | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 1: About Epicor | Infinium Attempts To Better Gain Some Markets' Ear | MAPICS XA Expands BI Offering Through Partnership With Vanguard | Has Intentia Turned The Corner? Almost. | Ross Systems Closes Ranks For A (Possible) Turnaround | PeopleSoft Plays Hardball | Is Made2Manage Made2Survive? Seems So. | Frontstep (Nee Symix Systems) A Step Closer To A Turnaround | SAP Defies Economic Slowdown, For Now | Can Lilly Software Get More VISUAL? | Fourth Shift Hopes To Thrive On China’s Greener Pastures | PeopleSoft Joins The Hunt For SMEs | Extricity Makes a Move into IBM’s Sphere of B2B Influence | Microsoft And Great Plains – A Friendship That Turned Into A Marriage | Oracle Sails Despite Market’s Low Tide; How Far Will It Go? | J.D. Edwards Reaches $1B Milestone In Another Losing Year | e-Catalysts Delivers Digital Marketplace | Made2Manage Systems, Inc.: M2M From A2Z For SMEs? | Tibco Takes a Pragmatic Approach to Multicasting | Ross Systems Continues To Slip, But Pledges to Fight Tooth And Claw | Red Hat Plays 'Love You, Love You Not' with CPUs | IFS Has A Magic Growth Formula; But What About Profitability? | Dell Sharpens Its Linux Focus | SAP Claims Big Gains In The Low-End Battleground | IBI + IBM = EAI | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 2: Evaluating Baan | Infinium Ends Its Most Challenging Year | JuxtaComm And IBM Integrate Their Integration Products | Great Plains Unveils New E-Commerce Solution | Great Plains Taps The Web To Deliver Product Support | Epicor Delivers On Milestones, But Its Situation Remains Bleak | Onyx Software: CRM Vendor Battling For Viability | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 1: About Baan | Intentia Possibly Seeing Daylight | SAP Q3 Results Cause Mixed Reactions | Fourth Shift Tightens Belt To Weather The Drought | PeopleSoft Delivers Oxymoron In 'Supply Chain in a Box' | PeopleSoft – Again A Force To Be Reckoned With? | Another Type Of Virus Hits The World (And Gets Microsoft No Less) | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 2: Evaluating J.D. Edwards | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 1: About J.D. Edwards | ROI Systems Catching Up With e-Commerce | IBM Aims Renamed UNIX Server at Sun | VA Linux Releases NAS Server | Red Hat’s Linux Domination Weakens | GNOME Will Try to Buff Up Linux | Catalyst International to Tread Water With SAP Through 2000 | Red Hat Releases Clustering Software | More Vendors Bail on Oracle in Favor of IBM | Great Plains Supply Chain Series To Be Powered By Logility | Lynx to Donate Advanced Messaging to Linux Open-Source Community | Compaq to Open Tru64 Unix? | At Least It Hasn’t Been Renamed Linux 2001 | Cobalt Releases Linux "Clustering" Software | Infinium and Elcom Walk Down ASP Aisle | Caldera eDesktop Edges Out Microsoft Windows 2000 in Functionality – Part II | IA-64 Linux From Red Hat | It’s a Portal...AND It;s a Gateway | Patent Law - the Open Source Movement of the 18th Century | Apple Displays Its Core in Mac OS X | Will MS try the "Open Source" Gambit with WinCE? Why Not – Nothing Else Seems to Work | SAP Details CRM Plans | J.D. Edwards Closes Out Millennium on an Up Note | MAPICS, Inc. to Acquire Pivotpoint, Expanding e-business Offerings for Mid-Sized Manufacturing Establishments | Inprise/Borland Challenges Other Vendors to Open-Source Their Database Code | Informix Holds Fire Sale on Linux Database | Oracle is Word One at Ford | No Floundering About These Strategic And Tactical Acquisitions | Intentia Floats Vaporware Agent to Replace Business Planning | Lotus Announces Domino R5 Release For Linux | Analysis of Sendmail, Inc.'s Largest Open Source Release in Twenty Years | IBM Announces Netfinity 4000R Super-Thin Server | Microsoft to Purchase Softway Systems | Sun to Make Solaris Source Code Available | MainWin for Linux - NT Apps without NT | TurboLinux Clusters One More Step Taken | Intel Throws its "Red Hat" into Linux Ring | Corel and PC Chips to Accelerate Mass Desktop Deployment of Linux | Intel Invests in eSoft - "Lintel" Continues to Grow | Sun to "Community Source" Almost Everything | OS SmackDown! | Intel's "New Best Friend" for Web Appliances is Linux | IBM Jumps on the Linux Bandwagon with Both Feet, Sort Of | Will Sun Burn Linux with "Free" Solaris? | Embedded Linux for Handhelds | IBM Pushes Linux into Appliances | Linux Laptops from Dell | Come See the Softer Side of Linux? | Linux at 25% of Server OS Market - Is Redmond Hearing Footsteps? | Sendmail Takes Security to the Next Level with Version 3.0 for NT | Compaq Partners with Red Hat in Linux Support Deal | Bristol Technology Ships Win-to-Lin Migration Tool | Gateway Announces Server Appliances | Dell to Factory-Install Red Hat Linux on Servers | SAP AG - ERP Leader with a "New Dimension" | Baan Company N.V. - Is the Worst Over? | PeopleSoft on Client/Server and Database Issues | PeopleSoft - Are Business Intelligence and e-Commerce Enough? |