
Odoo: The new OpenERP - seyz
https://www.odoo.com/
======
jamesmcintyre
If you look around there is no "beautiful ERP" solution out there and the
status quo is "you can make a very capable ERP or a "pretty" ERP but not
both". I understand the the difficulty of striking that balance but I think by
applying the right kind of modularity to the app design (sort of like openERP
but even more granular and forgiving) you can arrive at a solution which
invites businesses of all-sizes but can grow with the company into very
complex processes.

There is HUGE opportunity in this market and I believe one big reason is that
a new generation of userbase will expect and demand a better UX than any
current offering.

In fact, I suggest a great startup idea would be a to take the openerp
codebase and wrap a new UI/UX around it starting with one vertical ("niche")
market and working out from there. (i.e. "A beautiful ERP for medium-sized
businesses focusing on your growing warehouse, sales and purchasing needs
built on the solid foundation of openERP."). Not saying it would be easy, but
just worthwhile. I have a feeling the Odoo rebranding points to an effort for
a UI overhaul which acknowledges the opportunity of a great UX.

~~~
kfk
This is nonsense. An ERP has to run your business and operations. It has to be
extremely reliable. Users couldn't care less about it's UX, in fact, the
standard ERP solution, SAP, looks terrible, but it is also quite ok to use. In
a big company an ERP error/fault can generate millions worth of damage, are
you still thinking a prettier UI is a great start up idea for an ERP?

Finally, you forget that IT departments in big companies are just a tad above
trained monkeys and your software solution has to take that into account, in
fact, it's the first piece of your service: it has to be easy to maintain.
It's probably here where you want to focus on to compete...

~~~
UVB-76
_> This is nonsense. An ERP has to run your business and operations. It has to
be extremely reliable. Users couldn't care less about it's UX [...]_

Indeed. When a person's livelihood depends on using your software, they have a
pretty strong incentive to learn how to use it effectively, and put up with
all its imperfections.

I'm sure some employees actually revel in how backwards and difficult to use
their business software is. If everything were automated, effortless, and
required no expertise, they'd be out of a job.

------
icebraining
By the way, the core and base modules (and in theory, all community modules,
since they're derived works) of Odoo are Free Software (APGL) and available on
Github: [https://github.com/odoo/odoo](https://github.com/odoo/odoo)

Disclaimer: I work for a company that implements solutions based on Odoo for
small and large companies. So yeah, it's possible to make a living working on
FOSS, if anyone still doubted it :)

~~~
ddorian43
they still use their custom-own-built orm ?

~~~
codeape
I cannot understand why anyone would not use SQLAlchemy if they're building a
database-backed Python application.

~~~
jlnthws
True today, but not 10 years ago :)

Plus Odoo ORM and SQLAlchemy have different purposes.

------
davidbrent
OpenERP could've really benefited from some usability expertise, and if this
site is any indication, Odoo may suffer the same fate. If you're going to put
this much time/money into a new brand, how could you miss so badly?

In my experience with OpenERP, the end users always took a back seat to the
developers. Granted, ERP software is inherently complicated, but with each new
version you could tell they made an attempt at a simplified interface and
never hit the mark.

~~~
paulyg
OpenERP is still leagues above the million dollar paid apps of Oracle and SAP.
I'm not saying you are wrong. Just how bad this particular segment of software
is. It is wripe for disruption.

~~~
UK-AL
ERP software is huge, simply because there so many different ways businesses
works, all the regulations you have to comply with etc etc

It would be very hard for a startup to build it from scratch.

------
kepano
Not sure the rebrand is what will attract new customers to OpenERP.

A couple months ago, I evaluated ERPs for our business. OpenERP was one of the
main contenders but ultimately the manufacturing module failed to meet our
requirements and custom development would have been too costly.

I was also shocked to get a glimpse at OpenERP's internal corporate structure.
Despite the open source nature of the project, their business model puts them
on track to become yet another big, slow, expensive ERP company pushing
massive service fees.

Unfortunately there's just no great solution in the ERP world. Requirements
for this category are so complex that by the time a system becomes adequately
feature rich, improvements in software technology make it feel obsolete. I
wonder if someone will crack that nut.

~~~
thematt
Exactly. Every company's business process has it's own uniqueness, so if you
try to evolve it into a mass-market tool (as opposed to designing for it up-
front), you end up with a Frankenstein system that is enormous and
complicated. Then your company starts morphing to match what you're selling.

If some YC'ers want to make some serious cash, go build the JIRA of ERP. Make
the system: pluggable, VERY configurable, give it a sexy UI and don't require
an army of consultants to implement. Want some reasons? Pretty much all your
potential customers hate their existing ERP system. Your competition is
staffed by sleazy salespeople that sell nothing but snakeoil. Your market is
filled with companies of all sizes who will literally throw cash at you to
make them more efficient.

------
ritonlajoie
What are the alternatives to OpenERP today ? (I mean, free and open sources
ones, with acceptable UI)

~~~
naringas
There is [http://tryton.org/](http://tryton.org/)

however I don't know what you mean by "acceptable" UI

~~~
ritonlajoie
For me, an acceptable UI in an ERP means this ERP can be used to do basic
tasks by someone not having any PhD ni ERP Usage :)

------
joshmlewis
Icons!

As a designer, I've probably never seen so many icons on a page.

------
pnathan
I've considered working with OpenERP and looking at becoming a consultant in
it (ERP is $$$ and very useful), but last I checked the OpenERP site (2? years
ago?), the demo site was half broken. Glad to see it's gotten a refresh and a
genuinely web 2.0 name. ;)

Apparently the devs have churned it into a SaaS offering, which is also very
cool.

~~~
UK-AL
is OpenERP contractor fees that large?

I know SAP and Oracle Fees are high, simply because its quite hard to get
opportunity to work on it, and all the certifications. So there aren't that
many people around.

~~~
pnathan
Well, I'm not sure what the rate is. But I know that it supplies a _very
valuable service_ , and other things in the space are very lucrative. I
imagine that part of the lucrativity is the value that it provides to
businesses.

~~~
UK-AL
Salary does't always mean value provided.

Salary = Supply/Demand.

------
gaunab
They also discovered how to succeed as a tech company: Better use at least
three 'O's in your brand name.

"Choosing the right name is hard. To find the perfect name, we analysed the
names of top internet companies. We discovered a direct correlation between
the company valuation and the number of 'O' in its name. The graph below shows
the average valuation of the top 10 internet companies according to the number
of 'O' in their names.

With three 'O' in its name, 'Odoo' is in phase with our ambitions."

