THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

I have not posted here for a while as I am now using blogs hosted by 3rd parties giving me better access to the design etc. The main blog has been transferred to www.outserve.biz and I have transferred the posts from here to there. This is hosted by Yahoo using wordpress, not a bad deal as they promise to upgrade WordPress to the latest version as well. I am posting quite randomly to this blog and testing certain plugins such as the delicious tag auto poster and different themes.

I may post from time to time here as well.

I have also started www.flosbus.com details below. This is hosted by bluehost and comes with fantastico which can auto install many open source projects including WordPress which the blog is running on.

flosbus.com

Flosbus.com aims to research the area of Open Source Business Software such as CRM (Customer Relation ship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Recourse Planning).

The purpose of Flosbus.com is not to review the software or necessarily offer an opinion on how good it is but to raise awareness of products and summarise factual information such as what platform compatibility and where you can download the software from.

If any uses of any software mentioned would like to comment on the software and their usage of it, it would be greatly appreciated.

• By 2007, Gartner expects 75% of IT organisations to have an open source software acquisition and management strategy.

• By 2008, Gartner expects open source software will compete with closed source in all infrastructure areas.

• By 2010, Gartner expects mainstream IT organisations will consider open source software in 80% of their infrastructure needs.

FLOSBUS Free Libre Open Source BUsiness Software from an extension of the standard acronym FLOSS as described by Wikapedia. The FLOSBUS blog concentrates on reporting on business application software including:

CRM -Customer Relationship Management

MRP- Manufacturing or Materials Resource Planning

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

Document Management.

Expense Management Software

Expenses can have a lot of the same issues as Timesheets (see post on JourneyX) and often companies who require timesheet software will require expense software.

Currently a company getting good press is webexpenses who also have links to Sage Accounting Software. Another Expense software SaaS company is Concur.

JourneyX – SaaS Timesheet application

Timesheets are one the most requested pieces of functionality when dealing with accounting software. In many service companies and professional firms they can be one of the biggest headaches. Standard software pricing can often be prohibitive for large timesheet users especially where each timesheet user is named or requires a full access concurrent license.

Many companies use MS Excel or design their own database with tools like MS Access. These solutions can often create their own set of problems including support and remote access. No wonder then that this application should be available as a service.
As well as being one of the few Timesheet applications that can be used under the SaaS model you can also download JourneyX for both Windows and Linux for upto 10 users.

Open for Organisations

Steve Purkiss an Open Source expert who is a frequent contributer to ecademy has started a new website Open 4 Organisations. There is also blog to promote discussions on Open Source

Browser Wars

I downloaded Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) today and after the usual Microsoft install it crashed within 5 minutes (but then I suppose it is beta). In that short time I could see that it had all my Firefox favourite features of multi-tabbed browsing, multiple search engines etc. So I immediately went back to using Firefox.

The biggest problem I see for Firefox is not that people will go back to IE (not enough exciting features) but that it will stop the steady flow of people leaving IE. Firefox raised the bar and will have to do so again with version 2 if it is to keep the momentum going.

For those interested the 2nd Beta version of IE7 is available here. And there are plenty of screenshots on Flickr.

For those who do not mind the odd crash in exchange for cutting edge features Flock is well worth a look. Although this is not even in beta yet but is a developer preview.

42% of UK Small Businesses feel left in the lurch after purchasing technology,

Cisco has just published a report that has surveyed 400 UK small businesss and found:

1. ..the majority of small businesses (42%) feel left in the lurch after purchasing technology, due to insufficient post-sales support or training
2. …41% of the respondents felt that enterprise scale technology was imposed on them, as opposed to products tailored to their size.

I think both of the above can be caused by the standard VAR (value added reseller) model, whereby the emphasis (and majority of the income and therefore profit) is centred on the initial sale with less attention given to the post sales period which is traditionally less profitable.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) model should help to rectify this by having an income model which is interested in the long term for ongoing revenues (and less based on the initial income) which should ensure a better post sale and support experience.

Squidoo

I am currenly looking at squidoo (see also squidoo guide) and have entered a couple based on Open Source Accounting Software and Open Source CRM. These are hust a brief Outline at the moment but I will add more detail.

Ebdex

THe week I met Manoj Ranaweera Manageing Director of Ebdex. Ebdex are developing electronic document exchange for Accounts and ERP software, With the slow take up of XML and EDI still being in the minority electronic data exchange is still the holy grail for accounting software. The move to a near paperless office and more importantly the avoidance of data entry of information that is held elsewhere (usually with your supplier) still seems a long way off.

Linux a Buyers Guide for SME’s

Comprehensive guide for using Linux for Small Businesses avavilable from ZDNET available here

Accman Blog

My blog subscriptions, controlled by bloglines (one my favourite sites), is getting out of control and I need to trim it down a little but one blog that never ceases to impress is Accmanpro a blog by Dennis Howlett.

His overwhelming passion and knowledge on many issues affecting modern accountancy always keeps me coming back to his blog especially as you know there will always be something interesting to read as not a day goes by without multiple posts.

One of his areas of passion and knowledge is software as a service. I have put a link on my blogroll and will link to his blog where relevant.

AccountsVision

Last night at a Beermat networking meeting I met Steve Checkley from AccountsVision. They have just developed an accounts working papers and final accounts package aimed at small accounting practices and larger businesses (who would prepare their own accounts). The system look like and tastes like (Steve’s words) Excel so is certainly worth a look if you are coming from preparing accounts in a spreadsheet and are not looking for a major shift to completely integrated practice software

Microsoft Plans to Focus on Small Business Software

In an article from crm buyer, titled as above, Zach Nelson, chief executive officer of NetSuite, said:

“Taking products designed for large companies and then retrofitting them to work for smaller businesses is a recipe for failure. It would be like a bus manufacturer changing the color of the bus from yellow to black, and then calling it a car.”

3 themes of 2006

There appears to be three themes recurring in all ‘2006 predictions’, ‘Top 10 top things for 2006..’ etc etc. These are

1. Open Source Software
2. Web 2.0
3. SAAS (Software as a service)

SAAS is a new generation of the ASP model which featured so prominently (and unsuccessfully) in the dotcom boom. The model which looked so good ‘on paper’ back then looks good again ‘on paper’ now, but the difference should be access to high-speed internet and better web (some may argue web 2.0) technologies. This allowing solutions like salesforce.com and netsuite to be apparently gaining so much ground.

Aims

Outserve and its connected companies has 3 main aims:

1. To offer reliable solutions to all through Software-as-a-Service (SAAS)
2. Offer advanced software and outsourcing to all sizes of business
3. To offer an alternative to ‘firms of accountants’ for non compliance work