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.

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.”

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