[CK-Ledger-users] Re: [Phpgroupware-users] "Betting Your Company" on PHPGroupware

[Alex B. <al...@co...>]

El dom, 03-08-2003 a las 20:18, C K Wu escribió:
> Hello, Alex,
> 
> Thank you for considering CK-Ledger as a possible starting
> point for offering solution to your client.  I'll be more than
> happy to incorporate whatever changes you make to
> CK-Ledger back into the main CK-Ledger distribution
> code, if you so incline.

Shure thing. I will allways preffer trying to make it happen in the
upstream than making an internal branch. Ill soon send you guys the
details, im shure youll have lots of things to say about the best way to
implement this.

> 
> P.S.  This reply is not sent to the phpgw list, but instead directed
> to ck-...@li..., because I think
> it may not be of general interest to the phpgw list.
> 
> Best Regards,
> CK Wu
> 
> Alex Borges wrote:
> 
> > El vie, 01-08-2003 a las 08:08, Doug Dicks escribió:
> > > Hello All,
> > >
> > > I need some opinions or advice.
> > >
> > > A month ago some of my coworkers and I left our previous employer to
> > > start a new company.  We've just gotten our first significant contract,
> > > one which calls for a groupware (email, address book, time-tracking)
> > > solution.  It's a large number of users, but generally not all at the
> > > same time.
> > >
> > > We'd really like to use an open solution.  We all believe in open source
> > > and are willing to contribute work back to the project.  Something like
> > > Exchange/Outlook would kill our profit margin, but we'd rather break
> > > even than fail.
> > >
> > > The new project is pretty high-visibility within the local community and
> > > has several very large companies involved.  The outcome of this project
> > > will certainly have a major, major impact on the future of our new company.
> > >
> > > So, given all of this, would you use PHPGroupware if this were *your*
> > > company?  Why or why not?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your advice.  PHPGroupware is our "plan a", and I need to
> > > validate this direction.  Things should get rolling very quickly now
> > > that we have the deal, and the project schedule doesn't allow for any
> > > time to change out the core technology half-way through.
> > >
> > > Thanks again.  I look forward to your comments.
> > >
> >
> > This is a very good question. Some of the contributors here are members
> > of company that have taken this step long ago. Probably the first of
> > them should be Dan and/or jengo (dont remember), creators of this thing,
> > that founded a company.... and many others. Some of them founded their
> > companies, others are independent consultants and others are in-house
> > consultants for the companies they work with.
> >
> > -----------------------------
> > |Here is a success story. Ill try to be as objective as possible.
> > -----------------------------
> >
> > All in all, i have a phpgw working with a 600 administrative (with pcs
> > and net connections) user organization with 30 branches all over my
> > country (mexico) and in other countries (costa rica, the us). This is a
> > large autoparts maker. Its been a lot of work, but i dont regret it at
> > all, this year its actually starting to pay off.
> >
> > I started that deployment last year, about march. I was supposed to move
> > this guys from exchange to a solution of my choosing. I had been
> > tracking phpgw and using it inhouse for a year before that and i liked
> > it.
> >
> > So in i went. I saved them about 90% of what it was gonna cost them if
> > they stayed in exchange (two year deadline was comming), so i lost money
> > (do the numbers), and i had to heavily modify phpgw to their liking.
> >
> > Took me about 8 months to stabilize the whole thing with migration and
> > all the changes they wanted (the javascript addressbook was one of those
> > changes).
> >
> > Today its a different story i think. The phpgw i took back then was a
> > great app, but it needed significant tweaking to make it into that
> > corporate datacenter. Stuff like a central company directory with links
> > to accounts were there, just not how the admin wanted it. So i rolled my
> > own changes.
> >
> > In the end all my work it was so messy that i didnt even want to pass it
> > back to the community, knowing it would be instantly rejected (hey, i
> > rejected it myself). So, i waited until stabilization was completed and,
> > in the meantime, i started contributing and discussing what the client
> > asked of me.
> >
> > The release schedulled by aug 8 covers all of what i did and more with a
> > very high standard of quality.
> >
> > Some of that was made by the community since some ppl here had the same
> > needs as myself, some were ideas of other ppl that i hadnt thought of,
> > some is stuff that im paying to be done and is being finished as we
> > write (its 2:30 am here, i should get back to that).
> >
> > This year we were contacted by a university with 4000 students wanting
> > an e-learning solution. I immediatly thought of phpgw but my associates
> > shrugged on me since weve spent so much on it with almost no profit
> > (now, to level this, this is not true, its not much proffit from phpgw,
> > but the client also pays a service fee for network consultancy and
> > mantainership of their servers. we convinced them to switch their dbms
> > to linux as well, and we wouldve never gotten in if we didnt have what
> > they really needed at the right time).
> >
> > So anyways, i started looking for this elearning solution and found it,
> > its called whiteboard. But, in looking at it, i thought most of its
> > stuff is already in good shape in phpgw, so it would be a better idea to
> > port it. I contacted the author and he is interested in the idea. So we
> > will probably have that by the end of the year as well.
> >
> > Another client thats a-comming is an industry needing a simple CRM. With
> > quoting capabilities for their sales model. No prob, i thought, there is
> > CKledger and, whatever it cannot do, we can make happen in house.
> >
> > So, all in all, phpgroupware has some shortcommings, but they are mainly
> > related to the fact that its written in php. What ive learned is that
> > its a PLATFORM, not just a webmail or a suite, but a whole framework for
> > building collaboration applications. From that point of view, phpgw has
> > NO match, no other FLOSS groupware project that ive found worries about
> > providing a platfrom independent collaboration API. This thing can
> > export its methods through xmlrpc or php and supports a good number of
> > databases for the backend.
> >
> > In this respect, everyone in the community is working on that idea (i
> > think). You have escandinavian companies doing some great document
> > management stuff, american ppl studying the posibilities of
> > interoperation of phpgw with other FLOSS solutions (OpenOffice,
> > OpenGroupware, Evolution), EU companies making plugins to sync it with
> > outlook, others trying to formalize and document the design, AU
> > consultants working on the freamework to have a generic syncronization
> > solutions (palm syncyng...etc.) and we are ALL open to subcontracts (had
> > to pitch that one in).
> >
> > Its a live community of ppl with real business problems and scenarios,
> > most likely similar to yours, so, YES, I bet my company on this thing,
> > for that matter, I bet yours! ... ;)
> >
> > Also, this is a community that you can talk with, discuss the problems
> > you encounter and i can assure you that, if you interact with it the
> > right way, youll soon find people with solutions to your problems
> > (solutions that maybe youll have to implement yourself, maybe not).
> >
> > So, thats the risk, that a FLOSS project may or may not go in the
> > direction you want it to. Same thing happens with linux or any other
> > project of this kind. BUT, if you comply with the quality and
> > interaction ettiquete rules, you will allways have a way to solve your
> > problems by doing it yourself, by associating with interested parties in
> > the community or by paying to get it done (there are guidelines for this
> > too, not everything will be accepted into core, even if you try and pay,
> > but there is a place for this kind of modification as well).
> >
> > Um...i cant direct you to the links where all this stuff is documented
> > (guidelines, way to work...e.tc.) cause the main site got haXored by
> > evil daemon-kiddies. But stick arround, download the thing, look at the
> > api, discuss your needs and have tons of fun.
> >
> > (Hell thats a long sales pitch)
> >
> > > Doug
> > > --
> > > Doug Dicks
> > > Revelant Technologies
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Phpgroupware-users mailing list
> > > Php...@gn...
> > > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/phpgroupware-users
> >
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> > Php...@gn...
> > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/phpgroupware-users
> 
> 
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