The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software market is facing a crisis of confidence. A history of costly failed implementations has turned off once enthusiastic users, and recent vendor consolidation is adding to customer concerns. As a result, commercial ERP software has failed to liberate many companies from inefficient processes, fragmented systems, and costly integration projects.

opentaps, the Open Source Enterprise Applications Suite, is an open source answer to these fundamental challenges. Like state-of-the-art commercial ERP products, it is a single application which can address key processes across the enterprise, from supply chain management to sales and marketing to accounting and finance. A unified data model eliminates the need for costly integration. A modular service-oriented architecture enables limitless flexibility to add new applications, reconfigure business processes, and interact with trading partners. Finally, compatibility with open source operating systems and databases allows it to be deployed with the lowest possible Total Cost of Ownership.

Just as importantly, as an open source application, opentaps offers its users a unique value proposition. The high cost of acquisition, high risk of vendor lock-in, and high risk of failure due to lack of flexibility simply no longer exist. Instead, the user can now tap into a stable, production-ready ERP system that is free to acquire, free to customize, and supportable by in-house teams, a global user community, or multiple commercial service providers.

Topics covered during the session will include:

• Configuring MySQL as an enterprise-grade ERP database for opentaps
• A user's tour of opentaps
• Technical foundations of opentaps
• How a global community can invent the future of ERP together