Building a successful open source project is hard enough - turning it into a commercial success is arguably much harder. Compiere is one of the industry's premier examples of a commercial open source success: profitable without sacrificing freedom or community.

In this presentation, Jorg Janke will detail the rise of Compiere, revealing both smart and not-so-smart decisions the company made along the way. He will discuss:

In this presentation, Jorg Janke will emphasize the importance of an ERP solution that can cater to the SME marketplace and highlight why an open source solution is the best candidate. Based on his experiences in developing Compiere ERP & CRM and prior experience with Oracle and Unysis, Janke can shed light on the best ways of breaking into this mainstream environment. Janke plans to include the following topics:

• The history of the Compiere project and what has made it successful
• The nuts and bolts of the product architecture and positioning for SMEs
• The advantage of open source vs. commercial products
• The importance of a strong partner community and their contributions
• Ideas on competing with the "big boys"