More Open, More MFG — For $500/Month

NORFOLK, VA

Version 1.3.2 of Leading Open Source-Based ERP Adds 140 New Enhancements; Company Also Contributes Two New Modules to Leading Open Source CMS

OpenMFG, the leading provider of open source-based enterprise solutions for small manufacturers and distributors, today released the latest update to its namesake Enterprise Resource Planning application, announced an aggressive new pricing plan, and also contributed two new modules for a leading open source content management system.

The company's flagship product is an advanced ERP software solution built with open source components, such as the Linux operating system, the PostgreSQL database, and the OpenRPT report writer. Available OpenMFG modules include Inventory Management, Product Definition and Costing, Work Order Management, Master Scheduling and MRP, Capacity Planning, Purchase Order Management, Sales Order Management, Shipping and Receiving, Sales Analysis, Project Management, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and a full General Ledger.

Under OpenMFG's innovative hybrid license, customers and partners have full access to the application source code, and any enhancements made to the product flow back to OpenMFG for review, quality testing, and possible incorporation into the baseline product. Many of the over 140 enhancements in the new version 1.3.2 come from such community contributions, including shop floor labor collection, better support for process flow manufacturers, and "power tools" to help experienced OpenMFG users interface with other applications.

OpenMFG cuts against the grain of traditional ERP in other ways besides its hybrid licensing approach. The company has always published its pricing on the website, and the full details of a new pricing plan are now online. Customers can choose between a traditional perpetual license or a subscription-style annual license. The annual license is priced at $1,000 per user per year, with significant discounts for large numbers of users. It is also available under monthly billing, for as few as five concurrent users of the system. That means a company can get started with OpenMFG for as little as $5,000 per year, or $500 per month!

Another distinction between OpenMFG and conventional ERP companies is its community website, which includes full public access to the internal bug tracker, documentation, and forums and mail lists. OpenMFG has released the source code of two significant enhancements to the Drupal open source CMS, which powers the OpenMFG.org site. The first is a new module that integrates Drupal with the popular Mantis bug-tracking system. It is available for download at www.drupal.org/project/bugbits. The second is a framework for mapping directories and files on a download server to user permission structures in a Drupal environment, available at www.drupal.org/project/ezdownload. Both projects use the popular PostgreSQL open source database. OpenMFG is actively soliciting developer contributions to both modules, which are in production use today at OpenMFG.org.

"We are continuing to change the rules for ERP software," said Ned Lilly, OpenMFG president and CEO. "As our community grows, our product improves by leaps and bounds; we have already begun major development efforts for OpenMFG version 2.0, in partnership with dozens of our systems integrators and end-user customers. But we are committed to maintaining the simplicity and ease-of-use for which OpenMFG has come to be known. That's why we're so excited to offer this new pricing — now it's easier than ever for companies to get started with a powerful open source-based ERP solution."

The OpenMFG website even offers an online pricing calculator tool, to let users compare the three plans with different numbers of users, considered over various time horizons.

About OpenMFG

OpenMFG, LLC develops next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) software applications powered by open source software such as Linux, PostgreSQL, and Qt. OpenMFG products give companies visibility into costs, supply chains, processes, inventory and financial operations with a lower cost of ownership than competing products, and are sold to end-user customers through a network of value added partners throughout North America.