By James R. Borck
xTuple named InfoWorld's top pick in open source business applications. ERP, CRM, HRM, CMS, BPM — they're the engines behind every modern business. Our top picks in the category include back- and front-office solutions, marketing automation, lightweight middleware, heavyweight middleware, and other tools for moving data around, mixing it together, and magically transforming it into smarter business decisions.
xTuple
Small and midsize companies with light manufacturing or distribution needs have a friend in xTuple. This modular ERP/CRM combo bundles operations and financial control, product and inventory management, and CRM and sales support. Its relatively simple install lets you deploy all of the modules or only what you need today — helping trim support costs without sacrificing customization later.
This summer’s release brought usability improvements to the UI and a generous number of bug fixes. Recent updates also yielded barcode scanning and label printing for mobile warehouse workers, an enhanced workflow module (built with Plv8, a wrapper around Google’s V8 JavaScript engine that lets you write stored procedures for PostgreSQL in JavaScript), and quality management tools that are sure to get mileage on shop floors.
The xTuple codebase is JavaScript from stem to stern. The server components can all be installed locally, in xTuple’s cloud, or deployed as an appliance. A mobile Web client, and mobile CRM features, augment a good native desktop client.
— James R. Borck