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Leading open source ERP gives SMB distributors, manufacturers and service-oriented businesses increased automation and saves employee time
xTuple, the leader in Mac and open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced the general availability of version 3.5 of its namesake product. This latest version saves employee time and cuts costs by automating many routine tasks that are often performed manually, or by expensive external systems. Version 3.5 also continues xTuple's recent push to add more enterprise-class functionality to the core package, while retaining the ease-of-use for which the company is known.
"The reality is many SMBs today are limited largely to moving ahead tactically, rather than strategically," said Jay Lyman, enterprise software analyst for The 451 Group. "This can be particularly true with desktop financial applications, but by leveraging higher-end ERP and CRM features that are still affordable thanks in large part to open source, they can consolidate steps and operate more strategically and effectively."
This latest version of xTuple also gives users of the free PostBooks® Edition the ability to run their xTuple database in the cloud via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). During the month of April, the company will be providing the xTuple cloud service at no charge and encouraging feedback to help define what will eventually be a commercial service, billed monthly possibly across all three Editions of the software.
Significant new 3.5 features and enhancements include
- Drop ship purchasing: Now taking a sales order, immediately purchasing the item and having it shipped directly to the customer is fully automated and seamless for distribution companies
- Expanded support for tooling: Facilitates managing and consuming tools in the manufacturing process
- Pricing effectivity: Dramatically increases the flexibility of the pricing engine with regard to effectivity dates
- Time and expense management: xTuple 3.5 supports individual time and expense entry, optionally tied to Project Tasks
- User-configurable filters in the CRM module: Allows non-programmers to customize the most-often used displays
- Support for PostgreSQL 8.4 and Qt 4.6
- Embedded MetaSQL editor: Enables power users to take deeper dives into custom reporting and use conditional data throughout the application
Andrew Bergin, CIO at Minnesota-based Bergin Fruit and Nut Company (sponsor of the pricing effectivity enhancements in version 3.5) noted, "xTuple provides big-company ERP functionality, but makes it easy for smaller, growing companies to see real business benefit quickly. We implemented xTuple in a matter of months, and are having our best year in decades."
Since xTuple's last release in late 2009, over 400 enhancements have been added by the company, its partners, and other community members. To date, the xTuple community has over 25,000 members and the PostBooks® Edition has been downloaded more than 340,000 times. Additionally, it is consistently ranked among the most active projects on the SourceForge.net open source portal.
xTuple CEO and co-founder Ned Lilly stated, "xTuple 3.5 gives distributors, manufacturers and service-oriented businesses improved visibility into company data, increased control over their operations and the ability to make informed business decisions. The continuous involvement of our community of customers, partners, and open source users is the key to the ongoing improvement of the product. Its how we're able to add more and more sophisticated enterprise functionality, while keeping the simplicity that SMBs require."
The PostBooks® Edition of xTuple ERP is available free of charge under the open source Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), or xTuple's hybrid commercial license, whereby customers and partners have full access to the application source code, and any enhancements made to the product flow back to xTuple for review, quality testing, and possible incorporation into the baseline product. The Standard and Manufacturing Editions of xTuple are commercially-licensed products with expanded features based on the core PostBooks® Edition. All three versions of xTuple run equally well on Mac, Windows and Linux computers and are fully internationalized with multi-currency, support for multiple tax structures, and multilingual translation packs maintained by the global xTuple open source community.
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About xTuple, the world’s #1 open source ERP
Award-winning xTuple, makers of the world’s leading suite of open source accounting, Corporate Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), is supply chain management software for growing businesses to control their operations and profitability. xTuple integrates all critical functional areas in one modular system: sales, financials and operations — including customer and supplier management, inventory control, manufacturing and distribution — the powerful tools to Grow Your World®.
As a commercial open source company, xTuple works with a global community of tens of thousands of professional users. xTuple gives customers the ability to tailor solutions with multi-platform support for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile as well as flexible licensing and pricing options. Connect with the company at www.xTuple.com, and join the innovation conversation with the open source community at www.xTuple.org.