A few years back, some proprietary hardware companies hit the panic button when Dell and Microsoft Windows moved into point-of-sale (POS) systems. Fast forward to the present, and open source is trying its hand at disrupting the POS market. You already know about Linux running on POS systems. Now, POS applications themselves are going open source. Here’s how.
The trend begins with Openbravo, known within developer circles for its popular open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. Based in Spain, Openbravo is gradually pushing into the US market. Openbravo’s global ambitions include the retail industry — and point of sale software.
To wit, Openbravo has acquired Librepos (previously named Tina POS), the leading POS application in the open source space.
The Openbravo/Librepos combination looks promising. Openbravo has generated more than 350,000 downloads since its launch, while Librepos/Tina has garnered 100,000 downloads since the launch of its first version in January 2005.
Looking ahead, Liberos will be re-branded as Openbravo POS.Integrators will play a key role as Openbravo seeks to serve customers ranging from $5 million to $500 million in revenue, according to Josep Mita, Openbravo’s chief operating officer.
The VAR Guy doesn’t expect Openbravo to push aside Intuit Quickbooks or Microsoft Dynamics anytime soon. But open source trends across ERP and POS are undeniable.
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I’d consider switching if it has the features and support I need. We’re currently using Activant Eclipse (formally from Intuit) and it pretty much sucks. It’s buggy, poorly documented, slow, and quite expensive.
I’d like to hear some feedback from anyone using Openbravo. I have it on my Ubuntu box…but haven’t had the time to look at it yet.
I’m considering using it in conjunction with Quickbooks (QB) in my retail business, but would like to know where it might excel over QB and be worthwhile investing time to get up and running.
[…] despliegues propios o despligues alojados? ahà es donde entra en acción Openbravo. Lo bueno: La reciente adquisición de OpenbravoPos impulsa a Openbravo en el mercado de los terminales de punt…. La cual es una extensión natural para un ERP. Desafios: Establecido en España, Openbravo […]
Nice ERP System for companies that have IT staff with a fair knowledge of Java, Tomcat and Oracle or PostgreSQL.
[…] on-site deployments or hosted deployments? That’s where OpenBravo enters the picture. Upside: Recent acquisition pushes OpenBravo into the point-of-sale market. That’s a natural extension to ERP. Challenges: Headquartered in Spain, OpenBravo needs to […]
Open Bravo is built on the Compiere model. ADempiere is a fork of Compiere as well and it has a simple POS system available.
We have also had great success implementing OFBiz POS as well. OFBiz is well worth looking at too.
Feel free to contact me for a features and benefits white paper or to ask any questions about the various open source solutions.
We work with a number of options.
We are looking at going to Activant’s Eclipse System —saw where MikeFM says that it sucks. Why does it suck? Anyone else have an opinion on Eclipse?
Thanks!
OpenBravo is pretty darn good. It may be a bit strange for some Windows users, but they will get used to it, if they work with it for a few hours. The biggest void is the lack of a good manual. Many of the commands and features are hit and miss to figure out what to do. Your screen has to be at least 1024 x 768 or the screen will loose all kinds of needed stuff. A little slow at times so if you want to ring up stuff very fast it may be frustrating. I’ve seen worse at a much higher price.
When did you start using OpenBravo? Are you a retailer or a consultant who sells into the retail vertical? Would love to hear more about your experiences.
I would love to use Openbravo POS but — You still can’t have multiple tickets per table! What the hell?
Skerit: Multiple tickets per table will be in the 2.10 version of Openbravo POS. The new feature is called “Split receipts”
Wow. Some old blog entries never seem to die. Nice to see continued interest in this topic. I wasn’t sure whether VARs would care about point of sale open source. But in recent months, this post has generated some of our top traffic…