I have an offshore client who is interested on developing a web based ERP as backend and E-commerce for frontend.
He wants to do an amazon-like system but on a very smaller scale.
He wants to replace his current system, which I think is a combination of Excel and some ancient FoxPro software.
He would use the ERP to manage inventories, etc and then the E-commerce for the customers/suppliers.
Then he would give his suppliers a version of the ERP to connect everything together. I guess his suppliers are willing to pay part of the whole thing
He says he started some part of the ERP using ASP.NET and SQL server, but he does know that is the best option, since I told him what open source was.
I have some experience with the technologies but more at a macro level, not at the development level.
Of what I understand he would need something like: 1. E-commerce - Front end website - Back end website for customers and suppliers - Admin module for Front End (I guess update pages, etc) - Admin module for Back end
2. ERP - Back end - Admin module for backend - A module to connect the ERP to the E-commerce
This might be too many questions, but I would like to get an idea of what is needed to develop this project.
1. Build something from scratch or use something already developed and customize.
2. Use PHP and mySQL on Linux?
3. Use .NET and SQL on Windows Server - Since he started doing something here, would it be better to continue this or change to open source? - What compatibilities are there on PHP with .NET or SQL with mySQL
4. Support for other languages than english.
Please let me know a rough idea what it could be done
Thats a pretty open question. Is there is an open source solution that already does it do what you need it to?? if so then it wouldn't make logical sense to reinvent the wheel. However depending on requirements maybe nothing comes close to what you need, remeber there are lots of good open source .net applications already.
For the client end you you could build a windows application which talks to the front-end website using web services, creating web services with asp.net is very easy.
Try SourceForge.net. There are over 170,000 open source project to start your project with. There are a million questions to ask about the fit, and there may be other projects that fit better. However, there is a project as SourceForge.net called webERP that is written in PHP and uses MySQL. I am one of the developers. Inventory control is one of its many features but one that comes to mind that might be helpful is a link from a products photograph to the part number of the product. This would allow one to create an ecommerce web site from data collected doing ERP. webERP has EDI capabilities in case that is part of your ecommerce solution. It is easy to integrate webERP with other web based projects.
If you think you want to try webERP let me know by clicking my user id and you will see my web site.
It has multiple currency and language capabilities.
As far as Linux, PHP and MySQL, those seem to be the most popular. They are what I prefer for performance and they are easy to setup.
I have heard stories about .NET being faster to develop and easier to learn. I have not found that to be the case in my limited .NET developement experience. As and end user/ IT Manager, I find .NET a nightmare to keep running where my linux boxes just refuse to crash.
You can actually mix the .NET and PHP technologies with each page being one or the other. If you find a project on SourceForge.Net that is web based using .NET and another that you with to integrate that is PHP, that should not be a problem.
Choose the database based on which projects to pick to integrate. You can also mix databases but you waste some overhead if serving from one computer.
With webERP customers and suppliers can be allowed to login and see information pertaining to them. Customers can enter their own orders.
mokelly1: I will give a look at webERP. Also, - what do you know about osCommerce. - Can this be integrated or any other E-commerce out there? - Is this scalable. I always thought open source was more for experimenting or small scale, but what happens if the business grows substantially. Is mySQL up to that or he will eventually need to replace to something else.
I just checked out osCommerce for the first time. It looks awesome. Since you get the source code with the software the answer is yes it can be integrated with any E-commerce where you get the source code. It appears to written in PHP 4 which is not easily integratable with PHP 5 (webERP). The compatibility issues can be worked out.
I cannot imagine a more scalable piece of software. It is web based using any OS platform, Novell, Linux, Windows and Mac. Most web servers that will run PHP are able to be run in clusters. Apache web server is well suited for clusters and load balancing. MySQL can also be served by clusters of Linux servers and there are no license limits or fees ever and any of these products.
I suppose compared to some of the more expensive software packages, open source is in its infancy but the model beats programmers in ivory towers already. Support is more consistent, reliable, and cheap. With hundreds of companies supporting most open source projects there is no chance of them "going out of business". It is sort of like the old pioneer days where everyone helped build a barn or house. Many people in the community have the skills. Given the source code they can be local super experts for the software. In the old days most packages were vertical meaning they were designed for one industry. Over the years most have evolved to be horizontal and if they are feature rich then they are difficult to learn and use.
Open source is back to the vertical concept. There are so many open source projects with no profit motive to merge that open source will be the best place to find vertical packages.
