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Build vs. Buy vs. OFBiz

Press Release for Open For Business Version 2.0.0

The Open For Business Project released version 2.0.0 of its business automation tools, components, and applications on Monday the 20th of January 2003. This is the first stable release of the project and offers a new option for organizations of all types that have asked the question of Build vs. Buy. More information about Open For Business can be found on the web site at www.ofbiz.org.

The vision of the Open For Business Project is to embrace and enable the 5 E's: Ease of Cost, Ease of Installation, Ease of Customization, Ease of Integration, and Ease of Use.

Organizations using OFBiz can shorten enterprise information project cycles by months through a well designed architecture and corresponding framework and through pre-built components and applications. The goal of the Open For Business project is to provide useful, standards compliant tools and applications. These standards will include: XML; J2EE; WfMC; BPML; ebXML; UNSPSC; GAAP & FASB; OMG's GL, Party, Workflow, etc; ArapXML; OAGIS; and many others.

The OFBiz Core Framework consists of the following tools: Entity Engine, Service Engine, Workflow Engine, Rule Engine, XML Mini-Languages, and a web application framework.

Applications and application components (including entities and services) in the project cover the following business areas: e-commerce, products, orders, parties, facilities, work efforts, content, marketing, accounting, human resources, and so forth.

The most mature and deployed application in the suite is the e-commerce application with functionality that measures up to the largest available commercial alternatives and many live sites, including the award-winning ReturnBuy.com site (see www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=8137).

Other OFBiz applications and components are stable and being used by various organizations and in various commercial products. More details are available on the website.

OFBiz has received great attention in the open source and IT communities. The project has been featured on SourceForge and release notices have appeared on FreshMeat.net, TheServerSide.com, and JavaLobby.org. The SourceForge project site shows around 100,000 downloads and 700,000 page views. Dozens of users of the project have contributed feedback, new ideas and even code and designs. Special thanks to the many users who have contributed to the project. Without user contributions the project could not be what it is today.