The Open For Business Project released the newest version (2.0 Beta 2) of its business automation tools, components, and applications on Tuesday July 2nd, 2002. This beta release represents the completion of all of the main components of the OFBiz framework. Other framework components will be added as the project progresses, but the most important architectural enablers are now in place. More information can be found on the Open For Business web site at http://www.ofbiz.org or on the Open For Business SourceForge project site at http://sf.net/projects/ofbiz.

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.

The tools and components available can shorten J2EE business project cycles by months through a well designed architecture, pre-built components, and a dynamic entity model based data source abstraction layer. The goal of the Open For Business project is to provide useful, standards compliant tools and applications. These standards will include: XML; J2EE; WfMC's XPDL; BPML; ebXML; UNSPSC; GAAP & FASB; OMG's GL, Party, etc; ArapXML; qbXML; and other leading standards that relate to the various tools, components and applications of Open For Business (see http://www.ofbiz.org for more details).

The Open For Business Project features the following:

• -- Data Model -- A work-in-progress data model with over 450 entities providing for business data needs such as content, party (person and organization), product, order, shipment, work effort, accounting, human resources, and security data. All major entities have related tables making them extensible for flexibility. The data model will be refined as applications are implemented.
• -- eCommerce -- An eCommerce application that is based on our flexible and enterprise wide data model making it surpisingly easy to customize and integrate with enterprise systems. The template site has a clean look and feel and provides many basic and advanced eCommerce features including a dynamic catalog, variants support, rules based prices and promotions, inventory support, customer information management, and order history and status. Third party software integrations are included for payment processing through Cybersource and Verisign Payflow Pro and tax calculation through Taxware.
• -- Applications -- Other Applications now available include Catalog Management, Party Management, Order Management and Work Effort (task, calendar, etc) Management. These applications provide an advanced set of back-office tools for maintaining eCommerce data and other enterprise information.
• -- Service Engine -- The OFBiz Service Engine is the tool that allows us to organize our applications around internal services that can seamlessly be exposed as web services, or can be implemented using remote web services. It provides a simple interface so that the caller does not have to know what language the service is implemented in or where that service is located. Service definitions are done in XML.
• -- Entity Engine -- The OFBiz Entity Engine provides a simple and powerful API for data source independent retrieval and manipulation of relational data. The Entity Engine is far more efficient for developers to use than conventional persistence tools like EJB CMP, JDO, or straight JDBC. Entity definitions are done in XML.
• -- Workflow Engine -- The OFBiz Workflow Engine makes it easy to layout and execute business processes as part of a J2EE application. It is based in the XPDL and other specifications from WfMC and the Workflow Management Facility Specification from OMG. It takes advantage of and is well integrated with the OFBiz Service and Entity Engines. Workflows can be invoked synchronously or asynchronously and locally or remotely through the Service Engine, and any activity in a process can be implemented as a service.
• -- Message Engine -- The OFBiz Message Engine makes it easy to model and organize messages passing between various organizations or systems. Message digesters and producers are specified and executed in response to incoming messages. The Message Engine is based on the BPML specification from BPMI. The Message Engine has not yet been implemented.
• -- Rule Engine -- The OFBiz Rule Engine makes it easy to express and execute business rules and constraints. It is based on modern standards like RuleML and the mature language Prolog. It is written in Java and runs with an application in the same JVM, and can be invoked locally or remotely through the Service or Entity Engines. It can also call back into Services as sensors or effectors and integrates seamlessly with the Entity Engine to expand your knowledgebase in a ruleset to all of the data in your relational database. The Rule Engine is only partially in place and certain features are still in planning.
• -- Mini-Languages -- The OFBiz Mini-Languages are XML files that describe simple processes making common operations fast and easy to write and maintain. The existing languages make it easy to create events to validate and convert form input and pass it on to a service, and to create services the process data and perform entity engine operations. This makes implementation from 5-10 times as efficient as coding these common components in Java.
• -- Webapp Framework -- This components include a servlet controller to abstract non-presentation logic, security and web application flow and includes tools to simplify the use of composite views and mutlitple types of views including JSP, Velocity, etc.
• Core utilities to provide services such as input validation, output formatting, property file access and caching, conditional debug logging, and date and time handling
• A cache utility which supports caches of limited or unlimited size, element expiration, least recently used (LRU) element removal, and a web based cache management application
• The Open For Business Project currently has 9 developers involved from around the world. More are joining all the time. There is a large need for developers because of the wide variety and large number of applications that will be built. The SourceForge site statistics currently report over 400,000 page hits and 75,000 downloads since the project began.

So what does the future of Open For Business look like? A quick glance at the architecture diagrams on our web site will reveal that we have barely begun to implement all of the components and applications that are planned. The future will bring improvements to the rule, constraint and workflow engines, and the introduction of the message engine, data analysis and content and knowledge management tools, and a whole suite of enterprise applications ranging everywhere from eCommerce to Warehouse Management to Accounting to Human Resources to Sales Force and Marketing Automation. 

If it needs to be done in general business, it will be done in Open For Business. And if it's not done in general business, but is specific to your industry or particular company, it will be easy to build and integrate with Open For Business.

Services based on the Open For Business Project are available through affiliated consultants and companies. For more information see Services tab of the Open For Business site at www.ofbiz.org.