Socrate Open, OPEN SOURCE ERP, analyzing, planning, executing and controlling activities. 

Socrate Open

BIT Software announces the launching of the new OPEN SOURCE product for the management of enterprise resources available in Romania. Moreover, this product gathers in one integrated package both ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionalities, being prepared for integration with BI (Business Intelligence) technologies. SocrateOPEN, powered by Compiere, is now available for all those interested on the Internet at www.socrateopen.ro.

SocrateOPEN has, of course, ZERO purchasing costs, and as regards implementation and maintenance services, it has a solid support based on 12 years of experience of ERP/CRM implementation, BIT Software has accumulated.

With this new IT product, Romanian companies as well as those on the international market that need applications to easier and more efficiently manage their activity will be able to minimize risk and protect their investment when they decide to purchase a new ERP/CRM or BI type product. Anyone can try out the new product with no license cost. They could eventually test this product based on an evaluation pilot, which would minimize implementation costs.

The new product SocrateOPEN is achieved on a highly evaluated IT architecture and has no incompatibility, which means it functions on any environment, on any operating system: Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac OSX etc., and on any database: Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, etc.

Being at the beginning of a new development stage, at the same time with the launching of SocrateOPEN, BIT Software, which developed and implemented the Romanian ERP Socrate+ in over 100 successful companies, reconfirms its vocation of pioneer within Romanian IT industry, being this time the first supplier of ERP/CRM OPEN SOURCE solutions for the management of enterprise resources in our country.

You either disappear or go to the top; the middle way is less and less probable.

According to Gartner, one of the most important companies of research and analysis in the IT field, 75% of the global EAS (Enterprise Application Software = ERP+CRM+BI) market will be owned in 2010 by the first five implementators and developers of such products. 30% of this market will be Open Source! Moreover, the majority of suppliers that now own smaller market shares (that, however, totalize around 25-30%) will either disappear or specialize in very narrow niches and will own sub-unitary market shares that together will not exceed 5% of the market! As if somebody from the top of a tower, I mean the independent analysts, would tell us: I see the tsunami is coming, it's five kilometers away, it's impending, says Remus Cazacu, General Manager, BIT Software. And then, instead of waiting to see if it is true and drown, we prefer to act. It means that instead of watching how our market share decreases little by little, getting down to a narrow niche, we act in such a way so as to be able to get to the top of ERP/CRM providers. Starting today, we bet on Open Source. Another argument for Open Source, taken into account by BIT Software is that due to reasons connected to development resources, only with this model a smaller IT company can stand up to the first five suppliers of such applications. Until now, the global Open Source community managed to propose only two-three interesting ERP/CRM platforms, besides the one launched by us today, Remus Cazacu declared.

More than an ERP

Until today, 80% of the failures in the implementation of CRMs were due to huge costs of integration, independent analysts affirm. Thus, many times, the integration costs of two applications can exceed the added purchasing costs of two IT products! That is why all big suppliers of such applications invest now in one direction: they aim to have one integration platform for ERP-CRM-BI. In this context, Remus Cazacu states: With the CRM integrated in one single product and with the Business Intelligence part even more integrated in the same platform, SocrateOPEN is already more than an ERP.

SocrateOPEN will be totally supported by BIT Software, through professional services. Born in 1994 at BIT Software and brought up year after year, through the effort and innovation of its parents in Brasov, now, in 2006, Socrate+ has reached technological maturity. Socrate+ is already mature also because it has a rich functionality and is extremely robust and stable. Being made up of over 700 tables, 3000 procedures and many others, currently Socrate+ is almost bug-free software, with a constant rate of less than 10 minor bugs open. BIT Software now proposes the new SocrateOPEN, built on an advanced, state of the art technology and provides it (free of charge, of course), together with the same services it has been provided until now, to which few additional services are added. You can have a very good ERP, but implement it in a wrong way. We and our partner network will offer implementation, training, maintenance and other services to those interested that will request them. Such services will not be more expensive than before. And we expect to have a large number of such clients, Remus Cazacu also stated.

SocrateOPEN also opens new markets for BIT Software

The new product is initially dedicated to clients whose activity is based on services, the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) being very important in this field. On medium and long run, as the functionalities existing in the present Socrate+ will grow in this new product, the present clients of the IT company located in Brasov will start to migrate towards SocrateOPEN. On a Romanian market with the ERP penetration rate having an increasing trend, BIT Software aims to obtain a top position, as soon as possible. Besides, in a future not very far-off the extension with the new product will start on other markets in the Eastern-European area. In the future we wish to build a global ERP, CRM, BI distribution, says Remus Cazacu.

Powered by Compiere

Compiere Inc (www.compiere.org) is the global provider of the integrated ERP/CRM Compiere system on which is based the new SocrateOPEN product. Globally, there are already 65 Compiere partner companies and over 100 large successful implementations. Compiere partners are either developing and selling the Compiere product under the same brand or developing their own products based on Compiere, assembling different components and adding them value. BIT Software is part of this last category, being a Compiere partner, certified for more than one year. Moreover, BIT Software is one of the ten active development partners that constantly contribute to the development plan at global level within Compiere Technical Council.