“Systems are logical, programming is physical. ”
- Bryce’s Law

For something that is supposed to be “soft”, software exhibits
some pretty “hard” characteristics. The original premise behind the
COBOL programming language was to devise a language that could
be easily ported to several computers. As we all know, this never
truly happened due to computer manufacturers who tweaked the language
to suit their particular needs. What ran on an IBM machine, for
example, didn’t necessarily run the same on Honeywell, UNIVAC, or
the rest of the BUNCH. Consequently, software developers had to
maintain different versions of source code to suit the particular
needs of the various computer compilers. This plagued all third
generation languages until Sun introduced JAVA in the 1990′s. The
JAVA premise that a programmer should “write once, run everywhere”
was the right idea and the language began to gain momentum, until
it ran into Microsoft who didn’t want to turn the operating system
into an inconsequential afterthought. JAVA lives on, but not to
the extent it should have, and developers are back to managing
separate versions of source code.

The point is, software does in fact exhibit some very “hard”
characteristics as it is married to the host computer configuration
making it not very portable. As mentioned, this creates headaches
for those of us, particularly commercial software vendors, in
terms of maintaining consistency in the different versions of
our products.

What to do?

Back in the 1970′s and 1980′s we were faced with the dilemma of
managing a single product on over a dozen different platforms. We
quickly came to the realization we would go stark raving mad
managing multiple versions of source code and came to the conclusion
we had better come up with a solution pretty quick. Because of our
experience in converting software, we became well versed in the
nuances of the various compilers and devised a Repository (we
called it a “filter program” at the time) which maintained the rules
of the various compilers. We were also very disciplined in writing
code to specific standards and embedded certain switches in the
base source code. When we were ready to produce a new release of
our product, we would feed the base code into our “filter program”
which would then create the different versions of the source
code ready for compilation. This saved us an incredible amount
of time and brought consistency to all of the versions of the
product. In other words, our programming staff worked with only
one set of code (not multiple variations), the “filter program”
then analyzed it and created the necessary permeation for a targeted
platform. As compilers changed, we would update the “filter
program” accordingly.

We also learned to maintain print maps, screen panels, messages
and help text separate from the source code, which greatly
enhanced our ability to create a new version of the product to
suit a foreign language and culture; see “Creating Universal
Systems” at:

http://www. phmainstreet. com/mba/pride/isspus. htm

Let us take it a step further, for years we have touted
there are logical and physical dimensions to Information
Systems. Using the “PRIDE” Standard System Structure concept
in “PRIDE”-ISEM, we look upon Systems and Sub-Systems (business
processes) as logical constructs, and Procedures and Programs
as physical constructs. Further, data components such as inputs,
outputs, files, records and data elements can be specified
logically and implemented physically many different ways. Let
me give you an example; back in the 1980′s one of our “PRIDE”
users (a large Fortune 500 electronic conglomerate) bought
into our logical/physical concept and decided to put it to the
test. Working from their corporate offices, they designed a
complete Payroll System which they wanted to implement as the
corporate standard across all of their divisions and
subsidiaries. They completed the system with a recommended
programming solution they wrote themselves (no packages were
used) which I believe was an IBM MVS solution using COBOL. However,
they recognized early on this implementation wouldn’t work
across the board in the company. Consequently, they gave the
system specifications to all of their divisions who would then
program it themselves in-house. The project turned out to be
a major success and the company ended up with multiple
implementations of the same system under IBM MVS, VM,
Honeywell GCOS, UNIVAC Exec, HP MPE, DEC VAX/VMS, and
Prime; all working harmoniously together. Other “PRIDE” users
experienced similar successes, particularly in Japan.

All of this drives home the point that systems are logical in nature,
and that programming is physical. If systems are designed
properly, there is no reason they shouldn’t behave identically
on whatever computer platform you come up with. Better yet, it
allows us to easily migrate our systems from one configuration
to another. Uniformity and consistency in execution; and portability
to boot. Imagine that.


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It seems like the Internet is largely overcrowded through the recent years. Finding the right product through the Internet is not a big issue these days. However, finding the excellent deal in the Internet is always a menace. Things are not different in case of downloading e-books and softwares in the Internet. With lots of sources to download these e-books and softwares, finding the genuine and cheap source is difficult. Read More

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Key No 1 – Charting the course of success for your technology investment
Is your current ERP system is lacking in functionality? Does it limit your ability to respond quickly to customers’ requests? Where are you placed in comparison with your competitors, and does your existing system help you or hinder you in meeting industry best practice or benchmarks? Are you simply unhappy with your current supplier and their ability to respond to your requirements, let alone those of your customers?
Whatever the case, you are unlikely to stand alone in these areas – many companies have faced similar issues with their ERP systems, so no user is likely to be unique. There are common drivers you can consider in your deliberations over a replacement ERP system, and these include the measures you use to chart the success of your technology investment, the major issues you need to address and the consideration of how much pain you are willing to put up with to achieve your ultimate goal.
According to Aberdeen Group’s 2007 ERP in Manufacturing Benchmark Report, 328 companies out of 1245 companies surveyed were planning to replace their current ERP systems at one or more locations within the next three years. In other words, at any one time, a quarter of companies are looking to replace their existing ERP systems.
In the past, enterprise resource planning has garnered a mixed reputation. While there are fundamental reasons and obvious benefits for going down the ERP path, many have feared – rightly or wrongly – that ERP entailed major organisational disruption if not re-engineering, at high cost and high risk.
Aberdeen Group reports (“When Replacing ERP – Size Matters”, June 2007) the primary driver for large companies is consolidation and rationalisation strategies. An underlying issue, considering the proliferation of ERP and other enterprise applications, is the need for integration. For mid-sized and small companies, on the other hand, the concerns are more with gaining functionality and integration. These sized firms are also more heavily concerned with updating their outdated user interfaces, an important factor in raising employee productivity and efficiencies.
Other issues include requirements of expansion, pressure from trading partners, compliance with regulation and even disastrous events, but overall companies looking at ERP implementations are primarily seeking “low cost options that minimise risk”.
Risk and cost in combination imply a concern for return on investment, but Aberdeen’s surveys show that fewer than 25 per cent of respondents consistently estimate ROI to cost estimate ERP projects, and 20 per cent or less measure the actual post-implementation costs and gains to calculate ROI.
In contrast, “best in class companies are on average 88 per cent more likely to estimate ROI before initiating projects and are 130 per cent more likely to measure ROI after project completion. As a result, these best performing companies produce, on average, 93 per cent more improvement across a variety of metrics such as cost reductions, schedule performance, headcount reduction or redeployment and quality improvements. ”
The reality is that minimising risk with an ERP implementation is an achievable result and, by minimising risk, costs should also be kept under control. By following a formal process of charting the reasons for your implementation, assessing the various offerings from your current supplier and, importantly, from suppliers who might be new to you, and checking off against the various criteria for selection, an ERP implementation need not be a nightmare; in fact, it could prove to be the instigator of quantifiable benefits for all concerned.
Specific success markers
Getting down to brass tacks, there are a number of key aspects of an ERP system that need to be addressed, both prior to any decision to move to such a system and certainly as part of selection criteria. Near the top of the list is total cost of ownership, which incorporates:
Software and implementation costs;
Costs associated with any interfaces or system modifications;
All costs associated with system communications;
Costs associated with employing additional or specialised staff; and
Annual costs for system upgrades and helpline support.
Other specific areas of consideration that will impact on the success or otherwise of your ERP program include:
Functionality;
Ease of use;
Integration capabilities;
Ease and speed of implementation;
Ability to tailor functionality without programming; and
Software licence price.
Added to this, or overarching these considerations, is return on investment. Whether and how quickly you achieve this is dependent on many factors, not least the rigour and realism applied to the assessment of current circumstances and the contribution made by the ERP system as outlined in initial business cases. An article as far back as the European Journal of Information Systems in 1996 reported on a survey of the 200 largest UK companies that found that 47 per cent openly admitted to overstating the benefits to get approval for IT investments.
But wishful thinking and creative accounting aside, these are all relevant considerations. (And in future articles, covering total cost of ownership, selection criteria, best and worst practices, and maximising ROI, we will look at them in more detail. ) But it should be noted that the level and mix of these factors and how successfully they are achieved is specific to individual sets of circumstances, including size and type of organisation, intended purpose, individual business priorities and, of course, budget.
The big picture
The overriding consideration that affects all organisations, large or small, regardless of industry sector or even of budget, is alignment with the business objectives of your organisation.
Jerry Luftman and Rajkumar Kempaiah of the Stevens Institute of Technology suggest (“An update on business-IT alignment”, September 2007) that the issue of achieving IT-business alignment was first documented in the late 1970s and was in the top 10 IT management issues from 1980 through 1994, as reported by the Society for Information Management. Since 1994 it has consistently been issue #1 or #2.
Nonetheless, it has proved to be an elusive target. Luftman and Kempaiah suggest a number of reasons for this, including that, while IT might be aligned with the business, business is rarely aligned with IT. They also add that organisations have often looked for a ‘silver bullet’, whether technological solution or improved communications, as well as improved governance to identify and prioritise projects, resources and risks. Another reason they suggest for missing the alignment target has been the lack of an effective tool to gauge the maturity of IT-business alignment.
On this last point, they suggest a set of six components that indicate (if not mandate) alignment maturity: Communications – exchange of ideas, knowledge and information between IT and business; Value – balanced measurements to demonstrate the contributions of information technology and the IT organisation in terms that both business and IT understand;
Governance – who has authority to make IT decisions and set IT priorities;
Partnership – including IT’s role in defining business strategies, the degree of trust and how each perceives the other’s contribution;
Scope and architecture – IT’s provision of flexible infrastructure, evaluation of emerging technologies, driving business process change, and delivery of customised solutions internally and externally; and
Skills – HR practices of hiring and retention, encouragement of innovation, developing individuals’ skills, and the organisation’s readiness for change, capability to learn and ability to leverage new ideas.
Interestingly, they say that “business executives score alignment maturity higher than IT executives”. In other words, it is the IT side of the business that feels most that alignment is not being achieved. Whether your organisation complies with these suggestions – and it should be added that sometimes these factors can be seen as reflections of alignment maturity as opposed to stepping-stones for achieving that heightened state – any IT implementation, especially one as significant as ERP, should keep all of these factors top of mind.
Supply chain criteria
Many ERP systems are implemented as part of the supply chain process of an organisation. Here, again, the above success markers are relevant, but Tim Payne of Gartner (“Supply chain and IT strategies must align around five key themes”, August 2007) suggests that “enterprises should focus on five technology areas – business process agility, data management, analytics and performance management, collaboration, and sensory networks – as the sources of technology-enabled supply chain innovation”.
Payne says “focusing on these technology areas will give the IT organisation more credibility as an ongoing participant in the dialogue [with the supply Key No 1 - Charting the course of success for your technology investment
Is your current ERP system is lacking in functionality? Does it limit your ability to respond quickly to customers' requests? Where are you placed in comparison with your competitors, and does your existing system help you or hinder you in meeting industry best practice or benchmarks? Are you simply unhappy with your current supplier and their ability to respond to your requirements, let alone those of your customers?
Whatever the case, you are unlikely to stand alone in these areas - many companies have faced similar issues with their ERP systems, so no user is likely to be unique. There are common drivers you can consider in your deliberations over a replacement ERP system, and these include the measures you use to chart the success of your technology investment, the major issues you need to address and the consideration of how much pain you are willing to put up with to achieve your ultimate goal.
According to Aberdeen Group's 2007 ERP in Manufacturing Benchmark Report, 328 companies out of 1245 companies surveyed were planning to replace their current ERP systems at one or more locations within the next three years. In other words, at any one time, a quarter of companies are looking to replace their existing ERP systems.
In the past, enterprise resource planning has garnered a mixed reputation. While there are fundamental reasons and obvious benefits for going down the ERP path, many have feared - rightly or wrongly - that ERP entailed major organisational disruption if not re-engineering, at high cost and high risk.
Aberdeen Group reports ("When Replacing ERP - Size Matters", June 2007) the primary driver for large companies is consolidation and rationalisation strategies. An underlying issue, considering the proliferation of ERP and other enterprise applications, is the need for integration. For mid-sized and small companies, on the other hand, the concerns are more with gaining functionality and integration. These sized firms are also more heavily concerned with updating their outdated user interfaces, an important factor in raising employee productivity and efficiencies.
Other issues include requirements of expansion, pressure from trading partners, compliance with regulation and even disastrous events, but overall companies looking at ERP implementations are primarily seeking "low cost options that minimise risk".
Risk and cost in combination imply a concern for return on investment, but Aberdeen's surveys show that fewer than 25 per cent of respondents consistently estimate ROI to cost estimate ERP projects, and 20 per cent or less measure the actual post-implementation costs and gains to calculate ROI.
In contrast, "best in class companies are on average 88 per cent more likely to estimate ROI before initiating projects and are 130 per cent more likely to measure ROI after project completion. As a result, these best performing companies produce, on average, 93 per cent more improvement across a variety of metrics such as cost reductions, schedule performance, headcount reduction or redeployment and quality improvements. "
The reality is that minimising risk with an ERP implementation is an achievable result and, by minimising risk, costs should also be kept under control. By following a formal process of charting the reasons for your implementation, assessing the various offerings from your current supplier and, importantly, from suppliers who might be new to you, and checking off against the various criteria for selection, an ERP implementation need not be a nightmare; in fact, it could prove to be the instigator of quantifiable benefits for all concerned.
Specific success markers
Getting down to brass tacks, there are a number of key aspects of an ERP system that need to be addressed, both prior to any decision to move to such a system and certainly as part of selection criteria. Near the top of the list is total cost of ownership, which incorporates:
Software and implementation costs;
Costs associated with any interfaces or system modifications;
All costs associated with system communications;
Costs associated with employing additional or specialised staff; and
Annual costs for system upgrades and helpline support.
Other specific areas of consideration that will impact on the success or otherwise of your ERP program include:
Functionality;
Ease of use;
Integration capabilities;
Ease and speed of implementation;
Ability to tailor functionality without programming; and
Software licence price.
Added to this, or overarching these considerations, is return on investment. Whether and how quickly you achieve this is dependent on many factors, not least the rigour and realism applied to the assessment of current circumstances and the contribution made by the ERP system as outlined in initial business cases. An article as far back as the European Journal of Information Systems in 1996 reported on a survey of the 200 largest UK companies that found that 47 per cent openly admitted to overstating the benefits to get approval for IT investments.
But wishful thinking and creative accounting aside, these are all relevant considerations. (And in future articles, covering total cost of ownership, selection criteria, best and worst practices, and maximising ROI, we will look at them in more detail. ) But it should be noted that the level and mix of these factors and how successfully they are achieved is specific to individual sets of circumstances, including size and type of organisation, intended purpose, individual business priorities and, of course, budget.
The big picture
The overriding consideration that affects all organisations, large or small, regardless of industry sector or even of budget, is alignment with the business objectives of your organisation.
Jerry Luftman and Rajkumar Kempaiah of the Stevens Institute of Technology suggest ("An update on business-IT alignment", September 2007) that the issue of achieving IT-business alignment was first documented in the late 1970s and was in the top 10 IT management issues from 1980 through 1994, as reported by the Society for Information Management. Since 1994 it has consistently been issue #1 or #2.
Nonetheless, it has proved to be an elusive target. Luftman and Kempaiah suggest a number of reasons for this, including that, while IT might be aligned with the business, business is rarely aligned with IT. They also add that organisations have often looked for a 'silver bullet', whether technological solution or improved communications, as well as improved governance to identify and prioritise projects, resources and risks. Another reason they suggest for missing the alignment target has been the lack of an effective tool to gauge the maturity of IT-business alignment.
On this last point, they suggest a set of six components that indicate (if not mandate) alignment maturity: Communications - exchange of ideas, knowledge and information between IT and business; Value - balanced measurements to demonstrate the contributions of information technology and the IT organisation in terms that both business and IT understand;
Governance - who has authority to make IT decisions and set IT priorities;
Partnership - including IT's role in defining business strategies, the degree of trust and how each perceives the other's contribution;
Scope and architecture - IT's provision of flexible infrastructure, evaluation of emerging technologies, driving business process change, and delivery of customised solutions internally and externally; and
Skills - HR practices of hiring and retention, encouragement of innovation, developing individuals' skills, and the organisation's readiness for change, capability to learn and ability to leverage new ideas.
Interestingly, they say that "business executives score alignment maturity higher than IT executives". In other words, it is the IT side of the business that feels most that alignment is not being achieved. Whether your organisation complies with these suggestions - and it should be added that sometimes these factors can be seen as reflections of alignment maturity as opposed to stepping-stones for achieving that heightened state - any IT implementation, especially one as significant as ERP, should keep all of these factors top of mind.
Supply chain criteria
Many ERP systems are implemented as part of the supply chain process of an organisation. Here, again, the above success markers are relevant, but Tim Payne of Gartner ("Supply chain and IT strategies must align around five key themes", August 2007) suggests that "enterprises should focus on five technology areas - business process agility, data management, analytics and performance management, collaboration, and sensory networks - as the sources of technology-enabled supply chain innovation".
Payne says "focusing on these technology areas will give the IT organisation more credibility as an ongoing participant in the dialogue [with the supply chain organisation]“. He goes on to recommend:
Periodic demonstrations of new technology capabilities, coupled with the co-development of supply chain initiatives, as new capabilities arise in these areas;
Developing a plan for incorporating new infrastructure components that are needed to support innovation areas; and
Evaluating the supply chain IT strategies and SCM vendor-sourcing criteria with the supply chain organisation for conformance and alignment based on the five key themes and related discussions, adjusting IT and sourcing strategies to address perceived gaps.
All well and good. But, despite the best planning and setting of firm criteria, there is always the issue of compromise – that such an important and far-reaching a system as an ERP will not perfectly match your organisational set-up. The Aberdeen report suggests that “if your business processes were developed over time – in an unstructured way – the possibility exists that no ERP system will match exactly. Search out ERP solution providers with customers in your industry, evaluate the fit, and balance the need to adapt your business processes to conform with the software against aligning the software to your processes. While some customisation of software may be necessary, (only 11 per cent of respondents have zero customisation) it adds expense and effort to the initial implementation, and the complexity of future upgrades. ”
In other words, if you bend a little to accommodate the ERP, while still maintaining your markers of success, you will find that the ultimate payback is a system that works well with an organisation in sync with itself.
It is important overall, therefore, to look at all options, and that includes a range of suppliers, to assess the issues, drivers and pain points that you may have been facing in the past, and that you might be looking to deal with or, hopefully, avoid in the future to ensure the best fit for your organisation.
The next article in this series will look at “Managing the total cost of ownership – What you need to know”.
IBS Australia develops ERP solutions, ERP Systems and business management supply chain software for inventory management systems, manufacturing ERP software, business intelligence systems and integration ERP software.
Peter Clarke will present on ERP Systems at the Gartner 2008 ITxpo, 11-14 November to be held in Sydney, Australia
References:
?Jutras, C. , and Barnett, R. , “The total cost of ERP ownership in large companies”, Aberdeen Group, July 2008
?Jutras, C. , and Dalle Tezze, H. , “When replacing ERP – size matters”, Aberdeen Group, June 2007
?Jutras, C. , Trost, J. , and Dalle Tezze, H. , “Taking the ERP plunge for the first time”, July 2007
?IBS, “5 things you should know about total cost of ownership (TCO) for ERP systems”, IBS Australia, March 2008
?IBS, “6 essential considerations when selecting an ERP system”, IBS Australia, February 2008
?Luftman, J. , and Kempaiah, R. , “An update on business-IT alignment: ‘A line’ has been drawn”, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol 6 No 3, September 2007
?Payne, T. , “Supply chain and IT strategies must align around five key themes”, Gartner Research, August 2007
?Ward, J. , Daniel, E. , and Peppard, J. , “Building better business cases for IT investments”, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol 7 No 1, March 2008
?Ward, J. , Taylor, P. , and Bond, P. , “Evaluation and realization of IS/IT benefits: an empirical study of current practice”, European Journal of Information Systems (4), 1996, pp 214-225 (as cited in Ward et al, 2008).


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You want to open an online shop and are you looking for a freeware shopping cart? Then you can search Google by free ecommerce software, but don’t think that paid software is better than the free one since this often is builded by communities of programmers that work always for its improvement: a good example of this is the OsCommerce software that as others has been released with open source license and that can be modified also by you that maybe have created a new feature and want to share with others, some sofware houses have released their software as open source as they can have a greater diffusion getting in this way free advertising.

OsCommerce is the most famous ecommerce software and freely downloadable from its site www. oscommerce. com, it offers many features: besides managing an unlimited quantity of products and categories it also allows to contact customers through email or newsletter and to have statistics about sales and advertising on the website; it features several payment and delivery systems alongwith taxes according the selected country, not least is the multilingual support that this software offers. As most of the software is written in PHP and it needs a MySQL database.

Prestashop is a very powerful ecommerce software that has the features seen before for OsCommerce alongwith powerful features like search engines friendly urls, SMS sending and newsletter sending, affiliate program, discounted items and offers. It is multilingual too and needs PHP and MySQL database to work. For further informations see their website at prestashop. com.

Because using Mambo or Joomla VirtueMart is a powerful e-commerce solution that combines perfectly the CMS, so this software, you need that when you download the Joomla Joomla k & # XF6 can; runs. org and installation is simple because there is only one part: the essential features of the online shop, and you can download the VirtueMart. net. Joomla needs PHP and MySQL database server.

Zen Cart is the last software we talk about and it’s downloadable from zencart. com, it has basic features with a focus on advertising management, offers and discounted items and newsletters sending. Written in PHP needs a MySQL database, good chose is to install it on an Apache ( Linux ) server.

As you have seen these softwares are released under open source license and so you can modify them to meet your requirements, you can contribute to their developments too. They are good softwares and will surely meet your requirements. Visit PubblicitAdvertising to boost your online sales: PubblicitAdvertising


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Introduction

Choosing shopping cart software can turn into a tough job due to the large number of e-commerce solutions available on the market. Overall, it’s almost impossible to say which product is the best one since their feature richness, pricing, flexibility and the range of extra services vary to a great extent.

Therefore, buying the right product which fits into your goals can save a lot of time and effort, while a mistake may turn into extra costs, additional months of work or even cause starting the whole project from scratch.

There are several key factors which should be considered while picking the right solution. In this article, I’ll try to outline the most important steps that definitely should not be missed. The tactics described below may be varied according to your goals, however, following this advice will be useful in the decision-making process as a whole.

Key groups of factors

Who you are

In my opinion, the first thing you should ask is the role he’s going to play in the online store functioning process. The key factor of this role (at least for small and medium businesses) is the level of a person’s technical knowledge.

In most cases, technology is an issue for store owners, managers and administrators. Since each store needs its own unique design, functionality and storefront design along with the initial setup and server administration, you should clearly understand how these services could be purchased and what the manufacturer has to offer. Another important issue for this target group is the ease of administration and usage of basic functions.

Another group of users are web developers and designers who are technically skilled and usually maintain the store by themselves or develop e-commerce solutions for their clients (which usually involves complex code changes and development of extra functionality). For these people, the most important factors are: the quality of code, the ease of customization and add-ons implementation and flexibility of storefront design.

Types of shopping carts

All shopping cart solutions can be divided into two large groups: hosted and distributed.

Hosted carts are usually provided in the same manner as hosting services, which means that a customer has several predefined plans/packages (varying in number of products, monthly bandwidth, number of features, etc) to choose from. The pricing structure is also based on regular (monthly or yearly) fees. A hosting platform is provided directly from the manufacturer and the cart is usually activated without any actions needed from a client.

Hosted shopping carts are managed through the administration area which provides the interface to manage product catalog (add, remove items and edit their properties), define and change prices and so on. The storefront design can usually be altered by modifying templates, however, the access to the source code for hosted solutions is usually limited and it’s not always possible to modify the functionality.

Distributed solutions are sold at a fixed price (one-time fee for a lifetime license) as a software package which should installed on any compatible server chosen by a customer. After the initial setup, the store can also be managed using the administration area.

Usually such products come with source code and thus can be modified or extended to suit your needs. However, such modifications require good technical and programming knowledge (or working with those that have those skills).

Overall, hosted carts are often preferable for store owners as more easy to use and administer while web programmers, designers and developers mostly choose distributed solutions due to their flexibility.

Additional services

While most shopping cart features can often be used right out of the box, it’s important to note that in most cases online stores require some additional professional services.

For example, e-commerce software may come with a number of pre-installed design templates, but a serious store owner would usually have its own unique store look or integrating it’s existing design into the storefront. Also, since it’s impossible for an ecommerce product containing each and every possible feature or working the way which is totally suitable for everyone, a shopping cart manufacturer providing custom programming service is a good option in case you’re planning to implement some extended functionality.

Another option worth checking is whether it’s possible to get a fully-compatible hosting solution (since shopping carts usually have significant server-side requirements due to their complexity) and technical support (in case you need consultations or assistance in problem resolution).

Integration with external systems

Ecommerce software should not be treated as a standalone product, but rather as a solid ground for interaction between various components.

Not all operations are performed within the shopping cart engine. Most often, external services are used for payment processing, real-time shipping rates calculation, order processing systems, affiliate and statistics software, product directories and so on.

Thus, the richness of integration allows store owners to have a wider choice of services for their online business.

Technical support, forum & third-party solutions

Objection technical support is another important factor that you are not alone in its problems and to the left, so it is necessary to help, you can be sure of the answer for the V & # xF5 i solution, get a guaranteed solution for a reasonable period of time.

Support from different manufacturers may vary the type and price. Because the seller’s basket, technical support is often based on pay-per-incident or annual / monthly flat fee agreement. Free technical support e-commerce solutions are relatively rare and not always effective or timely.

Forum activity is also a good indicator since it can be a good, free source of knowledge and assistance from experience software users.

In addition, it is advisable to check if third-party vendors offer modules or services related to a chosen e-commerce product to ensure that you will have a decent choice of extra solutions.

Tips and advice for research

Need

First of all, before proceeding with the actual product research, I’d advise that you collect the list of key features which are necessary for your upcoming online store. Such a checklist will allow you to ensure that all (or most) of them are present while examining features lists for chosen candidates.

Looking in search engines using relevant queries

Next, you may proceed with picking products for comparison. To find the most popular solutions, start searching in Google/Yahoo/MSN using relevant search phrases characterizing the product, like “shopping cart software”, “ecommerce solution”, “online store builder” etc.

For each query, pick products from top ten or top twenty search results. Visit their websites, compare product features and services presented there, pricing and any other information that you may consider relevant.

Looking for reviews and comments on forums and directories

For each product in your list, you would surely be interested to know what others have to say. In this case, independent sources provide valuable additions to official information from software vendors.

Most likely, product profiles along with customer reviews can be found on large script and software libraries like HotScripts, Freshmeat and Download. com. Also, check out some comparison sites, for example, Epinions and Shopping-Cart-Reviews. com. Also, you may search through archives or start a new thread with your questions at popular IT forums, like SitePoint or WebmasterWorld.

Contacting sales department with your questions

Finally, I’m sure that for your short list of solutions, some questions may still remain. This is a good reason to contact a vendor’s sales team to find out their responses. Do not hesitate to do it, since the quality of feedback and attention to you as a potential client is worth checking before you actually proceed with the purchase.

Conclusion

Choosing shopping cart software may not seem easy since it involves significant effort from a serious customer. However, the rewards for the effort is obvious: you get a product which fits into your goals and allows you to concentrate on sales and marketing without worrying about the technical side. Moreover, as a client, you get to know the software vendor before buying a product and ensure that the technical side can be handled without a problem.

As a possible option, I’d like to suggest that you take a look at ecommerce products from the company I work for, Qualiteam Software. We are the makers of two PHP shopping carts, X-Cart and LiteCommerce. Both of our solutions come with an open source code and can be used both as ready out-of-the-box shopping cart solutions and powerful shopping cart engines for a customized web shop. We also provide the whole range of extra services, including (but not limited to): shopping cart hosting, e-commerce web site design, custom development, installation services & 24/7 technical support.

Good luck in your research.


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To run a successful online business or internet marketer has a few tools are needed. Value of the brand name software tools are often too expensive, especially when every dollar counts. Fortunately, there are alternatives to the big names of the software. These alternatives may meet their needs, and they are absolutely free. FTP Utilities Everyone needs an FTP program, right? FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. This is a Firefox add-on. It starts in a new tab directly to the Firefox browser, and FTP browser. notes. Mozilla. org/en-US/firefox/addon/684AutoMailer Marketers must manage their e-mail lists. Instead of having to pay a monthly fee for a service such as aweber. com is here for free (GNU license) you can install PHP script. Pommo is versatile mass mailing software. Add to mailing list on its web site, or to arrange a separate post. Unique features such as the ability to post your subscribers set it apart from sub-alternatives. Source Forge. net / projects / Pommo / anti-virus software that you can not really afford to be without some of the online anti-virus work. ClamWin Free Antivirus program is designed for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 and Vista. ClamWin Free Antivirus with easy installer and open source. You can download and use it absolutely free. ClamWin. Utility comZIP you absolutely zip utility to work online. 7-Zip is an open source zip utility software. Most of the source code is available for GNU LGPL license. You can use 7-Zip on any computer, including a computer trade organization. You do not need to register or pay the 7-Zip. 7-Zip. orgSpreadsheet and you will never use a word processing spreadsheets and word processors. Open Office. 3 Valley’s leading open source office software suite for text processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and much more. Is to replace the Microsoft Office application, and can even Microsoft Office files. Open Office. orgAdobe PDF generator in Adobe PDF-format is everywhere on the Internet. PDFCreator easily creates PDF from any Windows program. Use it as a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application. Source Forge. net / projects / pdfcreatorVideo Capture Utility If you need to make a video? These days more and more tutorials are in video format. Jing is a free program to record video of what you do or see what you get. Concept of Jing is always ready for a program that instantly captures and shares images and video … a computer somewhere. jingproject. comGraphics Want an alternative to very expensive as the editor of Photoshop? Paint. NET works in a free image and photo editing software for Windows computers. It includes an intuitive and innovative user interface that supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects and a number of useful and performance; HIGEN tools. getpaint. netPhoto Editor GIMP is the GNU Image Processing Program. It is a freely distributed software for such tasks photo retouching, image composition and image processing. It operates in many operating systems in multiple languages. Gimp. orgEncryption Free Open Source Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista / XP, Mac OS X and Linux. Truecrypt. valley


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Bespoke software or custom software is a type of software developed specifically for the custom requirements of a specific organization or function. It is particularly used when there is no \”off-the-shelf\” (also called as COTS software) choice available. Custom software development services do not generally target bespoke software to the mass market, but create it for organizations, companies and business entities.

Some governments and companies pay for bespoke software for project managing or budget managing. For example: commercial software products for commercial websites or business databases for governments. Non-commercial development of software is used in open source or academic circles.

Advantages of Custom or Bespoke Software:

It is specifically designed for specific business requirements. It can be tailored through custom software programming to fit an organization\’s operational needs.

Custom software is created to have an easy interface with other software, thus providing a fully integrated IT infrastructure to the business entity.

It is easier and intuitive to use and does not contain unnecessary facilities.

One of the most important aspects is its flexibility as compared to packaged software. Custom software can be changed and modified over time as per the changes in business requirements.

Good software development services add value to your company by suggesting useful alternatives and acting as a useful source of advice and information.

Disadvantages of Bespoke software

If the software is not developed through professional custom software programming, it can be full of bugs, and can be unreliable and unstable.

Since the software is customized as per your large business needs, the cost may be higher than packaged software.

Not having the source code of the software can have you exposed and dependent on developers. Make sure to choose a developer who provides the right source code.

Although there are some drawbacks, bespoke software is quite economic compared to readymade software because it can be developed on an increasingly small scale. Thus, a cost-effective development of software can be benefitted by smaller companies, charities and even individuals.


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In recent years, numerous pre-built open source content management systems have emerged as viable alternatives to costly proprietary products or custom-built solutions.

Easy to install, simple to use alternative, convenience, scalability, and very low cost, and perhaps some of the advantages of Open Source Content Management.

To understand the open source content management systems, knowledge of the Enterprise Content Management is a first criterion, since it is consistently a top-ten initiative of CIO’s in the Fortune 1000 and open source content management system is very much related to this ECM.

ECM (Enterprise content management) is a broad term and it implies the acquisition and management of both structured and unstructured content that is dispersed across a number of different repositories, often described as “information silos”.

It is a widely-recognized IT-industry term for software technology that enables organizations to create/capture, manage/secure, store/retain/destroy, publish/distribute, search, personalize, and present/view/print any digital content (e. g. pictures/images, text, reports, video, audio, transactional data, catalog, code).

Many Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems include WCM capabilities.

WCM (web content management) in turn is the management of both structure and unstructured content that is delivered over the Internet, typically via a web site. Web Content Management includes content creation, site management, workflow, access control, and delivery.

With the advent of the new content architectures, the need for replication, federation and decentralized authority has become of utmost necessity. They are allowing each department of the organization to plan for their own needs and to utilize existing hardware at a fraction of the costs.

For this we need to have a proper content management system which is nothing but a system used to manage the content of a Web site.

The content management system is sometimes a web application used for managing websites and web content though in many cases, content management systems require special client software for editing and constructing articles.

The market for content management systems remains fragmented, with many open-source and proprietary solutions available.

Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA).

CMA deals with creation, modification, and removal of content from a Web site without needing the expertise in the relevant fields by the content manager or author.

Our interest lies on this content management application (CMA) part which is the other name of open source web content management or opencms which helps to create and manage complex websites easily without knowledge of html.

It refers to a range of technologies and techniques, including portal systems and web-based groupware.

Complex Intranet, Extranet and Internet sites can be quickly and cost-effectively created, maintained and managed by these effective technologies.

Also, complete websites with highly customized layouts and interactive functionality based on Java, JSP, XML and other technology can be created by open source web content management software available in the market.

There are so many organizations that offer true Open Source Enterprise Content Management services- Open Source Document Management, Collaboration, Records Management, Knowledge Management, Web Content Management and Imaging.

Using the open source model those organizations make enterprise content management affordable for many applications that were not possible before.

Web Application Platform, Software License, Stability and Development Activity, User Community, Documentation and Source Code, Web Standards and Accessibility and Suitability and Usability are some of the reasons why you should have open source content management systems for the growth of the company itself.

If you choose wisely, an open source CMS can provide a stable, flexible and cost-effective system that is well-suited for your content management needs.

Finally it gives you the liberty to stay in control of your content management solution.


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As we started the project of the electronic auction PoloMercantil. com, we knew that the proprietary software costs would be too high for our financial resources. Our only option then was to make use of Open Source Code softwares. Read More

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Present day Business to Business (B2B) demands automating supply chain management systems with business to business (B2B) partners especially when global sourcing is heating up backed by import and export driven economy. Automating Business to Business – B2B, helps integrate your back end seamlessly with those of your sourcing partners. As business to business- B2B- automation is relatively new, those who implement it to promote their import/export or global sourcing operations, as the case may be, they are likely to leave their competition far behind quickly. Read More

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