Re: RoadMap Question

[Luke <..hidden..>]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008, Stroller wrote:

> >> 3)  Task tracking (i.e. sales opportunities, etc)
> >> 4)  Appointment Tracking
> >>
> >> 1.3 will do the first two quite well.  It will not do everything that
> >> people want from a "complete" CRM without some additional  
> >> extensions to
> >> the database.  I am sure these will come in the form of add-ons later
> >> (any volunteers?) but they are not there now and there are no current
> >> pkans to add scheduling and task tracking to the financial core of  
> >> the
> >> application.
> >
> > Well I can easily add the data structure for three and four.
> 
> The question is whether this is desirable.
> Does LedgerSMB wish to compete with fully-functional CRMs?

Given that other financial aps are doing so, if it wants to compete at 
all, it really should do so in this area.

I know, back when my company was selling SQL-Ledger services, the most 
often voiced complaints related to the lack of a PostBooks style GUI 
interface, and the lack of "real" CRM features.  Of these, the latter was 
the most troublesome, and contributed to the loss of a very large future 
contract for us.

> For task & appointment tracking I use iCal on my notebook / desktop  
> machines, and am likely to look at Apple's iCal server - which is  
> free & open-source - in the near future. Unless you're planning an  
> "Exchange killer" then I find appointment tracking to be an  
> undesirable feature in Ledger SMB.

There is a marketing theory which says that for every one additional thing 
a customer can get from you, and for which they don't have to go to 
someone else, your ability to retain them as customers increases 
disproportionately.

The corollary would be, that for every additional feature in the related 
field which LedgerSMB can offer to its users, the less likely they become 
to look else ware to solve their problems.  For every accounting, CRM, ERP, 
etc., feature you can think of, there is a blackbox solution from the 
closed source market, which integrates with blackbox solutions from other 
closed source vendors.  Until we can achieve that level of integration, we 
will never be serious competition except to a relative handful of users 
who don't need that functionality, and never expect to expand to the point 
of needing it; or to those who are willing to do the extra work of 
finding solutions which work hand in hand with LSMB, but which don't 
supersede LSMB.  It is a rare business person who will be that dedicated 
to a particular application, especially with things like TinyERP on the 
market.

So for those reasons, I vote for implementing every CRM feature that is 
feasible.  Or, at least, for putting the infrastructure in place, so that 
somebody can develop the necessary external modules, and then package a 
more complete solution for those who want it.

I should think, however, that with the new entity relationship system, the 
complexity of the interface should be manageable, if CRM features can be 
disabled if not desirable, as can most of the program's other features.

Luke