Oracle partner Openbravo, a software developer based in Pamplona, Spain, is pioneering the market for open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) software among small and medium-sized enterprises.

Supported by Oracle Database Express Edition (XE), Openbravo is a fully-featured ERP with a suite of functionalities spanning purchasing, warehousing, project management, manufacturing, sales, financial management, customer relationship management and business intelligence. The company has recently announced availability of version 2.0, aimed at organisations with revenues of EUR 1m-50m.

"Openbravo is a very attractive choice for SMEs because there are no licence fees, which reduces the cost of ownership for a suite of ERP applications by about 30 percent," says Openbravo CEO Manel Sarasa. "Customers also gain the ability to control the evolution of their own enterprise management system, which is increasingly become a strategic asset for them."

Openbravo has developed Spanish- and English-language versions of the software, which supports multi-currency and multi-company accounting. Currently only Spain's accounting and taxation rules are supported, but Openbravo has its eye on the international market. "We're currently working with partners in Europe and Latin America to create localised versions of the software, and we expect to add about 10 new countries by the end of the year," says Sarasa.

Selecting Oracle as the technology platform supporting the ERP suite was a strategic decision. "Our users need the reassurance that the system will fully support them in their daily operations," Sarasa explains. "Therefore we required a professional and solid database that would ensure the level of performance we wanted to offer. Our belief is that the performance offered by Oracle Database is currently unrivalled."

"We are also planning to offer our software as a hosted service in the future, and Oracle's grid computing technologies will give us the scalability we will need to provide that," he added.

Openbravo took advantage of Oracle Database XE, a small-footprint edition of Oracle Database that is free to download, deploy and distribute. "Oracle Database XE meets the needs of our SME users today, and they can easily migrate to the Standard Edition as they grow," Sarasa said.

With a solid portfolio of reference customers building in Spain, including Arrasate and Huesker, Openbravo is now seeking value-added reseller and systems integrator partners to implement and support its software in Spain and further afield.

More information about Openbravo is available at www.openbravo.com. Organisations interested in partnering opportunities with Openbravo should contact the company at partners@openbravo.com.