Free and Open Source ERP - distinction, direction, co-existence and potentials

With the proliferation of commercial Packaged ERP (P-ERP) systems in today’s enterprises, manyreasons exist to look for alternatives in the quest for innovation, business development, cost, agility anddependency. P-ERP provides a solid and proven business support, an ecosystem of consultancies andintegrators, senior management having gained confidence over the last 20 years, and commerciallybased support and development. This leaves companies with still more expensive P-ERP costs, still lessflexibility, a still harder push to lose possibilities for differentiation, still more homogenised businessprocesses, and absence of flexibility to change suppliers and systems. FOS-ERP offers an answer tomost of these questions, but is facing issues in market penetration. In this chapter, barriers of FOS-ERPare reviewed; proposals are made on how to manage barriers. An approach managing co-existence ofP-ERP and FOS-ERP is suggested. Concluding, FOS-ERP is seen as a strong option for enterprises inthe future, but a clear understanding and distinction must be the offset, barriers needs to be managed,and optimal co-existence will in most cases be the realistic scenario