Re: [tlug] CRM on Linux?

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 05:09:29PM -0700, Gerald Naughton wrote:

>Wondering what TLUGers use to save contact info etc
>that can be share among people  

A lot of of use .mutt_aliases, but we don't share it with
anbody ;-)

If you're looking for CRM software, the only one I know of
for Linux is Compiere:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/compiere/

There could be others, CRM is not something I've looked at
much; "the only one I know of" is not meant to imply "the only
one there is."

If you're more interested in groupware, there are any number of
web-based solutions, just check http://freshmeat.net for
an idea.

There is also Kolab: http://www.kolab.org/

There are several clients for it, including Kontact,
which is kdepim, kmail, and a few other things, rolled
into one via kparts (parts is parts).

The Kolab client aspect of Kontact seems to be not enabled yet
in KDE 3.2.2 (maybe you could compile it yourself to get the
functionality, don't know; I've never looked into it), but
there will supposedly be one coming out before too long that
will have that support.  Perhaps the lack of it is a comment on
current stability of it, I don't know.

The fact that Kolab has native clients for Linux and Windows and it
is [Ff]ree makes it a potential Exchange killer.  However, there is
a great deal of complexity to it, it's not something you just pour
in and have work.  It has its own internally maintained RPM database
that holds packages for its own versions of Postfix, LDAP, etc.,
which it pulls together into an Exchange workalike.

Kolab seems to have been slow to catch on so far, though.  I have
yet to meet anyone who (AFAIK) is actually using it, or has even
tried it.  I've gone as far as downloading the source, but haven't
tried it yet myself, either.

One final comment I would make on the general state of CRM and
groupware in Linux is that there are a ton of grouopware 
projects out there for Linux, but nearly all of them are
web-based.  Kolab is one of the few that is not, and is
possibly the only [Ff]ree one that is not.  At least, it's
the only one I know of that is [Ff]ree and not web-based.

I hope this gives you some idea of where to look and what to
look at.

Jonathan
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