Ubuntu for Small Business

[John Richard Moser]

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My aunt just frantically put together a package of PrintMaster,
Microsoft Money, and Microsoft Windows to create a small management
computer for her franchise business.  I can't come up with an
open-source alternative to Money, although OpenOffice.org (for a skilled
user) can replace PrintMaster with work.

What does anyone think about an Ubuntu for Small Business as a future
Ubuntu subproject?  Resources are probably spread rather thin there with
all of the Ubuntu subprojects like myuBuntu or Ubuntu Server; so this
would probably not become an immediate priority.  For scope though,
something like:

 - Money clone to handle finances
 - POS system (there's 500,000 of them on Sourceforge, are any of them
   any good?)
 - Inventory (possibly in the POS)
 - Service tracker (possibly part of the POS)
 - Customer databasing to look up your old receipts based on your name,
   address, CCN, etc. (possibly in the POS)
 - OpenOffice.org (spread sheets, word documents, etc)

Aside from this, a few things could seed in a small business that may
cross into a large business:

 - SILC or Jabber servers and graphical configuration aids (internal
   instant messaging)
 - Gaim (for use with the internal IM service)
 - E-Mail services with WebMail and secure POP3/SMTP (scailable to
   millions in case the business grows)
 - Employee kiosk (punch clock, etc)

The Empoyee kiosk would be a Web interface to a server supplying the
following:

 - Punchclock
 - Company news (RSS feed aggregated to the page)
 - Daily checklist with assigned, unassigned, completed duties
 - Integrated project management system (like gforge)
 - Webmail interface (integrate with webmail)
 - Forums/bbs (integrate with phpBB?)
 - Company content delivered by the content management system

In essence, UfSB would supply on the face financial programs; inventory
and cash registering; a services tracker in case you have i.e. a repair
or installation (car radio, PC hardware, etc) business; and office
utilities.  It would also bring utilities to set up a back-end
infrastructure for e-mail and company internal instant messaging, as
well as an employee kiosk that provides all the necessary employee
functions such as a punchclock, daily checklist, PM, and a simple
content management system to deliver RSS news and supply static company
content.

A larger business would move onto Ubuntu Server (which I believe is in
Ubuntu's business plan), which would migrate over the IM, E-mail, POS
databases, and employee kiosk.  Replication on this scale is important;
if a 480-location business loses its WAN between store #123 and
Corporate, the POS should still work from a replicated database of
inventory and the punchclock should still track employee punches, and
just sync the changes up and down when the link comes back up.  Each
piece of data is connected to a store; its unique indexer would include
information unique to that store to facilitate this.  Clustering++;

The idea is that a start-up business should basically drop in a CD, wipe
a drive, log in, click on buttons to set up SILC and have connection
information printed out, and enable the Web mail.  This should be a 30
minute set-up task if you've watched someone do it once; or several
hours of fumbling around until it works if not.  It should not require a
trained technician to get it working; being a business man should suffice.

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    Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be
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    new problems waiting out there.
                                                 -- Eric Steven Raymond
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