Business Apps for Linux

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Paul writes “Gram Software is planning to extend its range of Business Management and Accounting Solutions for Linux.

The company reports that demand for its products continues to grow as companies realise that Linux applications need not be limited to highly technical, specialist or web driven projects and that they do not necessarily have to replace all their IT in order to make the most of this liberating and cost reducing new technology.

‘It’s been building for a while but now Linux is really coming out and is starting to show its true potential for mainstream businesses’ said CGram’s Managing Director Emrys Jones. ‘We are seeing more and more interest from companies of all kinds who are keen to explore firstly what Linux is all about and then what it can actually do for them. This is encouraging for us because we’ve been building and selling business applications specifically made for Linux for about five years and we feel we have a good head start on some of the traditional leaders in this area, like Sage and SAP’

CGram already supplies customers in both the UK and Europe with its Linux Business Management and Accounting Software and plans to add two new products to its portfolio during mid 2005.

In addition to its existing Small Business product and Full ERP, the company plans to begin selling a Mixed ERP product that’s expected to include Accounting, Finance, Supply Chain, Sales/CRM and Distribution aimed at medium sized companies that need functionality and flexibility in their business software. ‘Mainly as a result of comments we gathered at the Softworld show at the NEC last year, we’ll be offering a new and attractively priced mid range solution that gives customers a slightly lower level of functionality than the Full ERP product but one that should meet all their needs and one that still has massive scope for flexibility. Companies that use any of our products enjoy the fact that they themselves can change the way the software works quickly, easily and inexpensively to suit their business process and also that they don’t need to throw away all their windows machines to use our software even though they will need a Linux server. We’ll continue to build these features into our software. By using Linux as the product platform we are able to provide people with affordable and flexible software that they can actually change to fit the business from day one – not the other way around. ’ Said Emrys Jones.

He went on ‘The ASP product will be slightly different, we’ll be offering mainly smaller companies the option of paying a monthly fee for a hosted system, which we’ll look after for them and that they can log into. This means that many smaller companies out there could improve their competitiveness by being able to afford, and some maybe for the first time, a comprehensive and hassle free way of automating their accounts, finance and supply chains.’

ENDS

Company Background and Products

CGram Software is a highly innovate and exciting company operating at the leading edge of next generation LinuxTM business technology.

CGram has been successfully delivering complete and fully integrated business management solutions since 1982. It is an experienced company that has a strong record of success and this is evidenced by an impressive client list that has included major blue chip companies and household names alike (such as St Ivel, Abbey National, Johnson’s Controls and Bennett’s Retail).

In 2000 the company made a strategic decision to focus its R&D activity on designing and developing a groundbreaking new product aimed squarely at the then emerging LinuxTM marketplace. The resultant product ‘CGram Business Management Software for LinuxTM is now actively being marketed and successfully sold to clients across the UK, Europe and North America. In a busy and competitive marketplace that has been traditionally led by SageTM and SAPTM, CGram believes it has a real opportunity to compete from a position of strength and to win market share in the truly vast sme segment. This is attributable to the following major reasons.

Firstly, the LinuxTM marketplace has simply taken off. LinuxTM is growing at a faster rate than any other operating system in the world and CGram’s new ERP products are designed to take advantage of this. A report has predicted that more than one in seven ERP servers will be running the open-source operating system by 2007.1

Secondly, CGram’s products are designed to be easy to install, easy to use and easy to manage. Whilst almost any serious vendor would argue that this is also so for their own products, CGram believe that this is especially so for it’s new products, and market feedback would seem to strongly support this belief. CGram also offer customers unusually high levels of support, supporting not just their CGram applications but also their operating systems and associated databases.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, unlike many competitive products CGram’s new products are supplied as fully functional and fully integrated solutions from day one. Companies can use the new product to run almost any area of business operations. This offers customers an affordable and infinitely more attractive option to the situation they find themselves in today where they may have to purchase, integrate and maintain a number of disparate systems each responsible for different business areas (e.g. accounts, crm, production). CGram offers customers the potential to install and run a single comprehensive solution that links everything they do, dramatically reducing IT costs and business process development costs as they do so.

For more information concerning this press release or CGram Software Limited in general please contact Paul Davies on +44 (0) 1792 518 000 or via email pd@cgram.com

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www.cgram.com”