Openbravo: Small Conference, Big Partner Event

At first glance, the forthcoming Openbravo World Conference is a small open source event with modest goals. But take a closer look, and you’ll see the open source IT channel’s continued emergence. In fact, even IBM and Oracle are joining Openbravo’s party. Here’s the scoop.

Openbravo World Conference, scheduled for April in Barcelona, is expected to attract roughly 300 partners and customers.

For progressive VARs, Openbravo represents an opportunity to specialize in open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) and POS (point of sale) software. Openbravo was recently ranked No. 10 in The VAR Guy’s Open Source 50 report, which tracks the world’s most promising open source partner programs.

The More the Merrier

Now here are some interesting twists: Oracle and IBM are scheduled to sponsor the event, according to Openbravo CEO Manel Sarasa. Plus, top executives from Alfresco (ranked No. 12 in The Open Source 50) and Pentaho (No. 13) are scheduled to attend and present at Openbravo World Conference, Sarasa adds.

Alfresco positions itself as the open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint. Pentaho, the fast-growing provider of business intelligence software, recently launched a Gold Partner Program. Some solutions providers are activating Pentaho’s software in Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Setting Expectations

Of course, The VAR Guy needs to offer equal time to the traditional IT channel.

No doubt, major closed-source applications from Oracle and SAP AG remain far more popular than open source ERP alternatives. But when it comes to disruptive software, it’s hard for The VAR Guy to ignore Openbravo and the company’s forthcoming world conference.

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