The results? Alperin can now delve into the open-source code to move quickly on business needs. “We have our own programming staff, and the ability because of that to customize services on our own and respond to customer needs is an advantage,” he says, “so the direct access to the source code is very important.”

Prevention Partners, a maker of prevention program posters, buttons and other health-related signage, had a similar desire for customization when it decided to replace an aging ERP implementation: As the company grew, its Windows-based ERP software could not scale with it and was becoming unreliable, among other faults. “I assumed the Oracles, SAPs and Baans would be out of our price range,” says Scott Rosa, CTO. So he looked for mid-market–oriented vendors.

Rosa found that they were cheaper than the large vendors, but licensing costs were “still six figures”—and that even more money would be spent on customizing whatever it bought. “We didn’t want to spend our limited budget on licensing,” he says. By saving licensing dollars with open-source ERP, he could redirect monies to additional customization efforts—getting a better fit at the end, for the same outlay as commercial software, Rosa says. The company has deployed the open-source WebERP software for its manufacturing arm.

“Flexibility means money to me,” says Rosa. His experience with the company’s previous commercial ERP system made it clear that, no matter its source, ERP software would require significant customization effort.

“We had to build a whole ecosystem around our existing ERP to fill the gaps,” he recalls. “Every business does something outside of what the software has in its business process,” whether that software is commercial or open source, he says, “so if I need to have that customization, I’m going to do it myself.”

Truly, control ranks right up there with costs on the list of CIO concerns regarding ERP. The open-source community, of course, values individual control as a key part of its culture. When Galenicum, a three-year-old supplier of raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry, sought its first ERP system in summer 2006, customization and control were key requirements. The company looked at two commercial applications—SAP Busi¿ness¿One and Microsoft Dynamics—but chose instead the Openbravo open-source ERP software. For COO Erich B¿chen, “the most important factor was that it is easier to customize Openbravo than the other two. SAP and [Microsoft] Dynamics are much more rigid in what they can do, or at least in what their consultants say they can do.”