“Market for Linux based solns is growing at a very high rate”

Aparna lal

Talking about ERP, the names that throw up at once are SAP, Oracle, Microsoft etc. However, there are some players who have created a name for themselves in the homegrown product segment for their ERP products, Eastern Software Systems (ESS) is one such company.

Started operations in 1990 by two IT professionals, ESS’ first product was a Hospital Management System, followed by an ERP solution for the SME’s called ebizframe. Today ebizframe is the largest selling Indian ERP in the SME segment of India, and has an installed base and presence in India, Africa, Mauritius, Middle East, S.E. Asia and Latin America.

ESS and ebizframe have many laurels to its credit; ebizframe has been rated among PC Quest’s ‘Top 10 world-class products from India’; ESS Featured among Dataquest’s ‘Top 7 Home-grown Software Brands’; they also have a place among Computerworld India’s ‘Most powerful ERP companies, Most powerful ERP Packages’, to name a few.

CIOL spoke with Anil Bakht, chairman and managing director Eastern Software Systems (ESS), about the product and its features. Excerpts:

ESS’ ebizframe is a very popular product in the ERP segment and has got several recognitions in the homegrown product segment. What are its USPs that gives it an edge over similar products in the market?

‘Ebizframe’ is an Indian software product built for Indian business. We have a thorough understanding of requirements that Indian businesses come up with and therefore, have designed and developed the product in accordance. Precisely why, we do not need to “Indianize” our product like most of our MNC competitors have to. This, infact, can be termed as our biggest USP. This also helps in reducing the time required for implementation—it is much shorter than that required for ERP solutions from MNC companies.

Can you share with us some details about the web-enabled version of ebizframe?

The web-enabled version is a great boon for business as most businesses are geographically dispersed. The data is captured at multiple locations but maybe required at one location only. This ensures that everyone in a business is looking at the same data and taking decisions based on authentic data enables the businesses to grow. It also frees the business from managing technology (hardware, software, networking etc). ebizframe can be hosted at any network provider and can be made available over the Internet on a 24x7 basis.

Recently a Linux version of ebizframe has been released. How is the market for Linux based ERP solutions at present? What according to you would be the future?

The market for Linux based solutions is small, but growing at a very high rate. More and more SMEs are adopting Linux and open source. Since SMEs are cost conscious every lakh of rupees saved helps them improve profitability.

Besides, it has been observed in the recent past that owing to the ever-increasing use of Internet, IT infrastructure are more vulnerable to virus, spyware, trojans, malware and worm attacks by hackers. Linux based servers are less susceptible to such attacks. Besides being more robust, Linux also costs less. This implies fewer breakdowns and significant reduction in downtime of various applications running in an enterprise resulting in higher productivity.

IT managers can spend more time on proactive tasks than fighting virus cleanup fires reactively. The growing use of Linux on mission critical applications (servers) in the developed world has made technology users aware of its myriad benefits. Increasing number of corporate clients have started using Linux for special-purpose servers.

What percentage of the SME market share is with ebizframe?



We do not have an authentic data on ERP implementation by SMEs available as yet. Therefore, it is very difficult to share the exact percentages. However, our numbers indicate that Ebizframe is certainly the leader in terms of customer acquisition in SME market.

Currently your focus is just the SMEs do you have any plans of addressing the big enterprises?

Our focus is on SMEs because they present the largest potential. However, we have some very big and well known enterprise customers as well. Some of the names of repute include Tata, Bluestar, Murugappa Group etc. So, as and when there is a requirement for an enterprise ERP implementation we have the product and offerings for that segment as well.

What are the various verticals your product caters to? Are there any plans of extending it to other verticals, if yes, which ones?

Ebizframe is very strong in the area of discrete manufacturing (auto ancillaries), distribution and retail. It is being currently extended to verticals like chemicals and garment/ textile manufacturers as well.