Open source brings an alternative which addresses many of the key problems of both custom and commercial enterprise software. It begins by offering the user a freely available code base as a starting point. The user can try it for free to see if it meets his needs. There is no risk of upfront licensing fees for software that may not work.
If no modifications are required, open source software can be implemented with the same rapid time-to-market as commercial packages. If customizations are required, the user has a head start with an existing code base. Furthermore, he can leverage the expertise of both in-house and open source community developers. An open source project brings with it the domain knowledge and business requirements of many contributing organizations, significantly reducing the specification risk typical of custom software. Open source communities also offer user-developers collaborative help in developing and debugging of his software. The net result is better software in less time.
Why Odoo ?
Odoo is an integrated management software package free including all features to simplify the business management as a whole. The software is licensed under the AGPL, completely free to use and is used by many companies in the world to manage their entire business.
Odoo has a completely modular approach, with a catalog of modules to install. There are thousands of such modules, made by the community and donated as open source, and about two hundred made and maintained by the publisher.