Evolution vs. Interprise Suite

[SidePocket]

I am researching all-in-one business management software for a micro service business (commercial real estate appraisal) with less than 10 employees, no manufacturing, no inventory and no ecommerce website needs.

I have narrowed my search down to Evolution (www.darwinproductions.net) and Interprise Suite (www.interprisesuite.com).

Most of the comments in this forum's threads concerning these two newcomers to this CRM/ERP/Accounting/BPM space are somewhat dated.

I am interested in anyone that is actually using either of these currently in their businesses, or who has at a minimum at least demo'd trial versions of one or the other recently (last six months) in their current versions.

Any real-world knowledge or recommendations about these two products specifically would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Calvin

[joshuak]

You may also want to check out PostBooks:

http://www.xtuple.com/postbooks

This one is intended to be free, and they sell support to boot at prices less than Interprise. I'm not sure about Everest as they don't publish their prices. The package looks solid, though I haven't yet had a chance to evaluate all the nooks and crannies....

Cheers,
-J

[SidePocket]

Hi!

Thanks for your reply!

Do you have direct knowledge or experience with either Evolution or Interprise Suite?

Can you share how your suggested alternative compares with either of these two programs?

Any personal knowledge of either Evolution or Interprise Suite would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again!

Calvin

[Gary Harrison]

I guess i'll jump in here...

Probably the best qualified to answer is Jay over at J Good in http://www.jgoodin.com/ as they have purchased Evolution and then Interprise. I mention Jay as he is listed as a happy customer on the evolution site - http://www.darwinproductions.net/whatotherssay.aspx

Best bet is to demo both products and see which one fits your business best. A perfect fit for one business may not be a good choice for yours.

Re Interprise Suite support being more expensive than postbooks:

To clarify - Interprise Suite phone support and maintenance (free updates and upgrades) currently runs about $360/yr per user. Compare this to PostBooks http://www.xtuple.com/pricing

Interprise Solutions Application and Source code training runs $750 for a week – PostBooks is $3000.

http://www.interprisesuite.com/Confe...7_LA_About.htm

http://www.xtuple.org/?q=node/4298

[SidePocket]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your response. I will try to contact Jay.

I have appreciated your other posts in this forum. Obviously you are affiliated with a product in this space; however, you seem to offer fair, balanced advice and do NOT seem focused on simply trying to steer people to your product.

I am a commercial real estate appraiser (service-oriented business), recently incorporated and trying to lay the infrastructure to add 2-3 employees initially and grow that to 12-15 employees in 3 years.

I do not manufacture and, therefore, do not need supply chain/inventory management. I also do not have an ecommerce site in the sense of an online store (I do have a brochure site), so integrating my website with whichever all-in-one product I choose is not important to me. I currently am using QuickBooks Pro 2007 for accounting needs.

What is important to me is systemizing my business with a comprehensive operations manual that documents all of the business processes and systems in my business that can easily be accessed by all my employees.

My intent is to "prototype" my first office (a business franchise prototype as Michael Gerber, author of E-Myth Revisited, would call it), and then roll that out regionally and ultimately nationally. Five to ten year goal would be 100-200 employees in most major markets.

Also important is the ability to have a robust group collaboration tool in terms of projects and related tasks. Document management is a huge need as well.

Obviously, reducing redundant data entry in several disparate software systems I currently have would be extremely helpful and result in increased efficiency and productivity.

I was attracted to Evolution as a comprehensive all-in-one solution, especially their Document Management, Knowledge Base and Project/Task Management features. I felt these would really help me in terms of systemizing my service-oriented business, and, candidly, based on my review of both websites, they looked to have a more extensive feature set in these critical areas to me.

Interprise Suite appears to have perhaps a more robust technology platform and eCommerce capabilities. It also appears that it development team is mostly offshore and perhaps larger in terms of programmers. It looks like a tremendous product, I just wonder if it has similar features in the areas I'm most interested?

I don't know if you can share the main differences as you see them between the two products, both pro and con, in this forum. However, any sort of comparative analysis you could provide this community between Interprise Suite and Evolution would be most welcome I'm sure!

I looked at NetSuite and some of the other solutions; however, they seem geared more for much larger businesses with pricing well above what most micro or small businesses can truly afford. Interprise Suite and Evolution looked the only two products available today with Smart Client technology that are truly affordable for small businesses.

A detailed comparison of the two programs feature sets, strengths and weaknesses would be very useful for a small business owner such as myself.

Thanks again for your reply!

Calvin

[Gary Harrison]

Hi Calvin,

Thank you for the kind words.

Every program mentioned here has their strengths and weaknesses and I believe the best choice is the one who’s strengths are most important to your company. Sometimes that is our product and sometimes its not. If eCommerce is important to you then you may find this blog of interest…
http://www.blueacorn.com/blog/ecomme...ting-to-crawl/

To answer your offshore question, we have offices in the U.S., U.K. and Philippines. Support for the product in the U.K. is done by our U.K. team but most of the rest of the support is done by our Philippine based team (the product is more expensive to U.K. customers). Much has been made about our Philippine support department on the forum here, but our customers love the fact that the support is not rushed and very detailed. Communication is never an issue as they are all native English speakers and college educated. As previously stated, quite a few of our competitors also have their support there such as NetSuite and local support is available from one of our nearly 100 resellers.

I suggest you have the sales teams of the applications you are looking at give you demos of their application. That is probably the fastest way to compare the apples and oranges.

Sincerely,

[SidePocket]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your repsonse. I will be demo-ing both products in the days and weeks to come. Once I have done so, I will try and post a comparative review of their respective feature sets and technical platforms.

Cheers!

Calvin

[InfoSourcing]

Hi SidePocket,

It had been months I visited small business computing forum, anyways I spotted Evolution and Inteprise Suite almost 2 yrs back and had been in touch with vendors to evaluate their product.
Evolution was horrible in 2005/06 its user Inteface was bad and it made Interprise Suite look all the better choice for small business.

But in 2007 there has been tremendous change in both the companies, Evolution has evolved into all-in-one software, their website is much more informative and their product itself has evolved with good user interface and all functionality being plugged in ...

Onto the Interprise Suite, 2006 looked only promises but no real action till mid 2007, but they are getting into full gear now and have integrated all the modules and lots of features being added, it looks promising in 2007-08.

We have been following ERP space for last 10 yrs and would love to do a detailed comparsion with all the competing vendors and will post the link/data here for prospects like you ...

Again what is important is to see when evaluating products are
1. how many customers are live with the solution in what industry they are,
2. how much does it cost and how happy they are,
3. whether they have a active resellers/VAR's program

all this will tell you how a good a product is .... hope this gets you started ...

[SidePocket]

Hi Infosourcing!

Thanks for your comments regarding Evolution (www.darwinproductions.net) and InterpriseSuite (www.interprisesuite.com).

I am still leaning towards Evolution as I believe they have more useful functionality for my type of business; however, I still need to more fully demo their product as well as InterpriseSuite's solution.

I have uncovered two other business management software programs in this space that have pretty robust solutions as well:

+ ManageMore business management software (www.managemore.com)
+ e-manage (www.marketplacesoftware.biz)

Do you have any knowledge of either of these. Has anybody else on these forums actually used Evolution, InterpriseSuite, ManageMore or e-manage in their businesses?

Again, I am a small commercial real estate appraiser, looking to bring on employees, systematize my business and create a business franchise prototype office of 12-15 people, and then expand regionally and nationally.

I am not a manufacturer, do not need supply chain management, have no inventory, nor an e-commerce website (store front).

My need is to basically consolidate data from multiple disparate programs I'm using now to run my business (Outlook, Quickbooks, Excel, etc.) to avoid redundant data entry.

I also need strong project/task management, document management and knowledge base functionality for group collaboration on appraisal assignments with appraisal staff and administration support personnel.

Evolution looks perfect for this, but I want to make sure I have covered all the bases in my research.

A huge item for me is cost and the "tens of thousands of dollars" outlays for more mid-size / enterprise products like Everest Software is just not feasible for me at this stage in my business.

Any input from other micro-business owners using business management software is much appreciated!

Thanks!

Calvin

[pizzaovens]

Duplicate Reply please refer to other post, also the reply was not specific about this topic which is "Inteprise Vs Evolution" comparison.

[InfoSourcing]

Hi SidePocket,

I haven't evaluated other 2 software's you mentioned, however it looks like Evolution is a good fit for you since you don't deal with inventory and its more of document management and CRM which Evolution defintely has those features better than others.

I have also prepared comparison of ERP products that includes Evolution and you can read about it by visting this link
http://www.info-sourcing.com/compari..._softwares.htm

Regards

[wedwsd]

Nice Share