I use SugarCRM and I love it ... There isn't a business feature in
SugarCRM that an RPG programmer couldn't write with one keyboard tied behind
their back.
But surely the point is Joe that they _didn't_ or at least they didn't and
place it in the public domain and offer maintenance service. i5
applications of that type cost big $ "mid-level" or not. Same applies for
Help desk software, BBS, wikis, etc. None of them mission critical for most
people, but for sure "nice to have's" and the few i5 apps in this arena are
not cheap.
By the way - you introduced the notion into the discussion that applications
had to be "mid-level" or above before they had utility. I'm just happy to
see the base of modern applications on the box extended.
As to the language issues, I'm not going to get into the semantics of that -
we already know we won't agree so there's little point. It does however
seem to me that Zend and others have taken giant strides in making PHP a
more robust business-oriented language and that they are continuing to do
so.
For those i5 users unwilling or unable to dive into the J2EE/Java/JSP/App
Server world, PHP offers easy access to a world of modern features such as
web services. For example:
<?php
$QuoteClient = new
SoapClient("
http://services.xmethods.net/soap/urn:xmethods-delayed-quotes.ws
dl");
$IBM_Price = $QuoteClient->getQuote("ibm");
print("Current IBM stock price is \$$IBM_Price");
?>
Wonderful as it is, even Scott Klement's HTTP API can't get use a web
service quite that easily!
Jon Paris
Partner400
www.Partner400.com
midrange.com
