Competition
The competitors of ADempiere ERP are the closed source ERP systems, targeted to small and medium sized enterprises. These can be further sub-divided among ERP suites which are marketed globally like Navision, and country-specific ERP suites which are produced by local software companies and are much more adapted to each country's special conditions. The open-source ERP's are Substitutes, rather than competitors.
World-class ERP Suites
- SAP SAP is not a direct competitor, because it targets mostly Large enterprises, which ADempiere is not able to serve.
A feature for feature comparison among various accounting/ERP suites is available at Wikipedia. The major competitors are SAP and Microsoft, but there is a very large number of smaller world-class ERP suites, diferentiated by price first and then by features, some of them targeted at niche markets (shipping, e-commerce etc) while there is an even larger number of country-specific ERP suites, which are much better adapted to local legal and tax conditions. The more regulated the market, the more it favors local suites. The proprietary international ERP software market is mature (judging from recent mergers and acquisitions), which means competition turns from features to price. This probably means that all major players have already more than enough features that appeal to their customers. Besides, the software industry has large overheads but minimal product costs, so it can afford to undersell. On the other hand, there is a distinct lack of implementors who can develop as well, since this is rarely needed due to its high cost.
