It seems like yesterday that I went independent , and now I turn around to find that it will be five years next month. Time flies eh? Even though I’m proud of lasting this long (especially in the Dublin market) and am probably enjoying it more than ever , there’s always a lot to learn - both on the technology and business side of things.

Perhaps one of the best articles I’ve see about the process of going independent is at angrycoder.com
He’s dot-net focussed , but a lot of what he says still holds true for Java/J2EE people. He’s especially good at describing the marketing side of things , where is where a believe a lot of IT people still fall down.

80% of Java projects end up build the same thing over and over (Web-Java-Database).

There’s frameworks out there (e.g. Struts , Spring and Hibernate) to reduce the effort , but Compiere goes one step further - it gives you a complete ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution in a box , which you can then customize for your end client.

Compiere is very good ,as befits a project that is consistently in the top 10 on sourceforge. So , if you have any interest in Java and Oracle , you should check it out at www.compiere.org. Worked with this product in my days with firstpartners.net in Dundalk , Ireland , and good as it was then , the product has matured a lot more (included Database independence)