If you've been around xTuple for a while, you probably used our Hosted Demo service at one point. While you've always been able to download the xTuple client, and set up your own PostBooks® database locally, many people have found it helpful to use the same client to connect to a hosted instance of their own xTuple Enterprise database. We're pleased to announce the successor to that program — our Free Trial and Cloud 2.0 service.
For the first time, you'll be able to evaluate both the Desktop client, AND the new Mobile Web client — on the same database, hosted on one of several cloud servers around the world (you'll have the chance to pick the data center nearest you). Actually, you'll have TWO databases — the familiar Demo database with the ProDiem toy truck company, and a Quickstart database that you can use to start setting up your own company from scratch.
Best of all, you'll be able to move seamlessly from the Free Trial QuickStart to a live production database in the new, expanded xTuple Cloud service. You can go live with an xTuple Cloud system with as few as one user, and any Edition of xTuple (PostBooks®, Standard, Manufacturing, or Enterprise).
You'll need the new version 4.0.5 client to take advantage of the new system. And version 4.1, featuring automatic updates to the Desktop client and the Sales module of the Mobile Web client, is just around the corner!
Ned Lilly
In October 2001, Ned co-founded xTuple, originally called OpenMFG, with the aim of bringing the worlds of open platform software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) together to solve the unmet needs of small- to mid-sized manufacturers. In 1999, he was a co-founder of Great Bridge, an early business built around the PostgreSQL database which is also the core technology for xTuple today. Great Bridge was incubated inside Landmark Communications, a mid-sized media company where Ned directed corporate venture investments, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and startup activity. Prior to Landmark, Ned worked for a regional technology group in Washington D.C. and had a brief first career in political media — television, radio and a non-partisan news wire. He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. from George Washington University.