COMPIERE APPOINTS DON KLAISS PRESIDENT AND CEO
Former Oracle Executive to Lead Corporate Transition from Open Source Project to Major Enterprise Solutions Provider
Santa Clara, California (March 13, 2007) – Compiere, Inc., the leading provider of open source business applications, announced today the appointment of Don Klaiss as president and CEO, effective immediately. Klaiss comes to Compiere from Oracle Corporation where he most recently served as senior vice president, applications.
“With more than 1.1 million downloads of our software, Compiere is already the most popular open source ERP project,” said Klaiss. “I am excited about building on this early success as we deliver an entirely ‘new generation’ of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solutions. Our model-driven architecture enables rapid implementation and customization, reducing the costs and risks that prevent many small and medium enterprises from fully embracing ERP and CRM.”
With more than 25 years of senior management experience, Klaiss brings extensive experience building and transforming businesses in the enterprise applications market. He succeeds Jorg Janke as president, though Janke will continue to play an ongoing strategic role as Compiere’s founder and chief technology officer. Janke stated, “I am delighted to have attracted a person of Don’s caliber and vision to lead our company through this period of rapid expansion.”
“I cannot think of a more powerful team than the combination of Jorg’s architectural skills and Don’s proven executive talent in building enterprise application companies,” said Andre M. Boisvert, chairman of Compiere. “I am confident that their collective efforts will culminate in raising the bar on what the industry has already pegged as the next generation business application suite, which has the added benefit of leveraging the open source business model.”
During his 15-year tenure at Oracle, Klaiss was instrumental in growing the company’s enterprise applications software into a multi-billion dollar business. He also developed Oracle’s entire industry-leading suite of manufacturing, supply chain management and CRM service applications, building a 2,500 person applications development organization. Prior to his time at Oracle, Klaiss held senior management positions at numerous technology firms including Ask Computer Systems, Inc., NCA Corporation, Covalent Systems Corporation and Hewlett-Packard.
In an October 2006 AMR Research report titled “The Enterprise Resource Planning Report, 2005-2010,” the supply chain, enterprise applications and infrastructure advisory firm projected the ERP applications market to reach $29B in 2006 and grow at an average of ten percent over the next five years. Klaiss’ appointment marks an important milestone in accelerating Compiere’s ability to address customer demand within the multi-billion dollar market for flexible enterprise applications.
Source: Compiere