[GNUe] How great is the effort to use gnue in a start up company

[Thilo Riessner]

Hello,

we are starting a new company, and are discussing about the ERP system to use. 
Our Microsoft/Access IT guy of course favours his well known way to implement 
a very simple ERP solution. But I am very interested in the opportunities, 
gnue offers, and I think, that on the long run, when the demands get more 
complex, gnue will do a better job. 

The actual demand is:
to build a customer database,
to maintain an individual price list for each customer,
to have a catalog with variants (it is for furniture, with different colours, 
parts, and designs for one model)
to make order confirmation,
to write invoices after delivery with individual payment conditions,
to export the invoices for an existing accounting program.

Future demands may be:
to implement a kind of CRM,
to replace the existing accounting software by a corresponding gnue 
application
to implement a purchasing and inventory modul
to make a production plan and purchasing suggestions based on the confirmed 
orders and actual stock.

So, is gnue far enough, to implement these demands, and  stable enough for a 
production system? 
Which type of gnue implementation would you choose (2 tier or 3 tier)? I would 
prefer the 3 tier type with the application server (it sounds really 
powerfull), but on the project website I read (in the mini FAQ if I remember 
right) that 3 tier is not jet stable enough for production systems.

If we decide to use gnue, how long would it take for an experienced access  
guy (the one I mentioned in the beginning) to learn gnue and implement the 
actual demands I listed above?

On the website there are packages described, which would cover a great part of 
the work to be done, but I can't find any download location. Are these 
descriptions just design suggestions, or are there at least some first 
implementations we could use as a basis to adapt to our needs?

A lot of questions, but also a difficult decision for us. I would appreciate 
very much, if I would get some answers or hints.

Thilo