rSmart and Kuali Lead the Way for Open Source ERP in Education

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, at Kuali Days VII, rSmart—the leading full-service provider of open source enterprise software solutions for education—announced additional growth for its Kuali solutions business. rSmart is pleased to contribute to Kuali’s growth in 2008 by supporting the planning, evaluation, prototyping, implementation, adoption and ongoing usage of Kuali applications and technology by many leading U.S. colleges and universities, including:

• Boston University
• Colorado State University
• Georgetown University
• Naval Postgraduate School
• Research Foundation for CUNY
• San Joaquin Delta College
• St. Lawrence University
• University of Arizona
• University of Connecticut
• University of Hawaii

Notable this year is the commencement of Kuali Financial System (KFS) implementations at Colorado State University, San Joaquin Delta College, University of Arizona and University of Hawaii, which is starting with a significant proof of concept.

"We picked rSmart as our KFS implementation partner because of their demonstrated expertise with both FRS and KFS, as well as their early and long-term commitment to the Kuali community projects," says Howard Todo, VP for Budget and Finance/CFO, University of Hawaii. "They have more than exceeded our expectations by demonstrating our legacy financial system [FRS] data in KFS only a month after the start of the engagement, two weeks after they began receiving our data. At this rate we're confident in hitting our objectives."

These new projects demonstrate that more and more universities recognize migration to Kuali as an opportunity to significantly cut the costs of administrative computing while benefiting from best-of-breed enterprise systems built for education by education. By relying on rSmart for help with Kuali, universities of all sizes can begin using the software sooner than ever anticipated, with the highest level of confidence.

“We are gratified to be working with so many forward-looking institutions that are blazing new trails for the education industry and are contributing to Kuali’s growth,” says Chris Coppola, President of rSmart. “With several KFS implementations going live next year, we are indeed on the cusp of a significant milestone for open source enterprise applications in higher education.”

About rSmart:

rSmart is the leading open source application software company serving the education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys and supports a suite of enterprise financial, collaboration and learning applications for colleges, universities and institutions serving grades K–12. As an active member of open source projects like Kuali and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educational institutions. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer open source applications that break the dependence of educational institutions on traditional proprietary software vendors. For more information, visit www.rsmart.com.

About Kuali:

The Kuali Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for sustaining and evolving open source administrative software that meets the needs of all Carnegie Class institutions of higher education. Its members are colleges, universities, commercial firms and interested organizations that share a common vision of open, modular, and distributed systems for administrative computing. The Kuali Foundation manages a growing portfolio of enterprise software applications for colleges and universities, such as Kuali Financial System (KFS), Kuali Coeus for Research Administration (KC), Kuali Rice for infrastructure and middleware, including enterprise workflow, and Kuali Student (KS). Foundation staff coordinate the activities of Foundation members for critical software development activities such as source code control, release engineering, packaging, documentation, project management, software testing and quality assurance, conference planning, and educating and assisting members of the Kuali Commercial Affiliate program. Please visit www.kuali.org for more information.

rSmart is a registered trademark of rSmart, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.