The Enterprise Addressing System is a complete master address repository, address creation & maintenance system, and address query & validation solution. In this three part series I try to describe the solution from both technical and usability perspectives.
- Part 1 of this series describes the context and motivation behind the Enterprise Addressing System (EAS).
- Part 2 discusses address maintenance workflows and the use of open standards.
- Part3 (this post) discusses why we developed the solution as Open Source.
Take it for a Test Drive
We built the Enterprise Address System (EAS) as an Open Source solution. This means you can access it and test it or fully implement it without any licensing costs. Once you’ve done the test drive and you confirmed that it does the essential things that you need it to do, then you can go ahead and begin customizing it as needed.
The Open Source approach also means that you aren’t beholden to a single vendor’s timeframe for updating it, augmenting it, customizing it.
A common analogy that I like is to imagine that you’re thinking of buying a car. With proprietary software you are buying a car with the hood welded shut. You’re forced to go to the car manufacturer for maintenance, parts, and improvements.
With the EAS Open Source solution you are buying a car where you can chose where to have your car serviced and maintained. You can even open the hood yourself and make modifications wherever you want. And since it is based on open standards, you aren’t restricted to buying o
ne kind of tire from a particular manufacturer. You can buy tires or any add-ons from any vendor you choose. On top of that, you can take the whole thing out for an extended test drive before you buy.
Low Risk for High Return
Analogies aside, the take away from the Open Source approach is that the EAS is a low risk, high return way of getting an authoritative solution implemented in your organization to manage a headache common to almost every city or county.
