Open Dental Forum

I am curious about the long-term stability of the company. How many users of OD are there, and how long has OD been in use? Not trying to be antagonistic, just curious before I decide to jump in with both feet. Seems like a great program.

James R Luderitz, DDS MS

I don't know what the actual number is now I would guess close to 1000. I started using OD 2004 about the time it started and could not be happier.

Almost by definition Open Source software will be more developmentally stable than anything owned by a company once it reaches critical mass (which it has) . Even if something were to happen to Jordan there enough of us out there that the Open Dental movement would continue. If you look at the BIGS of 10 years ago most are gone, merged or bought out. Even packages owned by companies like Kodak have not been immune . That can't happen to Open Dental because of its license. Even Jordan can't restrict it.

So you see, if you are looking for software that will be around for your entire career, software that will continue to evolve and be responsive to Dentists needs Open-Dental should be at the top or your list.

steve

We passed 1000 early in 2007. We're at about 1500 now, although we do need to recalibrate that number. That number includes about 6 different companies as explained here: http://www.open-dent.com/manual/resellerlist.html We also should get the foreign resellers/rebranders up on that page. Greece, India, Austria, and the Netherlands come to mind as strong reseller nuclei. I hope you understand that by being open source, we have established unparalleled stability and futureproofing for the users. If we go under for some reason, there are already multiple other companies which can step forward to support and extend the software.

We'll be celebrating our five year anniversary this August, and business is looking very good. Consider the last five years just the warmup for the real action to come.

Thanks again for the responses. That question was more for my wife's benefit

James R Luderitz, DDS MS

1. That page you linked to has a spelling error: customer -> customers.

2. I suppose there are probably an unknown number of self-supporting users as well.