[NGO] Plone for Indian NGO's

[David Sandy]

Hi Tak,
 
Some thoughts on your questions;
 
*Lack of Zope hosting in India
- is there a specific reason for having to use an host based in India?
There is not an abundance of hosting companies anyway, and most seem to
be Europe or US based, so would suggest using one of these.
Alternatively with a little knowledge of Plone/Zope configuration you
could buy a hosting server (not specifically for Plone/Zope) and setup
the server yourself, that way I'm sure you could find a hosting company
in India that can just provide a server (with File System access) and a
fast internet connection. One thing to bear in mind in your server spec
is RAM - make sure you have enough to start with and ensure your hosting
company can upgrade if required as Zope can be very RAM-hungry.
 
*Expense Reporting Application
Have a look on http://plone.org/products for existing products released
into the world of Plone by other developers. You may not find something
that exactly meets your requirements, but may do part of the function
you are looking for, which you could then mix with some of your
own/contractors development work.
 
 
Regards,
David

>>> t.noguchi at khemkafoundation.org 17/08/2006 07:44:33 >>>

 Hi all,

Just wanted to briefly introduce myself to the list and ask a few
questions. I'm working as a Program Coordinator for a family foundation
based in Delhi. Currently, I'm overseeing development of our Web sites,
and am keen to adopt Plone to develop and  manage two sites, plus our
intranet. 

I'm a Plone/Zope newbie, but am familiar with XHTML, CSS and a
smattering of PHP. But I was hooked on Plone primarily through friends
at Khoj < http://www.khojworkshop.org/ >, a groundbreaking art
non-profit working in the region. 


There are issues for NGO's in India that I'd like inputs on from the
more knowledgeable people on this list:


*lack of Plone and Zope hosting in India--it seems that there are no
Web hosting companies in India that specialize in Plone/Zope. I've also
been told from several knowledgeable sources that there are performance
issues with India based hosting. 

*Contracting foreign companies--as a newly registered trust, we can't
contract a business outside of India for 3 years. So a European based
host like Nidelvin is definitely out. Does anyone have experiences with
an India based company specializing in Plone/Zope development and
hosting, but has accounts on servers abroad?  

While Mahiti <www.mahiti.org> comes to mind, I hope for more leads,
since we would like to compare quotes from at least 3 different vendors.
Has anyone on this list worked with Mahiti in the past? 


Also a question about custom applications:

*Is anyone working on a simple expense reporting and tracking
application? For example, a way to submit for review and approval,
travel expenses, with e-mail notification and capture of the information
in a database. This would definitely help our organization! 


Thank You,

Tak


------------------------------------- Takahiro Noguchi
Program Coordinator
The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation
www.khemkafoundation.org
IBC 38/1, M-Block
Connaught Circus, New Delhi, 110001 
Tel: 91 11 42008224 
Mob: 91 9871981697 


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