New maintenance release: jBilling 2.1.1

Since our last release, a number of bugs have been fixed. This new release has them all. As a maintenance release (note only the third digit increasing), it does not have any new features, those are left for the next minor release (2.2.0). One bug that has been fixed that was reported numerous times is with the JDBC meditation reader plug-in.

Upgrading involves very little risk, there are no changes to the database or new features that can alter how the system behaves. Simply take the file billing.war and overwrite the old file.

Nevertheless, we did include a new mediation example with this release. Many have had a tough time getting the mediation module fully configured a running for a test. An example goes a long way to explaining how this works. The "Getting started Mediation" guide has be updated with this example. Find it in the documentation section.

jBilling Announces its First European Partner in Partner Program

An exciting new partnership has been established between two IT companies—jBilling and Skyrack Technology. jBilling is a pioneer in open source enterprise billing software. Skyrack Technology, with a solid reputation in software development and enterprise services, has become jBilling’s first certified European Partner.

jBilling, is both a leader and pioneer of open source enterprise billing software which offers a free download over the internet. It’s billing software, which is rich, scalable, robust and flexible, offers solutions for clients in many diverse markets, particularly for subscription businesses and large-scale telecommunications and utilities companies.

In 2009 jBilling announced its Partner Program, a program that invites firms and individual consultants to partner with jBilling to address the overwhelming demand that jBilling has had for its open source enterprise billing software. www.jbilling.com

Skyrack Technology, jBilling’s first certified European Partner, is an IT, communications and consulting business which was built on the success of its ventures in software development, enterprise services, development and consulting. Their focus is on high quality delivery and customer growth. With offices in the UK and Germany, they have a deep and wide experience managing development and service delivery in telecoms, service providers and digital e-business. www.skyracktechnology.com

Skyrack Technology and jBilling are well matched business partners from several perspectives. Both companies offer enterprise services, have clients in telecommunications and utilities and both have extensive experience in software development and service management. Skyrack is poised to provide all jBilling Support Services.

John Murray and Gavin Sweet, Directors of Skyrack Technology, commented on the partnership, “We are delighted to be working with jBilling as their first European partner. This partnership means that customers will benefit from Skyrack’s expertise and experience with jBilling’s proven enterprise software platform. Together Skyrack and jBilling are ideally positioned to meet the growing need in open source software in enterprise, telecoms and subscription service markets.”

Emiliano Conde, Founder of jBilling, had this to say about the partnership,”We are thrilled to have a group of experienced telecommunications consultants in Europe who have partnered with jBilling. Through this partnership our software will reach many more European companies that are looking for robust and flexible billing solutions. Equally important is the high level of support services those companies will have access to.”

About jBilling

jBilling is a global player with consultants on four continents. It’s a mature and rapidly evolving open source system and delivers a comprehensive billing solution that is popular with many industries including telecommunications, ISPs, ASPs and media.

Launching jBilling's partner program

jBilling Announces its New Partner Program

October 26 2009

jBilling is both a leader and a pioneer of open source enterprise billing software which is accessible from the internet and free to use. The popularity of this billing software speaks for itself. Thousands of monthly downloads have necessitated the addition of a Partner Program, a program that will channel the overflow of leads and associated professional services to jBilling’s new Partner Program

There has been much positive feedback regarding the jBilling software. One British company described it as, “having the features and design needed to address the high-cost stakes and complex requirements of the telecom industry.” (note that in the brochure it read stacks instead of stakes.)

Founder, Emiliano Condes explains, “Our mission is to provide a robust and secure enterprise billing system that is open source and free. In parallel, our experts offer world-class services to support this software.”
Ideal candidates for the Partner Program are consulting firms with a client base of medium- and large-sized companies. Benefits of the program include comprehensive training and the receipt of qualified leads, to name a few. jBilling is committed to working with consulting firms which are interested in building a successful and sustainable business. 

About jBilling

jBilling is a global player with consultants on four continents. It is a mature and rapidly evolving open source system which delivers a comprehensive billing solution that is popular with many industries including telecommunications, ISPs, ASPs and media. "

JBilling 2 has been released

The milestone release of jBilling 2 is now available for download. It includes hundreds of changes, most of them are minor enhancements and bug fixes, but there are major improvements as well:

• Application server independent: The default download comes with Tomcat, but deploying on other application servers will be easy. The application is bundled as a single war file.
• MQ independent: The default here is ActiveMQ, but again, you can configure jBilling to run on your favorite MQ implementation.
• API improvements: several new methods, including an instant payment processing with automatic linking to outstanding invoices and the ability to run the billing process for a single user on-demand.
• New telco invoice design which includes the events as an invoice appendix. This what shows every call detail (or the details of other events, if they are not phone calls).
• Pre-paid balance management. In this case, the customer increases her balance by submitting a payment, and the balance decreases with every purchase (usage). You can make an API call to validate if a customer can make a purchase. The validation is against the price of the intended purchase against the current balance.
• Credit limit. For a customer with a credit limit, every purchase increases the balance which should not exceed the preset credit limit. Again, an API method can be called to validate purchases against the credit balance before they happen.
• Account hierarchies of any depth. There used to be a limit of two levels: parent and child. No more, you can now build hierarchical structures of any depth, and mark any user as the one receiving an invoice.
• Events-to-rules plug-in. There is a new plug-in that allows you to run rules when any internal event in jBilling happens. This takes the extensibility of jBilling to a new level, it combines the plug-in architecture and the internal events design with the business rules management system.

For a complete list of changes, take a look to the release notes.