Bernd

I can tell you about my experience with Aurelius and other TMS products.

One year ago I started a new project for a ERP and needed to have it in a 
more modernized way. Pretty much the way you intend to do.

I had some goals:

- using modern Delphi language features. I had no need to be compatible with 
anything from previous versions.

- capable of going crossplatform (so it is FIREMONKEY): in my case i have 
an entire ERP running on android :) very nice this. This is important since 
we are now in a multi OS era. There is no guarantee on wich platform will 
remain in 10 years.

- possibility of isolate modules, or even replace them in case of the vendor/open 
source gets out of the market (or just not get more updates)

- something I could understand withou need to be a phD on the area.

I choose the TMS products because they met this parameters for me.

This is my current result:
AURELIUS

I have Aurelius as my ORM layer. I have an application based on MVP, so my 
Model part understands Aurelius entities. That are plain simple classes. 
I have created my base class with all funcionality needed and Aurelius does 
the rest.

It is fast, and it is bugs free. I have it working on real conditions for 
1 year now and did not get any problem at all. 

The Idea is simple, the code is modern, and it relies on the new delphi language 
features.

It is compatible with mobile and then you can have all the functionality 
on Android or whatever you need. Using most of the important databases, including 
SQLite

I am using frames to create the view part of my MVP. I wire everything with 
LiveBInding and Aurelius provides to you a TAureliusDataSet, a fantastic 
TDataSet descendant that publish by several ways the entities you get from 
the ORM.

Right now it is very handy to me, since I have my data prepared on a parallel 
thread and when done it is set to the TAureliusDataSet. The result is a fluid 
application.

You can Edit one entity, a TLIST<> or a Cursor to your database. You can 
access all the properties of your Entity as fields on the Dataset. It is 
very handy to deal with LiveBindings. 

See, since it is Firemonkey this is the only way if not manual). But I can 
tell you, after getting some experience it is reliable and fast enought for 
work based on XE7 

REMOTEDB

it is the product that permit you connect remotely, you have a server based 
on the http.sys that is the core windows http service and you "write" a server 
based on the documentation. I could add some flavors of my interest of the 
comunication between client and server. (there is another layer called Sparkle 
that is the real http transport here, but just to be simple)

The good thing is that you isolate the native database drivers and you can 
have either mobile using it to connect to your database

XDATA

I am about to move my application to use it. In my case I am waiting for 
a new feature where I would be capable to use Aurelius over XData. XData 
is a OData standard way to share your data. You create your own server following 
the examples and you can use Aurelius in the server side to create your business 
module.

With eh upcoming feature you will be also possible to use Aurelius with the 
Xdata result. Then you can hide business logic on the server side and publish 
only what is relevant.

FLEXCEL

This is the way to go for Reporting. It is not only reporting, but for me 
is a fantastic tool.

It has a core based on excel spreadsheet, you can load, create, change, save 
them, in ANY Platform.

But there is a way to use TEMPLATES. So in my ERP i have created XLS templates 
that are embeded on the exe as resources (25k), then I load it and pass the 
Aurelius results from queries based on Linq. The result is commonly a TList 
or can be anything else. But the Entity objects can be directly accessed 
from the Excel Template!

And the good thing is that it works on any platform! it is very fast. Much 
better than FastReports. Easier to work. You can do a lot more, and you can 
even let your customer create Excel templates (wich customer you have that 
does not know how to use them?)
My ERP is already in use on a big chain pilot project. No trouble at all.

I do not work for TMS, but their support was so help ful for me in many cases 
that I have to give you this information.

I am extremelly satisfied. The price is not high for the product benefits, 
and the result is professional.

Any other specific question please let me know...

Eduardo Elias