News & Views

June 2011 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “In honour of CAmagazine’s 100th birthday, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the evolution in information technology over the past few decades. Of course, IT didn’t exist 100 years ago — and neither did I. Still, looking back, I feel like I lived with the dinosaurs. The following shows just how far we have come…”

May 10, 2011 from CloudTimes – “At Convergence 2011 in Atlanta on April 11th, Microsoft  announced the upcoming launch of the Dynamic ERP solutions in the cloud. Windows Azure Cloud platform is going to host Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP, NAV and SL ERP Solutions. According to Kirill Tatarinov, Vice President for Microsoft Business solutions said in this context that applications will support multi-latency…

At Convergence 2011 in Atlanta on April 11th, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced the upcoming launch of the Dynamic ERP solutions in the cloud. Windows Azure Cloud platform is going to host Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP, NAV and SL ERP Solutions. According to Kirill Tatarinov, Vice President for Microsoft Business solutions said in this context that applications will support multi-latency.

At last Microsoft made its move towards the ERP market through a SaaS Cloud delivery. This is going to be a major shift for Microsoft and its entry into the Dynamic ERP Products market at SMB and mid-market segments. The successor of Dynamic NAV is planned as the first Dynamic ERP product for SaaS cloud delivery and scheduled for 2012…”

180 View – Although other vendors have a big head start in the clouds, Microsoft will still have a huge market as most organizations are still grounded in their own premises. As well, any doubts about the cloud’s future should be blown away.

May 16, 2011 from gannthead.com – “Here are some common estimating issues that can often negatively impact your project…

• Padding…
• Being overly optimistic…
• Bad requirements…
• Omission…
• Different levels…
• Being put on the spot…
• Forgetting the risk factor…
• Pressure from above…
• Failure to involve the “do-ers”…”

180 View – Estimating is tough and we ask for it all the time from the vendors when assisting our clients in a system selection project. The vendors don’t have enough information when responding to an RFP so they rely on past experience based on similar sized projects and what they think the market will bear or on the budget of the prospect. Later we give the AS-IS business process and invite the short listed vendors to meet with our clients to get a better understanding of scope so they can give a better estimate on the implementation. Unfortunately the vendors often still don’t have enough information to get it right. We suggest that you ask the vendors to break out the project estimate by module and by task. You may find startling differences in their numbers. We also suggest that you ask the vendors to conduct a needs analysis prior to finalizing the deal. One of the objectives of the needs analysis should be a firm quote on the implementation.

May 19, 2011 from Baseline – “Microsoft beat out the competition to nab a 23,000-user cloud email deal with the City of San Francisco… City executives on a May 18 conference call suggested that the initiative would cost $1.2 million per year, which breaks down to $6 per month per user…”

180 View – There will be a lot more wins by Microsoft in the clouds as organizations would rather keep the office products they know.

June 8, 2011 from enterpriseAPPStoday – “…According to Gartner, the top five vendors in the $20 billion ERP market are SAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor and Microsoft…

How did Sage get there? Sage ERP X3, which targets the midmarket, has experienced 41 percent customer growth in the last few years. That gives the Sage Group more than six million customers and 13,400 employees worldwide…

SAP, Oracle and Microsoft still account for 71 percent of midmarket sales, so one or more will usually be included in the selection process. Microsoft is showing the most rapid growth in the midmarket, moving from a 3 percent share five years ago, up to 15 percent today, largely at SAP’s expense…”

180 View – There are sources other than 180 Systems about ERP that contain useful information.

April 13, 2011 from ComputerWorld – “Oracle’s Fusion Applications is a line of open-standards based business applications similar to the technologies it has acquired over the years from its purchases of companies such as Siebel, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and others.

The Fusion Application suite features over 100 separate modules including those for financial management, human capital management, governance, risk and compliance, CRM and supply chain management.

The company has been working on the technology for several years now and recently started shipping it to customers under the early adopter program.

Oracle says Fusion Apps integrates best-of-breed features from the various business application products the company has acquired over the year. Miranda said that more 50 enterprises so far have deployed the technology, many of them alongside existing legacy applications…”

180 View – Fusion sounds like it will be a great system from what we have heard (but not seen). It will likely cause organizations to think twice about investing in Oracle’s other systems especially if the functionality in Fusion will be enough. So far it does not seem like Oracle is pushing Fusion to avoid potential customers in their other systems from holding back on their decisions.

May 31, 2011 from ComputerWorld – “Oracle has fired back against a New Jersey university’s claim it is responsible for a problematic ERP (enterprise resource planning) software project, saying school officials have embarked on a “scorched earth” litigation campaign in order to cover up their own shortcomings.

Montclair State University filed suit against Oracle earlier this month, saying missteps and delays caused by the vendor’s staff may end up costing the school around $20 million more than it originally budgeted for the PeopleSoft system. It ultimately fired Oracle from the project late last year…

It’s not clear how the dispute between Oracle and Montclair will play out, but in some cases ERP customers have won significant awards against vendors and consultants sued over allegedly failed projects.

Last year, a jury in Alabama awarded pet food maker Sunshine Mills $61 million in connection with a suit it brought against Ross Systems. The vendor is appealing the verdict.”

180 View – Montclair State University has about 16,000 students, which is a large number but does not seem to justify a $20 million investment. We wonder whether there was ever any business case to justify the investment.

In the article we read that “The vendor also asked the school for $8 million more than the $15.75 million fixed-fee implementation contract originally agreed upon.” There can be legitimate reasons when a vendor asks for additional fees if there is a change in scope. But the problem is often that the contract or statement of work is abysmally worded and lacks scope specifics. The vendors will define scope at high level and their prospective customers don’t know the troubles that can occur when things go badly.

May 16, 2011 from gannthead.com – “…Project management principles state that there should be absolute clarity in obtaining the requirements. If the fog of ambiguity clouds the requirements phase, the delivered project will never be accepted by the stakeholders…”

180 View – We also agree that clearly defined requirements are critical to the success of any project. Requirements can differ significantly depending on the project. When gathering requirements for a system selection project, it is counter-productive to define every field or every report. However when gathering requirements for a software development project, a lot more detail is required. In a past life, I (Michael Burns) developed detail design specifications for a company called Minicom that at one time was the leading software developer for real estate companies in Canada. Our specifications included an Entity Relation Diagram that showed all the tables, fields and their relationships. We also included specifications for each field, each process and each report. We also provided a prototype of each screen and each report.

February 6, 2011 from The Enterprise System Spectator – “…My hypothesis is that, due to a reluctance to say “no” directly, ROI calculations are often a convenient way to refuse projects that management simply doesn’t want to do. This “ROI trap” can take several forms:

• Management argues the project budget is underestimated
• Management argues the benefits are overly optimistic
• Management argues the benefits cannot be connected to the proposed initiative…”

180 View – We disagree. The so-called traps are in fact exactly the questions management should be asking. Often the people who are driving the project want it to proceed for personal reasons. I say bravo to the hard-ass decision makers who ask the tough questions.

May 18, 2011 from Forbes – “On the surface Microsoft’s $8.5 billion deal to buy the Internet phone company Skype sounds loopy. But don’t be deceived: This just might be the smartest move Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has ever made…

But the deal is really about “unified communications,” in which Microsoft is competing with Cisco and others. The theory is that by adding Skype’s audio, video, conferencing and telepresence features to the mix Microsoft will offer an unbeatable combination of features that every enterprise will want…”

180 View – Microsoft is trying to win back customers who have embraced other internet technologies. They tried it with Bing that competes with Google. They are trying it again with Skype. Microsoft does have a history of entering into a market late and by the force of their R&D and marketing, obliterate the competition. But this was done in the relative early days of computing when they crushed the likes of WordPerfect and Lotus 123.

I (Michael Burns) completed the 200km ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls on June 11-12. There were 4,610 riders who raised $17.5 million. There were about 700 volunteers to help make sure our experience was a good and safe one.

There was so much positive energy and goodwill from everyone involved. When we started, there was a sea of yellow (the colour of our jerseys) riders ready or almost ready for our journey. We were encouraged along the way by people that waved, honked and cheered us. I passed one rider who did not have use of his legs and made the trip just with the strength in his arms. There were hundreds of riders who had yellow flags to indicate that they are cancer survivors. When we got close to the finish line, you could hear the large crowd of people welcoming us enthusiastically.

If you are looking for a more challenging ride, check out Le Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie at http://vimeo.com/24697010. The teams have to travel a circuit of 1000 km in 60 hours from the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to Montreal.