News & Views

We now have about 50 systems participating in our free on-line service that will match the Top 10 ERP Systems to your requirements based on a short online survey. 

We continue to enhance our tools and have just completed the development of an RFP tool that will automate the creation of RFPs as well as the % fit calculations based on vendors’ response. The system will make it easier for us to create RFPs. It will also be easier for vendors to respond to our RFPs as their responses to standard questions will default based on previous RFP responses.

June 23, 2010 from ComputerWorld – “Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration product will serve as a foundation for “portal based, unified interfaces for all Infor applications,” Infor said in a statement. The vendor will also use Microsoft’s Silverlight RIA (rich Internet application) platform; Microsoft Reporting Services for BI (business intelligence); and Microsoft Single Sign-On for identity management. It has also named SQL Server and Windows Server as its “preferred” infrastructure components.

Privately held Infor is one of the world’s largest ERP vendors after Oracle and SAP, with reported revenues in the neighborhood of $2 billion…

A number of other manufacturing-oriented ERP vendors, such as Consona and Epicor, also have products based on Microsoft…”

180 View – While one department/business unit in Microsoft wins with the partnership with Infor, Epicor, Consona, and other ERP vendors, another department/business unit in Microsoft loses.

June 16, 2020 from ComputerWorld – “Consona has purchased on-demand ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor Compiere, a move that gives it a place at the cloud-computing table, it was announced Wednesday. Terms were not disclosed.

Compiere is a bit of an anomaly in the ERP world, being both cloud-based and open source, although it does have peers such as OpenBravo. Its software mostly focuses on distribution, and will therefore complement Consona’s products for small to mid-sized discrete manufacturers, according to a statement.

Consona plans to maintain and further develop Compiere’s products, which have some 130 customers, and will continue supporting the vendor’s open-source strategy, the statement added…”

180 View – Don’t be surprised to see many more open source systems. The revenue model includes fees for service and a pot of gold when the company is sold. For another perspective on the Compiere deal from someone who knows the Open Source community well (perhaps too well to be considered unbiased), check out http://www.erpgraveyard.com/.

October 2008 from Service Performance Insight – “…Running a Professional Services Organization (PSO) is very complex – it is a game which must be won with “singles and doubles”, not homeruns; so it is imperative to know which KPI’s are “essential”, ones PSOs must continually measure, and ones that are “nice to have” but not essential. The challenge for all Services executives is how to balance Customers, Employees, Partners and Operations…”

180 View – I became aware of this article through Computer Business Review’s June 22, 2010 newsletter. This is a must read if you work or consult for a PSO.

April 23, 2010 from Information Week – “Phillips says the mix-and-match approach is killing IT organizations, and the only salvation is standardization (on Oracle, of course)…”

180 View – It’s a slippery slope to standardize on one vendor.

May 13, 2010 from Newsfactor – “In the largest technology industry acquisition of the year, SAP announced plans to buy Sybase for about $5.8 billion. SAP said the merged company will focus on serving “unwired enterprises.”

There are clear synergies between SAP and Sybase across both product lines and markets. SAP expects the merger to help the company hasten its reach across mobile platforms and drive adoption of its in-memory computing vision, which in turn is expected to spur greater adoption of SAP software. Sybase’s mobile platform will also connect and enable SAP apps and data on mobile devices.

Meanwhile, the companies expect SAP’s in-memory technology to give Sybase the opportunity to improve the performance of its analytics offering and extend the reach of its event-processing and analytics solutions to new industries. SAP’s tech should also beef up Sybase’s core database business, the companies said….”

180 View –ERP was developed initially to automate business processes across the silos/departments within organizations. Now, ERP is being extended to automate business processes anywhere in the world. Being able to approve a purchase order is just one example of a mobile application.

SAP may soon offer something similar to Oracle in providing not just the ERP application but also the underlying database.

May 24, 2010 from Forrester –  “…With 5,000 attendees in Frankfurt, 10,500 in Orlando and 35,000 online participants, this was the biggest SAPPHIRE event ever.…”

180 View – If you’re interested in what happened at SAP’s really big show, this link is a good way to glean the highlights without needing to watch online videos…

December 2007 from CPA Technology Advisor – “This review encompasses four of the top high-end accounting systems in the market place. Each system is aesthetically pleasing to work with, and each provides an intuitive user interface and a full set of modules to accomplish most any task or process…” Products reviewed are Microsoft Dynamics GP, Sage Accpac 500 ERP 5.4, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Sage MAS 500 ERP and each of them got a Five Star rating…”

180 View – The review was so light that I hesitated in including it. But perhaps there is something that is useful for you. It also demonstrates that it’s just about impossible to do a thorough review of any ERP system because of the extensive functionality. Here are some of my gripes with the article based on a quick read of the Microsoft Dynamics GP review:

• GP gets a five star rating for Modules/Scalability based on “GP offers business solutions through components such as Financial Management, Business Intelligence and Reporting, Supply Chain Management, Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, Human Resource Management, Manufacturing and Workspace Collaboration.” There is no indication on the adequacy of the functionality listed and GP is not known for manufacturing or project management.
• The ratings appear to be entirely subjective based.
• The review includes “Dynamics GP seems to be very customizable” shows lack of any depth to the review.” A system is either customizable or it is not – it should not read “seems to be”. Also NAV and AX are the Microsoft products touted for their customization features.

June 3, 2010 from Forrester – “Deltek’s announcement today of its intent to acquire Maconomy has the potential to vault the vendor’s position as a potential leader in the project-based solutions (PBS) space. For midmarket organizations that deliver projects as a crucial part of their revenue generation, this is a good move…”

180 View – Seems like a brilliant move by Deltek to acquire a large customer base and open up new industries and geographies.

2010 from Epicor – “…Organizations can typically choose from four principal types of ERP vendor partners who deliver solutions around the following models:

• Partner ecosystems
• Frameworks
• Integrated best-of-breed
• End-to-end embedded solutions…”

180 View – You can bet that Epicor falls into the type that has the least disadvantages.

May 6, 2010 from Software Advice – “…How truly integrated is the integrated suite vendor’s offering? If the ERP vendor acquired the system, it may not be “truly” integrated. It might just be a best-of-breed system with some basic integration. If they built it themselves, it could use a different code base and therefore not be tightly integrated with the ERP suite’s older core…”

180 View – The question of Best-of-Breed vs Integrated Suite (ERP) has been a debate since the dawn of ERP. But things are getting better. Best-of-breed applications have better tools for integration. ERP systems include more functionality. The question quoted above is a good one. Some ERP vendors have extended their applications by encouraging their partners to develop best-of-breed applications with the same tools as the ERP vendor. This has the advantage of integration in terms of database and user interface. However it does not eliminate risks associated with reliance on a relatively unknown or small partner/best-of-breed developer.

March 29, 2010 from InformationWeek – “…In Oracle’s earnings call late last week, Ellison promised that the second half of 2010 will be a momentous one for not only Oracle but also the entire IT industry and its enterprise customers because that’s when Oracle will roll out its completely reengineered Fusion software lineup along with more integrated and optimized Oracle-Sun systems…

Fueling Ellison’s bold claims was his promise that Fusion will permanently close the gaps between its traditional on-premise technology and the high-growth opportunities in on-demand and cloud-based applications…”

180 View – Oracle is about to change the game with Fusion. But the skeptic in me says that the new product will be light on functionality compared to its siblings – Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards.

April 19, 2010 from WebCPA – “Not so long ago, NetSuite barely factored in to Microsoft’s ERP business, but a recent initiative by the mammoth technology concern has channel partners on both sides agreeing that Microsoft has become concerned about NetSuite’s rising status in the market.

In March, Microsoft announced that it would pay $850 to every U.S.-based NetSuite user that switched to one of its Dynamics ERP products, which include Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics AX and Dynamics SL. The new promotion is available until June 25…”

180 View – Seems like too little and too late by Microsoft to fight off NetSuite. 

March 31, 2010 from The Enterprise System Spectator – “…The overhead and expense, even with Lawson’s new offering on Amazon’s cloud, will be far above what SaaS providers experience. True multi-tenant SaaS providers, such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite, make changes once, and the entire customer base experiences them instantly. This is especially a benefit to users of HRM and financial management systems (two of Lawson’s horizontal sweet spots), where regulatory changes are not optional…”

 180 View – There are really 3 different delivery models for software:

1. On Premise (Software is installed and run on customer’s hardware)
2. On Demand or SaaS (Customer accesses a single instance of the software over the web that allows multiple customers to coexist by a multi-tenant architecture)
3. Hosted (Software is accessed on demand, but lacking a multi-tenant architecture and requires separate servers and installs for each customer)

The author of the article believes that SasS is the future and Lawson better adapt it or it will be eaten by competitors such as Workday and Intacct. I think that there is a place for all 3 models. Hosted makes more sense than SaaS for organizations that don’t want their system updated with everyone else.