SSA Global's Contribution to the Rejuvenation of Legacy Systems
Lawson Software's upcoming Landmark platform (see A New Platform to Battle Software Bloat?) and Infor's Corestone have been described during our recent The Blessing and Curse of Rejuvenating Legacy Systems series, whereas Microsoft's, SAP's and Oracle's platform related forays have been duly reported as well (see SOA-based Applications and Infrastructure—The Next Frontier? and Multipurpose SAP NetWeaver). But the time has now come for us to describe the corresponding moves of SSA Global, whose equivalent platform is branded SSA Open Architecture.
This is Part Two of the six-part series The Enterprise Applications "Arms Race" To Be Number Three.
The common thread to all these platforms is a service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy built to meet current market requirements, such as hidden complexity, and low total cost of ownership (TCO). Sound product architecture is critical to enabling faster implementations, easier upgrades, easier integration to other non-native applications, and more flexibility to change processes on an ongoing basis. For acquisitive vendors, there is the benefit of lowering acquisition cost; they can assemble component pieces that are non-proprietary, with an upgrade path to greater functionality, while still maintaining the replaceable nature of these components (due to their standards-based quality). The idea is to build anew only what cannot be assembled from the existing component repository. SOA is the unifying integration factor, whereby one can assemble composite solutions from disparate components: some that are built internally; some that come with acquired companies; and some that come from partnering with best-of-breed vendors.
One can thereby thin down a monolithic application's bloated and unwieldy core, while putting increasing amounts of functionality in thinner layer components that can be snapped onto or shared with several application kernels as required. Software built in an object-oriented (OO) fashion is thus less unwieldy; the leaner, more modular architecture can result in quicker implementations, improved flexibility, and easier upgrades. This framework also provides agility and flexibility for integrating industry niche solutions, and for development of industry-specific solutions, with insulation from the vendor's major release cycles. For instance, SSA Global has recently been striving to add new functionality to support the food and beverage industry needs in the form of business logic that supports country of origin labeling (COOL), bioterrorism preparedness, and global trade item number (GTIN) compliance.
Although SSA Global has many service, software, and technology alliances or partnerships with companies around the world (such as Atos Origin, Accenture, Fujitsu, Cognos, Sirius, CSC, and Capgemini), its quintessential partnership is with IBM. This partnership was cemented in mid-2004, and aimed to more easily modernize and integrate disparate SSA Global systems across the extended enterprise. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies jointly market SSA Global extended enterprise solutions built on IBM middleware, including IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM WebSphere Business Integration, IBM WebSphere Application Server, and IBM DB2 Universal Database. IBM Business Consulting Services and SSA Global also collaborate to offer implementation and consulting services.
With thousands of customers already running SSA Global solutions on IBM eServer xSeries, iSeries, pSeries, and zSeries technology, the joint solution should further reduce TCO and time-to-value, while helping these companies adopt a growing list of industry standards and information technology (IT) mandates. In other words, while Intentia, Lawson, and Infor are certainly major IBM partners, SSA Global has possibly become the most exclusive. SSA Global justifies this exclusivity decision by referring to the following three concepts:
- Synergy: Together, SSA Global and IBM should offer a more complete and extensive solution, meeting both business and technology needs. Namely, SSA Global has been providing customers with the industry solutions they need for competitive differentiation, whereas IBM has been contributing leading technology and infrastructure (this technical standardization should ultimately lower the TCO).
- Affordability: The two vendors have been developing solutions for large global customers—solutions that can be scaled down and made affordable for small and medium customers as well.
- Interoperability: SSA Global is standardizing on the renowned IBM WebSphere middleware platform, providing its customers with industry-standard integration infrastructure.
Industry Trends
Like its peers, SSA Global has thoroughly analyzed the industry trends and issues affecting manufacturing and distribution companies worldwide. Business is now moving faster than most companies' ability to adapt. The velocity of business transactions—from orders by mail, to orders by phone, fax, and now the Internet—is ever-increasing, and as a result there are increasing demands on IT departments. In addition, executive strategies passed down through the organization are expected to be implemented faster and faster, which is putting further pressure on IT departments to be more agile and to implement solutions quicker and more efficiently. Globalization is also introducing new levels of complexity, and virtually no company, big or small, has been unaffected by globalization. Whether a company has operations across borders or whether its supply chain extends overseas, it must contend with economic, cultural, linguistic, and regulatory differences, putting more pressure on the IT infrastructure to efficiently accommodate these needs (see Merging Global Trade Management with Global Finance).
The trend towards lowering TCO requirements also needs only small mention, since top executives are wiser today than they were several years ago (given they are apt to have had direct or indirect experience with IT projects that failed to deliver promised business benefits). They are also under more competitive pressure to obtain a tangible return on investment (ROI) and to extend the value of their IT infrastructures. The level of detail for ROI studies has meanwhile increased, and executives demand information that tells them what the true, long-term cost of a technology investment will be (without a credible ROI forecast, the odds are that a given project will not be approved).
Bundled with this is the trend towards application portfolio rationalization; over the last few decades, we have seen a move towards decentralization, as a result of which companies have built elaborate localized technology infrastructures to support the needs of remote locations. Despite the flexibility and agility of autonomous remote divisions (see Standardizing on One ERP System in a Multi-division Enterprise), many top executives have realized that there is a high cost of maintaining a software infrastructure characterized by a disparate set of standard and customized applications. To achieve greater efficiency, cost reduction, and security, many user companies are moving to consolidate and standardize their applications and associated technology platforms, whereby the objective is to align IT infrastructure with business needs.
Technology landscapes are also consolidating, since customers are beginning to realize that they can get significant cost benefits by reducing the number of technology platforms they support. In addition, there is an inclination toward supporting open nonproprietary standards that offer more control over the applications they use and the vendors with whom they work. The industry consensus is that more than 75 percent of new enterprise application development is now built on platforms based on either Microsoft .NET or J2EE.
In summary, everyone needs more business agility, as well as the ability to conduct more transactions (including quality, service, management, production, and so forth) with fewer resources and assets (in terms of supporting applications and hardware). Like most of its peers, SSA Global is focused on providing business value via underlying technology improvements, such as solving the business problems of supply chain visibility, master data unification, vendor-managed inventory (VMI), and so on.
While the vendor is tackling recent buzzword-based technological concepts like Web services, composite applications, extensible markup language (XML), enterprise service bus (ESB), SOA, and so forth, the point is to map these concepts to true business value (in order to prove that this horde of whiz-bang terms and concepts really adds some value).
To that end, SOA describes modular software which is constructed using discrete executable tasks as the primary unit of subdivision, and which uses exposed service interfaces as the primary method of modularization (see Understanding SOA, Web Services, BPM, BPEL, and More). As mentioned earlier, users have an increasing need for greater simplicity, manageability, and agility, and if their business processes have changed, they want to know exactly how long it will take for an IT department to modify the software accordingly. As for what SOA means for customers, it should enable more rapid integration with existing systems, whereby customers can acquire new services without going through full upgrades. Additionally, it supports hybrid solution rollout and insulation against technology changes, and enables business process configuration and orchestration specific to vertical industries and distributed deployment.
SSA Global's Technological Vision
The SOA enablers of agility in SSA Global's case too are Web services, commonly accepted development standards, and common modules with standard service interfaces. This technology strategy has been driven by the customers' requirement to implement and manage their solutions quickly and effectively, while maintaining the lowest possible TCO. SSA Global's technological vision is thus characterized by the following objectives:
- To support its recently minted corporate product strategy of "modernization, convergence, integration and industry focus." Obviously, the first three pillars have considerable technical implications. Industry focus has technical implications that are less obvious, but remains very important to companies that have specific technical requirements (for instance, specific industry electronic data interchange [EDI] requirements). In particular, some of SSA Global's ERP products have been helping companies comply with the requirements of Part 11, Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which applies to pharmaceutical manufacturing; and with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the financial reporting mandates for companies doing business in the European Union. In addition, SSA Global has integrated tax capabilities with its ERP products, so that customers can more easily and accurately process sales and consumer-use taxes for US and Canadian requirements.
- To provide a common environment in which customers can model, administer, and deploy their solutions, since many SSA Global solutions that currently have their own proprietary infrastructure should greatly benefit by leveraging a common set of tools and technologies (commoditized standard technologies).
- To provide the lowest possible TCO by leveraging technology standards like J2EE and Web services as the vendor strives to provide more tailored solutions with fewer customizations and quicker deployments, all at lower cost.
Business Strategy
SSA Open Architecture follows a logical approach based on strategic business processes in order to deliver a message platform which is organized around four basic service tiers:
- people-oriented services
- decision-making services
- business process services
- application services
We will get into more detail shortly as to what these different service tiers represent. For now, let us explain what this strategy intends to deliver, starting with the most important element, which is preserving customer application and technology investments, rather than imposing a rip-and-replace approach. SSA Global pledges to protect customer investment as much as possible, while still modernizing user applications.
Another key component of the strategy is the adoption of the SOA model, whereby software is implemented in the form of modular services that can be reused across the enterprise. In order to do this, the vendor wants to leverage commodity technologies and standards to implement software faster and more cheaply than the competition.
Furthermore, given that SOA technology is not enough without industry-based context and experience, SSA Global also plans to focus on core competencies, and to leverage its selected deep industry expertise to deliver the best and most flexible solutions. Lastly, the vendor pledges to partner whenever someone else can provide value to the customer quicker and more efficiently. By standardizing first on an IBM technology stack (with some other upcoming complementary close partnerships), SSA Global emphasizes that it is not in business to create proprietary technology platforms, but rather to maintain its philosophy as a solution-oriented company.
As for the abovementioned four service tiers, they can all be depicted rather simply. Namely, people-oriented services provide users with personalized UIs to provide a more effective experience and operating environment, allowing them to be more efficient employees. They also provide the ability to aggregate information across applications to give a single, consolidated view of the user enterprise, while they also enhance intracompany communication by providing the ability for employees to collaborate more effectively with the desktop and each other. Decision-making services provide reporting, analysis, and monitoring tools to decision makers within the user company, so that they can make informed decisions via better and faster manipulation, configuration, and analysis of business information. Under the SSA CPM suite (which is powered by Cognos business intelligence [BI] technology), the SSA Financial Reporting, SSA Enterprise Scorecarding, and SSA Analytics modules provide insight into business performance and required changes.
Business process services, as the term implies, aim at enhancing operational efficiency through improved business process management (BPM) functionality for automating, integrating, and collaborating across the enterprise and into the supply chain (see Business Process Management: A Crash Course on What It Entails and Why to Use It). Standards-based integration infrastructure opens up applications and allows automation of business processes, whereas collaboration allows users to interact more closely with their customers and suppliers. These advantages have been best illustrated with SSA Global's other recent focus on the area of financial and regulatory compliance; SSA Global's compliance framework appears throughout multiple product areas, including functionality in the SSA BPM, SSA CPM, and ERP product lines.
Within the SSA BPM suite, the SSA Workflow capability (with the embedded iFlow technology from Fujitsu) helps companies establish preventative controls to ensure that predefined business processes and business rules are strictly adhered to. In addition, the SSA Event Management capability helps companies identify processes and data that are not compliant. Several SSA Global ERP products have been tightly integrated with the SSA BPM, SSA CPM, SSA FM, and SSA HCM suites to provide a broad range of compliance capabilities. The use of BPM and graphic modeling tools can speed implementation and aid flexibility. For instance, the vendor has lately built a series of templates for its BPM engine, to allow WMS software components to be quickly assembled for particular industries, or styles of warehouse operations.
In recent years legislation and regulations have been introduced to ensure good corporate behavior or governance, but unlike the Y2K issue, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the US, and IFRS and Basel 2 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), are not issues looking for a technology solution. Compliance is achieved only through management best practices, and SSA Global recognizes that technologies such as corporate performance management (CPM) and workflow management can be used to facilitate the adoption of such practices. For these reasons, the availability of CPM and workflow integrations is standard within the SSA FM suite, whereas report and process templates will be available as SSA Global engages with customers to define them. For more pertinent information, see Joining the Sarbanes-Oxley Bandwagon; Meeting the Needs of Small and Medium Businesses.
Last but not least, the application services tier provides a common infrastructure across applications, which allows for more efficient modeling, administration and deployment of solutions. Their potential benefit is in reducing the complexity and cost of application management by providing a common, enterprise-wide administration tool set.
Solution Application Framework
The Solution Application Framework (SAF) delivers the previously described service tiers, and allows customers to model, administer, and deploy their solutions using a common set of tools and technologies.
The first SAF component is the studio environment, which provides a single integrated development environment (IDE) for modeling and customizing SSA Global solutions. This includes portal, UI, workflow, reporting, data warehouse, integration, and development environments for solutions built with J2EE, existing SSA 4GL environments (in other words, fourth-generation languages from Baan and BPCS AS/Set technology), iSeries, and others. This is a good example of SSA Global's ability to leverage commodity technologies, since Eclipse IDE is an open source tool (originally developed by IBM, but then donated to the open source community) which is freely available to SSA Global and its customers.
While IBM has provided a number of free plug-ins to support different languages, SSA Global has been providing its own plug-ins to enable developers to use a common development environment for coding in Java, Report Program Generator (RPG), or SSA 4GLs. This industry-standard technology is providing significant value to SSA Global, its customers, and system integrators who can leverage the same tooling for their own customizations.
As far as the administration section of SAF is concerned, common services like unified user management, single sign-on, central deployment, licensing, logging, and configuration should ease deployment and maintenance costs. The run-time services component actually powers UI, portal, collaboration, integration, workflow, application server, and other needs, and it also provides the common infrastructure that supports the various platforms and databases SSA Global currently supports (for example, IBM DB2, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and mySQL). Finally, the repositories of metadata, solution registry, and global solutions represent a significant move toward adopting the SOA model by externalizing functionality in its solutions in an effort to reduce the cost of customizations. As is well-known, customizations requiring coding add significant cost to application ownership, whereas SOA reduces costs by componentizing functionality for reuse and by allowing customization of business behavior by changing the order in which the components are executed. SAF repositories thus externalize configuration to allow for changes in behavior, since by reconfiguring the repository, users can change the business logic and provide the custom logic they might need without incurring the cost of the customizations of the past.
SSA Global's strategy for delivering future solutions is certainly not a "big bang" approach; rather, it is evolutionary in nature. The vendor started by releasing people-oriented services components with the SSA ERPLN product launch in 2004, whereas with the SSA ERPLX launch some components of the decision services and business process services have been added. Shortly after the ERP LX launch in mid-2005, SSA Open Architecture 5.0 was released, and the vendor then initiated a cycle of two releases per calendar year (one in the spring and one in the fall) to continue to provide enhancements.
In September 2005, at its annual Global Client Forum, the vendor announced the general availability of SSA Open Architecture 5.1. The latest version of SSA Global's technology architecture, SSA Open Architecture includes enhancements to SSA Portal Studio, SSA Collaboration Services, and the new Eclipse-based SSA Studio for modeling and customizations. The latest release features new unified user management and single sign-on capabilities, in addition to other administrative enhancements. SSA Global also designed SSA Open Architecture, so that customers of its predecessor product, SSA Technology Architecture 5.0, could easily upgrade to the new product.
But the best way to describe SSA Global's technological vision is to invoke the idea of customer-controlled introduction of innovation, which is a key strategy for allowing customers to adopt technology at their own pace. If customers start down the path towards SOA, the vendor pledges to work with them to find the best course of action based on their set of implemented solutions. It is not a matter of rip-and-replace, since customers can introduce components to work in their existing systems as they choose. While most articles in the press focus mainly on new SOA applications, most of what customers will likely be investing in is the technology that will enable their current solutions to participate in SOA scenarios. This path should provide the best ROI in the short term and the best TCO in the long term.
Along these lines, at the end of March 2006, SSA Global announced the general availability of the next release of SSA ERPLN, a significant upgrade to its flagship ERP solution for discrete hybrid manufacturers. The new release provides customers with enhanced capabilities in logistics, finance, projects, planning, sales, purchase, and service, and is a key milestone in SSA Global's strategy to help companies better understand and meet actual customer demand by leveraging an agile, standards-based IT infrastructure. It is based on the above-depicted technology architecture, which provides a Web-based UI, eases the transition to SOA, and enables standards-based cross application integration. The new release embeds specific solution templates for its primary target industries: hi-tech and electronics, and industrial machinery and equipment. It also extends the global reach of SSA ERPLN (with new embedded localizations for southern European countries and Japan), and in addition to a range of other capabilities, adds an intuitive interactive graphical planning board to simplify the workload for planners.
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Part Five: User Recommendations | Resurrection, Vitality And Perseverance Of Former ERP 'Goners'
Part Four: Challenges | Resurrection, Vitality And Perseverance Of Former ERP 'Goners'
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Part Four: Challenges and User Recommendations. | Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?
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Part 4: Challenges and User Recommendations | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation
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Part 2: FOCUS Announcements Continued | J.D. Edwards Finds Its Inner-Self Within Its 5th Incarnation | Fourth Shift's evolution Within SoftBrands' DemandStream
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Fourth Shift's evolution Within SoftBrands' DemandStream | PeopleSoft Internationalizes Its Mid-Market Forays
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Part 3: Challenges and User Recommendations | Geac Hopes To See System21 Shine Again Like 'Aurora'
Part 2: Market Impact | Geac Hopes To See System21 Shine Again Like 'Aurora' | Will Glovia Glow Again Through Its Hub And VARs?
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Will Glovia Glow Again Through Its Hub And VARs? | Lose the Starry-Eyes, Analyze:An Ideal Customer for Relevant INFIMACS | Enterprise Applications Battlefield Mid-Year Scoreboard
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Part 3: IBM | Enterprise Applications Battlefield Mid-Year Scoreboard
Part 2: Microsoft | Enterprise Applications Battlefield Mid-Year Scoreboard | Beware of Legacy Data - It Can Be Lethal | Adonix Grows Roots Against The Odds
Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Adonix Grows Roots Against The Odds
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Part 3: Causes of Failures | The 'Joy' Of Enterprise Systems Implementations
Part 2: Implementation Key Success Factors | The 'Joy' Of Enterprise Systems Implementations
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Part 2: Challenges and User Recommendations | Microsoft 'The Great' Poised To Conquer Mid-Market, Once and Again
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Part 2: Market Impact | Lawson Enforces Its Stronghold
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Part 2: User Recommendations | PeopleSoft's Buying Momentum Goes On.
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Part 2: Results | Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility | How Some ERP Vendors Demonstrated - Warts and All
Part 1 | Should interBiz Mean Intelligence And Prediction Beyond ERP? - Part 2: Challenges and Market Impact | Is SCT And Logistics.com Partnership A Déjà vu? | Should interBiz Mean Intelligence And Prediction Beyond ERP? | SAP Opens The ‘Miss Congeniality’ Contest | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically - Part 3: Challenges & User Recommendations | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically - Part 2: Market Impact | Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically | ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study - Part 2: Qualitative Assessments and Analysis | ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study
Part 1: Business Model Scenarios | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW. Part 2: Market Impact | PeopleSoft Remains Rock-Hard And Economy Proof | Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW | Glovia On B2B Reinventing Trail | Kewill And Microsoft Great Plains To Further Mutually Complement | Soft Economy Dents SAP’s Armored Shield As Well | Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers. Part 2: Market Impact | PRISM Users Get A Dedicated, Independent Web Community | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 2: Market Impact and User Recommendations | INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 1: Recent Developments | Clarity of Vision: Clarify Sold to Amdocs by Nortel | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 2 of 2 | Way To Go, Ross Systems! | Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 1 of 2 | Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 2: Geac's Response | What's With Oracle's And SAP's Differing Clairvoyance? | Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 1: Event Summary | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 5: Recommendations | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 4: Market Predictions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 3: Rating The Vendors | MAPICS Unifies The Brand And Interacts For CRM Solutions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Part 2: Vendor Reactions | The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond – Aging Gracefully With The ‘New Kids On The Block’ | Shall Bifurcated Tack Reverse J.D. Edwards’ Bad Spell? | E-Business Sell Side Success at H.B. Fuller | IFS Glows Amidst The Mid-Market Gloom | Business Intelligence Success at Biomet, Inc. | Oracle Makes A U-Turn At The 'All Things To All People' Exit | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: SAP AG | Sausage Producer Packs Out the Profit with Technology | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: Baan and Parent Company, Invensys | Intentia’s Intents To Be More Fashionable | 'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: J.D. Edwards | Frontstep Still Awaiting Better Times | E-Business Customer Service Success at H.B. Fuller Company | Will V8 Help SSA GT Regain Lost Ground? | PeopleSoft Keeps Truckin’ On A Potholed Road Ahead | SCT Extends Into Business Intelligence | Epicor Shows Resilience When It Needs It The Most | ERP Trivia - Every Why Should Have Its Wherefore
Part 2: ERP Key Success Factors | J.D. Edwards Fires Siebel, Hires YOU | ERP Trivia - Every Why Should Have Its Wherefore
Part 1: ERP Trends | Single Source or Best of Breed - The Debate Continues | SAP Thrives On Competitors' Plight, In Part | Can You Add New Life To an Old ERP System? | Made2Manage Manages Throughout Soft Market | Microsoft Great Plains Procures eProcure At Last | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 5: Challenges and User Recommendations | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 4: SAP's Strategy | i2, SAP, Oracle Poised For Showdown in Q4 | SAP – A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 3: Market Impact | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 2: Expanding Functionality | Lawson Software Means Business With PSA and IPO | SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 1: Alliances | PeopleSoft Supply Chain Is Music To Mid Market Ears | It Is Possible - SAP And Baan Strange Bedfellows | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 3: The Challenge of Gaining Competitive Advantage | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 2: The Implications | Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost
Part 1: The News | NavisionDamgaard Reverts To Navision, But In Name Only | J.D. Edwards' QUEST To End Its String Of Pyrrhic Victories
Part 2: The Implications | J.D. Edwards' QUEST To End Its String Of Pyrrhic Victories
Part 1: The News | Baan Achieves A Speedy Recovery Despite The Tough Times | PeopleSoft: Giving Fervent Hope To The Market And Jitters To The Competition. Part 2: The Implications | PeopleSoft: Giving Fervent Hope To The Market And Jitters To The Competition. Part 1: The News | ERP Selection Case Study Audio Conference Transcript | Fed Gives ERP A Shot In The Arm | Will QAD Finally Get The Break (-Even)? | IFS' Tamed Growth + Continued Losses + Increased Competitors' Lobby Talk = Decreased Customer Confidence | ROI Systems - A Little ERP Fellow That Gets By | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 3: Predictions and Recommendations | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 2: Strengths and Challenges | Latest Development on Epicor's Trying The Divestiture Tack | PeopleSoft - Catching Its Second Wind From The Internet
Part 1: About PeopleSoft | Epicor To Try The Divestiture Tack, Too | MAPICS Clings To Its Customers' Loyalty | Is Ross Systems Up To A Hat Trick? | SAP Remains One Of The Market’s Beacons Of Hope | The Mid-Market Is Consolidating, Lo And Behold | SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN | IBM Buys What’s Left of Informix | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 4: ASP’s and New Pricing Models | Invensys Announces New Division - Baan Process | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 3: E-Business and Mid-Market Shakeout | Geac Decomposes To Survive | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)?
Part 2: Product Architecture and Web-Basing | Where Is ERP Headed (Or Better, Where Should It Be Headed)? Part 1: Functional Scope and Vertical Focus | SAP Acquires TopTier To Further Broaden Its Horizons | Oracle Sails Slower In The Low Tide, But Mayday Signal Is Quite Far-Fetched | IFS Aspires To Capture North American Market Against The Low Tide | Is Intentia Truly Industry’s First In Food Traceability? | QAD Finally Breaks The Red Ink Streak, But… | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 2: Evaluating Epicor | J.D. Edwards Saved By SCM, Narrowly, And Only For Now | Epicor Software Corp.: Completing Painstaking "e"Volution Part 1: About Epicor | Stalled Navision + Mixed Bag Damgaard = Satisfactory NavisionDamgaard | Infinium Attempts To Better Gain Some Markets' Ear | MAPICS XA Expands BI Offering Through Partnership With Vanguard | Has Intentia Turned The Corner? Almost. | Ross Systems Closes Ranks For A (Possible) Turnaround | PeopleSoft Plays Hardball | Is Made2Manage Made2Survive? Seems So. | Frontstep (Nee Symix Systems) A Step Closer To A Turnaround | Small ERP Vendors Missing The ASP Boat | SAP Defies Economic Slowdown, For Now | Can Lilly Software Get More VISUAL? | Fourth Shift Hopes To Thrive On China’s Greener Pastures | ERP Beginner's Guide In So Many Words | PeopleSoft Joins The Hunt For SMEs | Will 2001 Be The Year Of Baan’s Miraculous Comeback?
Definitely Maybe. | Extricity Makes a Move into IBM’s Sphere of B2B Influence | Microsoft And Great Plains – A Friendship That Turned Into A Marriage | SCT Corporation: The Last Viable Process Manufacturing Vendor Standing? | Oracle Sails Despite Market’s Low Tide; How Far Will It Go? | J.D. Edwards Reaches $1B Milestone In Another Losing Year | QAD’s Costly eTransition Continues | e-Catalysts Delivers Digital Marketplace | Made2Manage Systems, Inc.: M2M From A2Z For SMEs? | Does NavisionDamgaard Merger Mark Further Mid-Market Consolidation? | Essential ERP - Its Functional Scope | The Essential ERP - Its Genesis & Future | Ross Systems Continues To Slip, But Pledges to Fight Tooth And Claw | IFS Has A Magic Growth Formula; But What About Profitability? | SAP Claims Big Gains In The Low-End Battleground | Symix Starts New Year Under New Name, But Old Issues Remain | IBI + IBM = EAI | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 2: Evaluating Baan | Infinium Ends Its Most Challenging Year | JuxtaComm And IBM Integrate Their Integration Products | Great Plains Unveils New E-Commerce Solution | Great Plains Taps The Web To Deliver Product Support | Epicor Delivers On Milestones, But Its Situation Remains Bleak | Onyx Software: CRM Vendor Battling For Viability | What On Earth Is Going On With SSA? | BEA Systems Has A Broad Vision For E-Business Infrastructures | Baan – What Will The Future In Invensys’ Stable Bring? Part 1: About Baan | Big ERP Players Courting Government Agencies | Intentia Possibly Seeing Daylight | Geac Lives By Acquisitions; Will It Die By An Acquisition? | SAP Q3 Results Cause Mixed Reactions | Fourth Shift Tightens Belt To Weather The Drought | PeopleSoft Delivers Oxymoron In 'Supply Chain in a Box' | PeopleSoft – Again A Force To Be Reckoned With? | Another Type Of Virus Hits The World (And Gets Microsoft No Less) | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 2: Evaluating J.D. Edwards | J.D. Edwards – A Collaboration Thought Leader Or A Disguised ERP Follower? Part 1: About J.D. Edwards | Lawson Software Expands Vertically As Well | ROI Systems Catching Up With e-Commerce | IBM Aims Renamed UNIX Server at Sun | Great Plains’ Latest Product Offering — Ready to Stampede the SME Market? | Great Plains' eEnterprise Solution 'N Sync with Microsoft's New Platforms | Navision Executes At a Slower Pace | Symix Systems Front-Steps Into Greener e-Commerce Pastures | Has SAP Found Magic Formula (One) To Learn The Ropes Of Marketing? | IBM Server Line Redrawn | Is Baan Showing Signs of Life After Death? | Oracle – How to Disappoint Analysts by Doubling Profits | Ross Systems Ends Year On a Sour Note and Braces Itself For Survivor’s Game | Will Oracle’s Freebie Shot Hurt (Or Only Graze) Siebel? | Great Plains – An SME Market Leader, But At What Cost? | IFS Marches On, Although With a String of Losses | Siebel: Great Plans for Great Plains | Commerce One Holds Announcement Festival | Fourth Shift Corporation: Working Overtime To Provide Complete Customer Care | SynQuest Posts Mixed Results | J.D. Edwards’ Mixed Blessings | QAD Continues to Wade Through Red Ink | eConnections Expands Web With IPNet | Geac Trying Its Luck in Partnering | Ultimate Connection Seeking Its US Retail Connection Through Solomon Software Partners | New Release For Ariba’s Software | Thru-Put Announces Features For New APS Release | Oracle Applications - An Internet-Reinvented Feisty Challenger | American Software Has Been Starving While Delivering Innovations | Intentia Has Been Bleeding For Its Platform Independence | ERP Belle Époque Officially Ended With the Demise of Baan and SSA | PowerCerv Facing Another Stormy Season | The Pros and Cons of Collaborative Planning | MAPICS Back On Track, But Not Without Restructuring Pains | Global Vendor Negotiation Strategies | Winner Takes All – Siebel Ousts SalesLogix From Solomon’s Deal | PeopleSoft 8 Launched – Anything to Write Home About? | PeopleSoft: No More a Humble Kid From a Rough Neighborhood? | IBM Nabs Another Application Vendor | Catalyst International to Tread Water With SAP Through 2000 | Epicor Software Corp.: How Far From Being 'One-Stop' Shop? | SCT Comes Back With a Vengeance | Lawson Software Marches Over $300M Milestone | SAP Remains Solid While Transitioning | They Can Run, But You Can’t Hide | How Has Made2Manage Systems Been Managing Itself? | Yahoo! Goes Mobile in Greece | Baan Defectors – Is This Only Tip of an Iceberg? | Is Fourth Shift Succeeding in Providing 'Complete Customer Care'? | SAP - A Leader Under Reconstruction | How Detrimental Can a 2nd-In-Charge’s Departure Be? | Can Geac Reshuffle the ERP Standings? | More Vendors Bail on Oracle in Favor of IBM | ERP Getting a New Breath of Fresh Air in Europe | Has Market Been Too Harsh On Great Plains? | Great Plains Supply Chain Series To Be Powered By Logility | J.D. Edwards Chooses Freedom to Choose EAI | Siebel Has Done It Again – This Time with Navision | American Software - A Tacit Avant-Garde? | Ross Systems, Inc.: In Process of Renaissance | How Has MAPICS Been Extending? | PeopleSoft Manufacturing - This Time For Sure?! | i2 Technologies’ Latest Offering: J. D. Edwards OneWorld™ | SAP to Become Leaner, Meaner and More Organized | J. D. Edwards FOCUSes on Active Supply Chain | Infinium Software, Inc.: Having All the Right Cards? | Access Commerce Spices Up North American CRM Fray | No More Mr. Nice Guy With J.D. Edwards | Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Audio Conference | IFS Far Cry From Running Out of Breath | Infinium and Elcom Walk Down ASP Aisle | ROI Systems, Inc.: Will Slow and Steady Remain in the Race? | Baan Yet Another ERP Vendor to Find a Sanctuary Under Invensys’ Wing | MAPICS Red Ink Stained While Extending Its Offering | Intentia’s Growing Pains | Ross Systems’ Renaissance Yet to Happen | Epicor Continues To Bleed | Symix Systems’ Slips Into Red During Its E-Commerce Transition | Will Solomon Finally Satisfy Great Plains’ Insatiable Appetite? | Baan Sinks Deeper into Red Quicksand | IBM Taking on Sun in Web Infrastructure? | Lawson Software’s CRM and ASP Moves – Wise, Bold, Injudicious, Enforced, or Something Else? | Is SAP Stumbling? Perhaps. | Yet Another ‘Big 5 ERP’ CEO Casualty | Navision Software a/s: Mid-market iNvasion | IBM Updates the Netfinity Line | Essential ERP – Current Market Trends – Part II | Will That Wretched ERP Finally Die? Possibly, But Only the Acronym! | Yet Another ERP/CRM Partnership | Oracle Flying High on Q3 Report: Is Gold All That Glitters? | Navision Becoming More Visible | Geac Announces Q3 Results and Acquires CRM Vendor | ERP Demand Being Re-heated | ERP Vendors Venturing into PSA | Solomon Software: Breaking Away from Perception as “Best-of-Breed-Accounting” Vendor | JD Edwards’ Alliances: Is It Too Much of a Good Thing? | GLOVIA to be Resuscitated (Hopefully) | How Many Napkins Have to Die Needlessly? A Case for Business Architecture | JD Edwards Reports Strong License Revenue Growth in Q1 2000, but… | Intentia Attempts to Become ‘Lean and Mean’ | Vendors Begin to Round Out Their CRM Suites | J.D. Edwards Names SynQuest Preferred Solution | Oracle Integrates Front and Back Office with Applications 11i | PeopleSoft's CEO Steps Down | SSA Seeks Support from Synquest | SAP sets up Apparel and Footwear team | Geac and JBA Join Forces to Form New ERP Giant | Computer Associates, Baan Japan and EXE Announce Strategic Alliance to Provide Total Supply Chain Management Solutions | Oracle to Enlist BPA Systems in its Mid-Market Quest | SAP Lowers Revenue Expectations | Symix Maintains Consistent Profitability Despite Y2K Market Conditions | Software Leasing Trend Slams Baan Earnings | Intentia Americas Gains Momentum with 10 New Deals Inked During Last Two Weeks | MAPICS Reports Solid Profitability Despite Dismal Fiscal 1999 4% Growth | Baan Releases New Supply Chain Products | French Government awards ERP contract to Peoplesoft | Business Software Firms Sued Over Implementation - Lawsuits Bring ERP Problems to Light | Geac Metamorphosises JBA Into Gear, but Cuts 20% of Staff | SAP Details CRM Plans | J.D. Edwards Incurs Further Losses In Third Quarter | Intentia and Dash Associates Team Up | Key Product Delays Take a Toll on Oracle Users | ERP Packages For Midsize Firms in the Works | QAD Reports Third-Quarter--Revenue Rises 56 Percent | Pronto ERP 'Coming to America' | System Software Associates Announces Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results - The Agony Continues | J.D. Edwards Closes Out Millennium on an Up Note | Boeing Expands Baan Licensing Deal | Oracle Reports Strong Profits | QAD Offers Improved E-Commerce Applications with Greater Flexibility and Customization Capabilities | Heads Roll at Consulting Giant in Wake of SEC Investigation | Is Baan Clinically Dead? | Manhattan Associates Partners with Intentia | PeopleSoft Completes Acquisition of Vantive; Vantive CRM Applications Integrate with PeopleSoft and Other ERP Systems | SAP, PeopleSoft Earnings Look Brighter; ERP Strikes Back | Great Plains on a Shopping Spree | Geac Upgrades Accounting And Human-Resources Apps -- SQL Release 6.0 Simplifies Purchasing And HR Services For Midsize Companies | MAPICS, Inc. to Acquire Pivotpoint, Expanding e-business Offerings for Mid-Sized Manufacturing Establishments | PeopleSoft Takes Aim at Foods Industry | ERP Vendors Moving to Aerospace and Defense Markets | PeopleSoft Recuperating Slowly, Hoping to Sink 1999 into Oblivion Quickly | Baan Posts $236 Million Loss and Sells Off Coda for Nearly $40M Less Than It Paid | Symix Expands Its Product Offering While Remaining Profitable | IFS Continues to Blossom | SAP Declares Victory Over Manugistics, Takes Aim at i2 | Food Producer Files $20m Lawsuit Against Oracle | Oracle Loses Again | PeopleSoft Programs Cause Headaches at Number of Universities | Hummingbird Announces Extraction and Portal Strategy for ERP | SAP Posts Solid Q499, but Warns of Q100 | Analysis of Lawson Delivering New Retail Analytic Capabilities | IBM and Deutsche Telecom Announce Plans for 100 Terabyte Data Warehouse | ERP Vendor Lawson Software Extends to IBM's DB2 Universal Database | J.D. Edwards Teams with FRx Software to Improve Reporting Solutions | SAP and HP on the Web Together | Analysis of SAS Institute and IBM Intelligence Alliance | E-Commerce Lesson: Success Gets a Yawn, Failure Takes a Beating | Is There a Magic Pill for Web Performance Problems? | Oracle is Word One at Ford | SAP's New Level of e-Commerce: mySAP.com | Intentia Floats Vaporware Agent to Replace Business Planning | BAAN Announces "Open World": Business-To-Business Collaboration Over The Internet | Lawson Plays Well With Others | Tentative Unification in Server I/O Architecture Battle | IBM Announces Netfinity 4000R Super-Thin Server | The "S" in SAP Doesn't Stand for Security (that goes for PeopleSoft too) | Dell, IBM in $6B Services Deal | IBM to Sell Aptiva Direct | Oracle Co. - Internet Paradigm Boosts Applications Growth | SAP AG - ERP Leader with a "New Dimension" | Baan Company N.V. - Is the Worst Over? | J.D. Edwards and Numetrix Ponder the Future as One | Symix Sytems: Shifting SME's Focus to Their Customers | MAPICS: Will Customer Satisfaction be Enough? | Intentia: Java Evolution From AS/400 | SSA: Evolving into systems integrator to survive | JBA: Will it remain "@ctive Enterprise"? | Marcam Solutions: Shifting its Focus to MES | Industrial & Financial Systems, IFS AB: Thriving on Product Flexibility and Incremental Deployability | Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) Market - Dismal 1999, the New Millennium to bring Relief (for Some) | Lawson Software: Self-Evidently Thriving on Innovations | QAD Inc.: The Art of Vertical Focus | Great Plains: Strong Channel and Microsoft focus for Dynamic(s) Growth | SAP's Dr. Peter Barth on Client/Server and Database Issues with SAP R/3 | PeopleSoft on Client/Server and Database Issues | Baan E-Commerce: a Wing, a Prayer & a Single Platform | J.D. Edwards - Creating OneWorld of Mid-sized ERP Users | PeopleSoft - Are Business Intelligence and e-Commerce Enough? | Q: Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Billionaire? A: Baan -- Foster Care for Its Orphans Needed As Well | Geac Computer Corporation: Mastering Growth by Acquisitions |