Market Impact
Microsoft
Business Solutions Solomon, formerly Solomon IV and
Microsoft Great Plains Solomon IV, is a prominent business
management and e-business suite of applications for small and mid-market companies.
Most recently, in summer 2003, Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) announced
the availability of Microsoft Business Solutions Solomon 5.5,
which includes several new features and enhancements in the product's Foundation
Series, Financial Series, Project Series, and Service Series of modules.
Clearly,
the MBS Solomon product has had more than an interesting voyage
since its inception. Its former proprietor, privately held Solomon Software,
Inc., which was founded in 1980, with headquarters in Findlay, OH,
had experienced a steady growth throughout the 1990s, with estimated revenues
of $60 million and over 400 employees in its last fiscal year as an independent
entity, 1999. Our estimate is that MBS Solomon nowadays also contributes over
10 percent of total MBS' revenues of ~$550 million.
From
a founder-driven company of over 20 years ago, with a traditional focus on accounting
software, former Solomon Software had evolved to a vendor run by professional
corporate management and that eventually offered a much broader and deeper product
portfolio prior to being acquired in 2000. Solomon designed, marketed, and supported
its flagship product Solomon IV, a financial and business management system
for small to medium enterprises (SMEs), which it introduced in 1994 as a suite
of over fifty standard modules, running solely on Microsoft SQL Server
and Windows NT/2000 platforms.
Focused
on the low end of the mid-market (the enterprises with up to $250 million in
revenues), Solomon had also achieved a worldwide base of more than 25,000 customers
in 400 different industries in more than 100 countries exclusively through its
extensive network of independent sales and support organizations—value
added resellers (VARs). The company also had over twenty affiliate offices worldwide
and derived approximately 25 percent of its revenue from the international market.
Further, in 1998, Solomon opened four regional Solomon Technology Centers (STCs)
in North America to support its distributors. These centers provided applications
and installation support for its indirect channel in order to provide efficient
service and support for customers and some economies of scale for distributors
at the same time.
Especially during the last few years of its independent operation, Solomon had accelerated the release of new functionality and attempted to create a new market perception of not being only a best-of-breed accounting software provider. Since 1997, Solomon had also acquired a number of independent developers and launched partnerships with a number of ISVs, which today amount to close to 150 and which have significantly broadened its product line. During 1998 and 1999, the company released its distribution, manufacturing, service, project management, and e-business product components.
The
last product release before the Great Plains acquisition, Solomon
IV release 4.21 in 1999, introduced some landmark features, that have
remained its differentiators till nowadays, such as Solomon Desktop
(a portal application providing 100 percent Internet access anytime, anywhere),
Service Series (featuring Field Service, Service Dispatch,
Equipment Maintenance, Service Contracts and other modules), E-Commerce
Gateway —
EDI Edition, Advance Shipment Management,
and Web Order (a B2B e-commerce component). As a result, the
product now comprises the following series of modules: Foundation, Financial,
Project, Service, Distribution, Manufacturing, and E-Business.
This
is Part Two of a four-part note.
Part
One detailed the recent product enhancements.
Part
Three will discuss product differentiators.
Part
Four will present the challenges and make user recommendations.
New Functionality Accelerated
Still,
due to its quite belated expansion into the ERP world (let alone extended-ERP),
the vendor had suffered the reputation of a best-of-breed accounting software
provider only. While former Solomon had accelerated its delivery schedule of
new functionality, it was also hard pressed with tight "time-to-market" constraints
and limited resources at the time. The following intended functionality delivery
schedule in 2000 would have been a tall order for even much more resource abundant
competitors, given that some of these have seen the daylight only within the
above-mentioned releases within Great Plains and MBS, well after 2000—repetitive
build and MRP modules within the Manufacturing Series (yet to be released natively);
replenishing, commissions, and shipments modules within the Distribution Series;
employee utilization and time and billing within the Project Series; additional
e-business functionality like eVoucher; and Solomon Object Model within the
System Tools suite.
However,
given that all is well that ends well, MBS Solomon, due to its distinct differentiators
(e.g., project management, advanced distribution, and field service capabilities,
the product flexibility, having integrated but modular applications, powerful
reporting capabilities, multi-company accounting features, etc.) and weaknesses
(e.g., rudimentary manufacturing functionality), has been blessed in disguise
with possibly the most distinct niche and the least overlap (gray area) with
the other MBS ERP products (i.e., MBS Great Plains, MBS Navision,
and MBS Axapta). Indeed, MBS Solomon remains the choice for
organizations that seek flexible financial systems, integrated with distribution,
project, or service operations. The strongest customer base thus comes from
construction—special trade contractors, wholesale distribution—durable
goods, business services, engineering, accounting, research, and management
service organizations.
CRM Strategy
Although
the product has suffered CRM strategy vacillations as a result of changing owners
and their differing CRM ideas at the time, it should eventually benefit from
the next release of Microsoft CRM, version 1.2,
which is slated for the end of 2003, and which will supposedly support nine
languages in total, will feature stronger reporting capabilities based on Crystal
Decisions' Crystal Enterprise 9 product and improved setup and development
capabilities. The integration will supposedly be provided for the MBS Solomon
5.0 and 5.5 releases.
Prior
to opting for the in-house CRM product integration following up on its release
in January 2003 (see Microsoft
Convergence 2003 portrayed an Enterprise Solutions crossroad!), Solomon
was going to be integrated with SalesLogix in 2000 (see Yet
Another ERP/CRM Partnership), and subsequently with a mid-market CRM product
that was called Microsoft Great Plains Siebel Front Office
(see Winner
Takes All - Siebel Ousts SalesLogix From Solomon's Deal) during the "time
of love" between Siebel Systems and Microsoft Great Plains.
At some stage, Great Plains was also toying with an idea of enhancing Solomon
IV SCM capabilities with a partnership with Logility (see Great
Plains Supply Chain Series To Be Powered By Logility), which has meanwhile
fallen by the wayside due to the vendors' different target markets (i.e., larger
Logility's customers versus Solomon's focus on SMEs) and given Solomon's customers'
needs could often be well met with Solomon's meanwhile enhanced native distribution
capabilities.
This concludes Part Two of a four-part note.
Part
One detailed the recent product enhancements.
Part
Three will discuss product differentiators.
Part
Four will present the challenges and make user recommendations.