Enterprise Financial Application Software: How Some of the Big ERP Vendors Stack Up Contrary to what vendors may contend, not all of them are able to supply a cost effective solution that satisfies the critical requirements of an organization. In this case study from a recent selection engagement for a large series book publisher, we size up Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Lawson in terms of corporate viability, vision, product functionality, technology, and cost.
December 22, 2001
Application Single-Sign On: Netegrity, Securant, or Evidian? As security breaches become increasingly more frequent, minimizing user access to back-end systems and web applications without impacting legitimate usage is more important than ever before.
December 22, 2001
Social Engineering Can Thwart the Best Laid Security Plans There are a lot of different social engineering techniques, but they all have the same basic idea. The trick behind social engineering is to get the user to give up valuable information without them suspecting anything.
SAP Farms More Business Out Amid Its Staff Reductions As the battle for the mid-market intensifies and each vendor is exhibiting a pertinent sabre rattling display of power, SAP is turning to help from the alliance in order to partly counteract the needed cost-cutting exercise in its US operations
December 17, 2001
Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility
Part 2: Market Impact In the fiscal year 2000-01, Ramco transformed from a predominantly core ERP provider to a complete solutions company with a broader portfolio of products (e.g., ERP, EAM, HRMS, etc.) and services (e.g., network solutions, network security, modeling and simulations, etc.).
December 17, 2001
InsideOut Makes Firewall Reporting Useful Firewall logs can be cryptic and very difficult to analyze. There are a number of firewall reporting products on the market that attempt to address this problem, however one particular product recently caught our attention.
December 17, 2001
Lost Your Laptop? The CyberAngelÂź Brings It Back A company known as Computer Sentry Software, Inc. has designed an innovative option for laptop recovery. With laptop theft on the rise, investing in an affordable laptop recovery package is well worth the investment.
December 14, 2001
How Some ERP Vendors Demonstrated - Warts And All
Part 2: Results This is part two of a case study from a recent selection engagement for an ETO mid-size manufacturer; we assess Oracle, J.D. Edwards, SAP, and IFS in terms of their ability to demonstrate alleged functionality of their products.
December 13, 2001
Ramco Systems - Diversity Marshaled Through Flexibility While Ramco Systemâs combination of experienced offshore application developers, the best practices of component-based applications development and code generation, and strategic partnerships is possibly a unique value proposition, it will still take some doing for a full-blown expansion worldwide.
December 12, 2001
How Some ERP Vendors Demonstrated - Warts and All
Part 1 Contrary to what vendors may contend, not all of them are able to provide an effective out-of-the-box solution that satisfies the critical requirements of an organization. In this case study from a recent selection engagement for an ETO mid-size manufacturer, we assess Oracle, J.D. Edwards, SAP, and IFS in terms of their ability to demonstrate alleged functionality of their products.
Should interBiz Mean Intelligence And Prediction Beyond ERP? Although interBiz has spouted an interesting value proposition to many enterprise applications users, the company still has to address some potential stumbling blocks in order to clear the path to its applications business success.
December 4, 2001
SAP Opens The âMiss Congenialityâ Contest While SAPâs determination to become enterprise applications Web Esperanto evangelist is of paramount importance to its customers and for the general market direction, one should by no means expect short-term tectonic moves.
December 3, 2001
Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically - Part 3: Challenges & User Recommendations As the current market trend is towards vendors that can provide well-rounded but vertically focused solutions for medium-sized companies, Navision seems to have positioned itself to take a lead other vendors may find hard to emulate. The merger outline was sound, the common groundwork has been identified, and the time for delivery and execution is on.
Navision Enhances Its e-Vision And Looks To Expand Vertically By posting a profitable year while delivering different flavors of products to satisfy many fastidious tastes and by offering an attractive value proposition to its channel, Navision could be telling us that the appropriate offering might be the recipe to thrive even during difficult economic climate.
November 26, 2001
'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: PeopleSoft PeopleSoft has risen from its relatively humble origins in the Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) arena, its sole focus as it begun life in 1987. Over the course of a decade or so, it added Supply Chain Management and Financials to its list of application offerings. In the last few years, in the face of slowing cash flows from its traditional strongholds, it has gone full bore toward Internet-based enterprise-wide - even cross-enterprise - solutions, trying to enter the game and be competitive with other top tier ERP-turned Collaborative Commerce vendors. Showing fiscal growth and, very-recently, notably-improved market acceptance, Peoplesoft may be the enterprise software turnaround story of the last decade.
November 24, 2001
Order Promising: Pre-Condition Your Enterprise for Operational Excellence Simple questions often have complex answers. Whether they are speaking with you on the
phone or placing an order on a Web storefront, your customers expect immediate
gratification. They want to know when their order will ship the moment it is placed. How do
you respond?
November 22, 2001
'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: Oracle There are two ways to build enterprise application solutions: link together disparate, best-of-breed solutions, in which vendors embrace open architectures and inter-application messaging protocols, or find a one-stop-shop with all the software, functionality, and interoperability one could ever ask for. Oracle insists the latter is the best way, and it is their way. But is it best for Collaborative-Commerce? Is their vision of C-Commerce and interoperability yours as well?
November 21, 2001
ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study - Part 2: Qualitative Assessments and Analysis This is part two of a note describing an opportunity TEC had to evaluate and compare the four top ERP vendors for a client. Each vendorâs offering differed in such areas as functionality, flexibility, process fit and ease of use. Find out what TEC learned as a result of the selection engagement.
November 19, 2001
ERP Selection Facts and Figures Case Study
Part 1: Business Model Scenarios During a recent Enterprise Resource Planning selection engagement with a large aerospace and defense manufacturer TEC had the opportunity to evaluate and compare the offerings of four top vendors. Each vendorâs offering differed in such areas as functionality, flexibility, process fit and ease of use. Find out what TEC learned as a result of the selection engagement.
November 16, 2001
Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW. Part 2: Market Impact Lilly believes that, with the opportunity to implement the application either through an integrated module within the VISUAL product suite or via Lilly's new ASP option, manufacturers and distributors can easily get started with their e-business initiatives.
November 15, 2001
PeopleSoft Remains Rock-Hard And Economy Proof PeopleSoft again exceeded Wall Street estimates in another stellar quarterly performance, with more than 100 new customers and with more than half the deals for multiple suites or products. Will the company bear well the brunt of becoming the new market darling, which inevitably brings increased scrutiny by many?
November 14, 2001
Lilly Software Visualizes Its eBusiness Offering, NOW With its prudent 'wait-and-see' approach, Lilly Software has been rounding up its VISUAL product suite and remains in the high pole position for the SME market race.
November 13, 2001
Glovia On B2B Reinventing Trail If Glovia successfully continues its reinvention as a B2B e-business transformation provider for manufacturers and service companies that want more than core ERP, the market may witness the positive reincarnation of Glovia.
November 12, 2001
Kewill And Microsoft Great Plains To Further Mutually Complement While Microsoft Great Plains and Kewill will offer a potentially awesome combined offering worldwide, their competitors will bet on products that cover all the bases in a natively integrated fashion.
November 9, 2001
Soft Economy Dents SAPâs Armored Shield As Well Since the license revenue plunge in the US, a likely cascading economic slowdown worldwide, and SAPâs high stakes in struggling Commerce One happened much before the fatal September 11, one is only to wonder why SAPâs management woke up to reality and revised its projections so belatedly.
November 8, 2001
Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers. Part 2: Market Impact While Sysproâs recent product release does not necessarily represent a major ground breaking, its broad and well-attuned offering for small enterprises should certainly give other incumbent players a run for their money.
November 7, 2001
The Demo Crime Files! This article is part of the continuing education all software demonstrators need to ensure their fundamental skills remain sharp. It points out three common 'crimes' made in demonstrations, how to recognize them, and suggests alternative approaches.
November 6, 2001
Syspro Hatches 'Encore' IMPACT On SME Manufacturers While Sysproâs recent product release does not necessarily represent a major ground breaking, its broad and well-attuned offering for small enterprises should certainly give other incumbent players a run for their money.
November 5, 2001
PRISM Users Get A Dedicated, Independent Web Community Users of the Baan Process ERP product PRISM form a web-site community to provide an independent source of information and sharing of knowledge on one of the market's first Process-ERP Products.
November 2, 2001
The Lexicon of CRM - Part 3: From R to Z CRM. C.R.M. itself is an acronym, standing for Customer Relationship Management. This is part three of a three-part article to provide explanation and meaning for most of the common CRM phraseology. Here, in alphabetical order, we continue the Lexicon of CRM
November 1, 2001
INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 2: Market Impact and User Recommendations The current market trend industry-wide is towards vendors that can provide comprehensive solutions for medium-sized companies. Relevant seems to have a fair shot at delivering that to project-based discrete manufacturers such as aerospace contractors, contract manufacturers of electronic components, window, door & frame manufacturers, and MRO organizations with revenues up to $300 million.
October 2001
October 31, 2001
BRAIN May Still Be Needed In The Automotive Industry While BRAIN North America may have all the right cards for the lower tiers of the automotive industry, the road to success will by no means be uncontested.
October 30, 2001
INFIMACS Becoming Ever More RELEVANT For Project-Based Industries. Part 1: Recent Developments If Relevant Business Systems has for any reason deliberately maintained its INFIMACS II ERP system as one of the best-kept secrets in the complex manufacturing market, it has certainly succeeded so far. However, given a bevy of viable solutions from more renowned vendors, the company will have to spread the word much more aggressively from now on.
Clarity of Vision: Clarify Sold to Amdocs by Nortel Amdocs Management Limited announced that it reached an agreement with Nortel Networks to acquire the assets of Nortelâs Clarify business for US $200 million. Nortel is jettisoning business units that are not in line with its current vision. Who is Amdocs, and what do they plan to do with their newly-acquired CRM suite?
October 25, 2001
Logistics.com Might Prove An Internet Success Story After All As the number of dot-comâs dwindles, we see some examples of highly focused exchanges and hosted applications with growth and a path towards profitability. Logistics.com is an example of one such company.
October 24, 2001
Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 2 of 2 IFS needs to bolster its brand awareness, and let the world know that they are, in fact, a real contender in the Collaborative Commerce space. Once companies get IFS in-house and get to touch and feel it - to really understand its user interface and ease of use advantages over many of its rivals - it often wins.
October 23, 2001
Way To Go, Ross Systems! Although Ross Systems today is merely a shadow of a once solid profitable vendor, its embattled management deserves accolades for tenacity and pulling off a third consecutive profitable quarter, thereby remaining in the race.
October 22, 2001
Collaborative Commerce: ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: IFS - Part 1 of 2 IFS arrived over five years ago on U.S. shores, with a Christmas-bag full of software components that run from the front-office to back-office and back again. Theyâre here to play, to get recognized, and win some big Collaborative Commerce engagements. Weâll see if theyâve got the stuff to do it.
October 19, 2001
The Lexicon of CRM - Part 2: From J to Q C.R.M. itself is an acronym, standing for Customer Relationship Management. This is part two of a three-part article to provide explanation and meaning for most of the common CRM phraseology. Here, in alphabetical order, we continue the Lexicon of CRM.
October 18, 2001
Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 2: Geac's Response While Geacâs balance sheet was boosted by recent events, a more positive sign is the companyâs intent to become a true software-developing vendor, not simply a software collector and dealer.
October 17, 2001
What's With Oracle's And SAP's Differing Clairvoyance? Regardless of whether Oracle is cautiously pessimistic or SAP is unrealistically enthusiastic about the immediate future, both vendors will quite likely weather the impending El Nino phase. Still, neither one can rest on its laurels, as they both have their internal and external challenges to solve.
October 16, 2001
Geac Awakens On Its Deathbed - Part 1: Event Summary While Geac might not need a white knight savior any longer owing to the profitable quarter and secured additional funding, the general feeling remains that the company has also long passed up an opportunity to be a top-notch applications vendor.
October 15, 2001
The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond â Part 5: Recommendations Winning ERP products will demonstrate deep industry functionality and tight integration with best-of-bread âbolt-onâ products in a particular vertical. Users should focus on the handful of business objectives they need to achieve and the ways to measure their success.
October 12, 2001
The Lexicon of CRM - Part 1: From A to I C.R.M. itself is an acronym, standing for Customer Relationship Management. This is part one of three-part article to provide explanation and meaning for most of the common CRM phraseology. Here, in alphabetical order, is the Lexicon of CRM.
October 11, 2001
The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond â Part 4: Market Predictions ERP will be redefined as a platform for enabling e-business globally. Originally focused on automating internal processes of an enterprise, ERP systems will include customer and supplier-centric processes as well. The conclusive evidence of this redefinition is the move of all major ERP players into CRM and SCM applications.
October 9, 2001
The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond â Part 3: Rating The Vendors We generally believe that, in the long run, market winners will be those vendors with an established large customer base and with huge financial and human resources that would make them more responsive to any future challenges such as sudden market trends and/or technology paradigm shifts.
October 8, 2001
MAPICS Unifies The Brand And Interacts For CRM Solutions While the existing loyal client base and affiliate channel remains MAPICSâ trump card in these difficult times, the recent partnership initiatives bundled with a unified product branding might be the way to more effectively sell beyond the current XA client base, which is the must for the long-term viability.
October 5, 2001
The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond â Part 2: Vendor Reactions Faced with competitive inadequacies, the major ERP vendors have been vigorously busy developing, acquiring, or bundling new functionality so that their packages go beyond the traditional realms of finance, materials planning & management, and human resources.
October 3, 2001
The ERP Market 2001 And Beyond â Aging Gracefully With The âNew Kids On The Blockâ Although we believe that exorbitant growth rates are a matter of the past, growth will remain the word associated with the ERP market in the 2000âs. ERP will, however, have to share the spotlight with the fast growing adolescent ERP-adjacent areas like SCM, CRM and e-procurement.
October 2, 2001
Shall Bifurcated Tack Reverse J.D. Edwardsâ Bad Spell? By opting now for a âbest of both worlds strategy,â J.D. Edwards might finally have a formula of getting out of the doldrums it has been in for some time. While maintaining product flexibility, it can now provide its own âmust haveâ applications (e.g. SCM and CRM), and offer, through partnerships, the secondarily important bolt-onâs.
IFS Glows Amidst The Mid-Market Gloom By continuing to grow faster than many others, and by even reverting to profits, IFS has been defending the pride of quite beleaguered Tier 2 & 3 applications vendors. However, the bigger vendors will sell their aspirations dearly, and IFS still has a long way to go to achieve full-fledged credibility in the global market.
Oracle Makes A U-Turn At The 'All Things To All People' Exit Oracle has been trying hard for some time to find a magic formula to revive its declining applications revenue. Abandoning its isolationist stance and opening the door to integration of third-party products while still targeting the lower end of the market with the simplicity tune might be the hit.
September 22, 2001
'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite! A Series Study: SAP AG SAP AG has seemingly crossed a strategy chasm, from a strict, stodgy, Not-Invented-Here (NIH) approach to software development and delivery, to a seemingly quite open approach of broad development alliances, company acquisitions, Internet portals development, and a deep, new relationship with IBM for both technology sharing as well as bolstering IBM Consultingâs support for SAPâs new multiple mySAP.comâą initiatives. 'Collaborative' and 'SAP' were not two words you might have ever seen in the same article. Youâre seeing it now.
September 21, 2001
Sausage Producer Packs Out the Profit with Technology Odomâs Tennessee Pride Sausage, Inc. wanted to improve operations and customer service. Their ERP and SCM technology solution resulted in a fifteen-month project with a three-year payback period.
Intentiaâs Intents To Be More Fashionable Intentia remains solid, with both a new product portfolio and an increase in license revenue. The company, which is unimpeded by the current economic slump, finally seems to be realizing that it needs to achieve stronger global brand recognition well beyond its esoteric apparel/fashion vertical stronghold.
Frontstep Still Awaiting Better Times While Frontstep reported loses in fiscal 2001, the potential of its well-rounded product/services offering mix as well as the recent downsizing, bodes well a return to profitability.
E-business Buy Side Success at H.B. Fuller Chemical Company H.B. Fuller leveraged e-business to impact their procurement operations. This article discusses their objectives, the solution and the results.
September 10, 2001
Will V8 Help SSA GT Regain Lost Ground? The vendor that many have long forgotten seems to be reincarnating. In order to return from oblivion SSA GT has been making strides to put itself back on the global enterprise applications map, primarily through salvaging the relationships with existing customers. Will the latest V8 product vouch for an (incredible) resurrection of a fallen ERP vendor?
PeopleSoft Keeps Truckinâ On A Potholed Road Ahead In spite of the impression that currently PeopleSoft can do nothing wrong, many users of the older versions of its products might be bracing themselves for a less than smooth product upgrade ride.
Pure-Play CRM Vendors: Choose an Integrated or Best-of-Breed Solution? When selecting a CRM vendor should you go with a one-source solution, reducing the need for integration with other corporate data sources, or go with a best-of-breed approach, getting the best in each category but being left with standalone applications that must be integrated? This article compares the two approaches and offers some advice.
September 4, 2001
SCT Extends Into Business Intelligence SCT, a leading supplier to the process industries, has extended their iProcess.SCT product set to include Business Intelligence (BI).
Epicor Shows Resilience When It Needs It The Most By stemming the tide of hefty losses of past years now amid possibly the most difficult market situation, Epicor might be showing us that 'calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind' and that it remains in the mid-market leadership race.
J.D. Edwards Fires Siebel, Hires YOU J.D. Edwards announced plans to acquire CRM vendor YOUcentric, Inc. At the same time, they have severed their 18 month relationship with Siebel and ended integration plans between J.D. Edwards core functionalities and Siebelâs eFrontOffice capabilities. Abrupt? Yes. Unexpected? Possibly. In the best interests of J.D. Edwards and their customers? Wholeheartedly yes.
August 27, 2001
CRM is Busting Out Of Its Britches: Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative CRM Are Born Back in the early 90âs, âCRMâ wasnât even a trendy acronym. You had a few players thinking beyond 'stovepipe' enterprise applications, but not much beyond. Fast forward to 2001. CRM has gotten fat, and the fatter it gets, it becomes more difficult to understand, more expensive to buy, more difficult to implement, and less likely to satisfy - either buyers of the software or their customers. Keep your eye on the ball: your customers, and your business.
August 25, 2001
ERP Trivia - Every Why Should Have Its Wherefore
Part 1: ERP Trends We take the liberty to comment on the findings of a report, which was recently released by a renowned research organization, and which pinpoints ERP implementationsâ dissatisfactions in no uncertain terms.
August 24, 2001
Are ASP Applications Right for You? Part 2: Decision Criteria Whether an application is best implemented as an ASP provided application or service, built in-house or purchased, generally depends on the same criteria as what would be used for outsourcing a function or process. This part details that criteria.
August 23, 2001
CPR on BPR: Practical Guidelines for Successful Business Process Analysis Part 2 of a series on Business Process Reengineering: Long Live Business Process Reengineering. In this Part, we discuss some practical steps for actually performing business process analysis and fostering change in your company.
August 22, 2001
Are ASP Applications Right for You?
Part 1: Decision Factors Like so many Internet conventions, the Application Service Provider (ASP), is really a combination of two 'old' concepts, turn key applications and outsourced services. Many of the lessons learned from these areas are directly applicable to ASP provided applications, and many of the same questions need to be asked and answered before a determination can be made on whether an ASP application should be considered.
The SOAP Opera Progresses - Helping XML to Rule the World An important emerging standard in the web arena, known as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), originally developed by Microsoft, has achieved a new milestone. Since IBM joined in support for the SOAP standard with increased security, SOAP may replace DCOM, and possibly even CORBA eventually. The W3C consortium has just released a new version, 1.2, which will be widely accepted and adopted by vendors.
August 17, 2001
SAP Thrives On Competitors' Plight, In Part SAP announced upbeat results for Q2 2001 and reconfirmed the positive outlook for the rest of the year amid the bloodbath of many of its competitors. However, negative license revenue growth in the US, a likely cascading economic slowdown from the US to other markets, and net profit restatement owing to the investment in money burning Commerce One, may give rise to a careful scrutiny and moderate caution.
August 15, 2001
Made2Manage Manages Throughout Soft Market While Made2Manage reported a slim profit attributed mainly to a tax benefit, the latest revenue increase and a delivery of innovative initiatives might augur for the companyâs return to more consistent profitability and prevailing over the current market malaise.
August 13, 2001
Microsoft Great Plains Procures eProcure At Last In a somewhat belated and long deliberated move, Microsoft Great Plains has struck an OEM partnership deal with Clarus to provide eProcure, an end-to-end e-procurement solution.
BEA Systems Announces WebLogic Integration BEA Systems, in a follow-on to their appearance at JavaOne in San Francisco, has announced the release of the BEA WebLogic Integration Solution, another strong entry in the Application Server War.
August 6, 2001
i2, SAP, Oracle Poised For Showdown in Q4 With analysts expecting SCM software spending to rebound in Q3 and Q4, vendors are sharpening their knives for a lunge at the supply chain pie. Which one will pull out the plum?
SAP â A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 3: Market Impact SAP's decision to be more open and flexible was both wise and pragmatic. SAP now can afford to compete on a component per component basis, having basically reached its limit in capturing most of large customers in the market with an integrated product suite.
SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 2: Expanding Functionality During its international e-business conference, SAPPHIRE, SAP displayed a bullish attitude, contradicting the current market malaise. SAP touts a multi-pronged answer to prevailing heterogeneous IT environments. The company is staking its future on five pillars - exchanges, portals and the three extended-ERP applications: customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and product life-cycle management (PLM).
July 2001
July 31, 2001
Lawson Software Means Business With PSA and IPO By acquiring a leading PSA vendor and deciding to go public, in addition to the new functional and technological enhancements to its flagship lawson.insight suite due in August, Lawson Software continues to boldly challenge bigger competitors, primarily PeopleSoft and Oracle.
July 30, 2001
SAP - A Humble Giant From The Reality Land?
Part 1: Alliances During its international e-business conference, SAPPHIRE, SAP displayed a bullish attitude, contradicting the current market malaise. Expanding outside its traditional ERP stronghold into five attractive technology areas, as well as the realization that no vendor can be âall things to all peopleâ might be the necessary ingredients of the formula for future SAP success.
July 26, 2001
Nortel and Clarify: Was There Ever Synergy Enough to Support this Marriage? Back in 1999, when Nortel was on a buying spree and reeling in record profits, it plunked down US$2.1 billion dollars for Clarify Inc., a leader in the CRM space that was bringing in $250 million in revenues annually. Now, in July of 2001, with Nortel expecting losses in the order of US$19.2 billion, Clarify may be jettisoned at a significant loss.
July 24, 2001
PeopleSoft Supply Chain Is Music To Mid Market Ears PeopleSoft has once again proven the naysayers wrong about its ability to sell supply chain management. Its Accelerated Supply Chain Management offering bundles core e-business functionality into a scaled down package for the mid market, a segment that not even SCM market leader i2 has conquered.
