It is not surprising to hear that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are not particularly beloved by their users. Indeed, companies are not exactly infatuated with their pricey enterprise system “toys” the way some consumers love their tablets or smartphones (not to mention the unconditional way my 5.5-year-old loves her teddy bear). So the recent InformationWeek piece on users being frustrated with their ERP purchases could have been just another article on that theme. But, what caught my eye here were the words “the UK” and “public sector.” Reportedly, more than 60 percent of IT decision makers in British local government feel their ERP investments haven’t delivered, according to a recent poll.

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I am glad I was among the analysts invited to the traditional December analyst roadshow, which takes place in the beautiful city of Boston, by the event organizer, Judith Rothrock, the energetic and vibrant president of JRocket Marketing. In this event, several software vendors announce their latest software offerings and convene with analysts for friendly and informal discussions. The 2012 event hosted two ambitious business software vendors—the UNIT4 and SYSPRO. Both companies are well represented in North America and have significant operations and major offices on the continent. And, of course, they used this analyst-gathering event to announce new and important aspects of their business (they are presented below in alphabetical order). Read the rest of this entry »

UNIT4 is known for providing its software applications to a wide range of not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations, and a signed contract with one of the largest US-based environmental organization is another step in this direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Among the interesting developments at the recent Grape Escape event in Boston was the announcement of UNIT4’s multitenant model for its Agresso ERP offering, which generated a great deal of discussion, if not some controversy. Read the rest of this entry »

Not as well known as the JRocket Marketing Grape Escape but still highly effective (and entertaining), the analyst road show organized by Judith Rothrock every year in December brings together C-level executives from SYSPRO and UNIT4 and analysts from the most important firms in the field, including Technology Evaluation Centers.

I had briefings with both SYSPRO and UNIT4. They highlighted some of their accomplishments for 2011, and made some interesting announcements. Here’s a summary of the conversations I had with the two vendors: Read the rest of this entry »

For me, the third week of December 2011 was a week of revelations of sorts in the realm of enterprise applications. Amid all the IT punditry/buzzword talk throughout the year about cloud computing, analytics, mobility, social, and in-memory, there were two concrete announcements in mid-December from two vendors that gave me pause. Both vendor product announcements are still far away from their commercial use in earnest, but their visionary nature is what had impressed the usually skeptical analyst in me (to the point of being accused of Drinking the Kool-Aid).

First, at SAP’s Influencers Summit 2011 in Boston, I learned that the much-publicized SAP HANA offering is not merely an in-memory server blade appliance for quick analytics and data crunching. Rather, it is the underpinning of SAP’s future architecture, both on-premise and in the cloud, and it is a general-purpose database in its own right. Look for an in-depth article on this topic, and you can read this 2011 review article by TEC’s analysts in the meantime.

Another revelation took place during UNIT4’s winter Boston tour in the very same week.

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Part 1 of this blog series described the genesis and current state of affairs of Workday – a novel company that was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006 by two great IT minds and PeopleSoft alumni: Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri. Part 2 of this series then got under the hood and analyzed Workday’s secret sauce: its object-oriented and in-memory database (IMDB) and definitional services approach, which involves no coding by developers.

The final part of this series will discuss who should be a good fit for Workday and who might not, and why.

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Although this year Judith Rothrock could not attend herself, she’s the driving force behind the annual JRocket Marketing Grape Escape^® industry analyst event, now in its 11th year. As always, this year’s Grape Escape was a well-organized event hosting some key industry players. It afforded me and my colleague Gabriel Gheorghiu another opportunity to meet the software vendors who are JRocket Marketing’s clients and obtain the latest news and updates straight from the source.

Here’s the skinny on three of the vendors that gave informal presentations. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about the historical background of the JRocket Marketing Grape Escape(TM) event. Grape Escape has become a June fixture over past several years, after the high traveling season to major vendors’ events subsides and before everyone takes their summer vacations. It is a signature event that showcases the intimate analyst relationships (AR) and event expertise that JRocket Marketing’s president and founder Judith Rothrock delivers to her software vendors’ client base by giving them exposure to a selected group of industry analysts.

Part 1 also analyzed the news announcements by Jeremy Roche, CEO of FinancialForce.com, followed by the testimony from its customer Wi-Fi Alliance. Part 2 analyzed the Grape Escape 2010 news announcements from Meridian Systems CEO John Bodrozic and SYSPRO US CEO Brian Stein, followed by these vendors’ customers (Walt Disney and Lee Spring, respectively).

Part 3 analyzed major news coming from UNIT4’s Agresso product line, as presented by Shelley Zapp, CEO of UNIT4 North America, and followed by the company’s higher education customer, Augsburg College.

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about the historical background of the JRocket Marketing Grape Escape(TM) event. Grape Escape has become a June fixture over past several years, right after the high traveling season to major vendors’ events subsides and before everyone takes their summer vacations. It is a signature event that showcases the intimate analyst relationships (AR) and event expertise that JRocket Marketing’s president and founder Judith Rothrock delivers to her software vendors’ client base by giving them exposure to a selected group of industry analysts.

Part 1 also analyzed the news announcements by Jeremy Roche, CEO of FinancialForce.com, followed by the testimony from its customer Wi-Fi Alliance. Part 2 analyzed the Grape Escape 2010 news announcements from Meridian Systems CEO John Bodrozic and SYSPRO US CEO Brian Stein, followed by these vendors’ customers (Walt Disney and Lee Spring, respectively).

Part 3 will analyze major news coming from UNIT4’s Agresso product line.

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Every June over past several years, after the high season for traveling to major vendor events subsides, and before everyone takes their summer vacations, a group of selected enterprise applications analysts have become accustomed to attending the JRocket Marketing Grape Escape(TM) event. “Grape Escape” is a signature event that showcases the intimate analyst relationships (AR) and event expertise that JRocket Marketing’s president and founder Judith Rothrock delivers to her enterprise software vendors’ client base. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog post series started with my invitation by UNIT4 (formerly Unit 4 Agresso), the second largest business applications provider in continental Europe, to attend its UK 2010 users conference. Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about what new and exciting I might see and hear about at this event in light of the vendor’s analyst tour in Boston in late 2009.

The post then discussed the recent development that preceded both the UK user conference and the Boston analyst tour (but which was not the topic of either gathering). Namely, in the fall of 2009, UNIT4’s on-demand venture, CODA 2go, evolved into FinancialForce.com, backed by both UNIT4 and Salesforce.com.

Part 2 then focused on FinancialForce.com’s strengths and potential challenges and on its step-sibling CODA-Financials’ recent developments. This final part of the series will present my observations of the recent UNIT4 user conference in the UK. 

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Part 1 of this series started with my invitation by UNIT4 (formerly Unit 4 Agresso), the second-largest business applications provider in continental Europe, to attend its UK 2010 user conference. Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about what new and exciting I might see and hear about at this event in light of the vendor’s analyst tour in Boston in late 2009.

My post then talked about another important development that preceded both the UK user conference and the Boston analyst tour (but which was not the topic of either gathering). Namely, in the fall of 2009, UNIT4’s on-demand venture, CODA 2go, evolved into FinancialForce.com, backed by both UNIT4 and Salesforce.com. The spin-off joint venture combines CODA’s 30 years of designing and building financial applications with Salesforce.com’s cloud computing development platform, Force.com.

The creation of the new entity and expanded relationship with Salesforce.com avails FinancialForce.com (and indirectly UNIT4) of many practical go-to-market and operating benefits, from branding and lead-generation to Salesforce.com providing hosting and the first-line customer support for the new offering (so that clients only have one number to call).

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February and bleak mid-winters are not exactly the high season for software user conferences in North America, and thus I accepted the invitation by UNIT4 (formerly Unit 4 Agresso), the second-largest business applications provider in continental Europe, to its UK 2010 user conference. The attraction, in addition to the Celtic Manor Resort in lush South Wales as the venue (where the 2010 Ryder Cup will take place later this year), was the fact that this was, for the first time, a unified event for both Agresso Business World (ABW) and CODA Financials customers (and customers of many other lesser-known products in the large UNIT4 family).

Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about what new and exciting I might see and hear about at this event in light of the vendor’s analyst tour in Boston in late 2009. Even that very recent analyst tour did not present any earth-shattering news compared to what I had already ascertained in my mid-2009 report on positioning of ABW, CODA, and CODA 2go within Unit 4 Agresso. 

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Part I of this series analyzed the opportunities (as well as the related strings attached) stemming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), a.k.a. the Economic Stimulus Plan. The inspiration came from my attendance of the Deltek Insight 2009 user conference last May, where Deltek decided to fill a market need and interest by convening a separate “track” that was entitled “Stimulus & Beyond (Navigating the Brave New World).”

Part II of this series then analyzed why Deltek believes it can help government contractors and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms, as well as other public sector organizations in their endeavors to obtain ARRA funds (i.e., the opportunity part) and duly report on them (the strings part for transparency and accountability). Part III then expanded on the construction industry’s current challenges, its outlook, and market trends.

Although Deltek inspired this series and while the company caters to AEC firms, its focus and software capabilities are in the design or planning stage of an infrastructure object. But the entire infrastructure lifecycle management (ILM) encompasses the following phases that denote yet another three-letter acronym (TLA) – “PBO”:

• Plan: Manage project pipelines, site development, entitlements, etc.
• Build: Track budgets, contracts, changes, schedules, scopes, and quality
• Operate: Direct asset management, work orders, and maintenance management

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