Part 1 of this blog series analyzed Infor’s latest acquisition of SoftBrands Inc., a company with a somewhat complicated history and lineage, and formerly called Fourth Shift and AremisSoft.

The post concluded that, from a higher level overview, Infor has a good synergistic opportunity with the SoftBrands Hospitality solutions but some serious tweaking to do with the SoftBrands Manufacturing solutions. Some issues discussed were the long backpedaled development of the original Fourth Shift product due to SoftBrands’ focus on partnering with SAP for the SAP Business One Fourth Shift Edition product. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series outlined the trend of enterprise applications vendors’ attempts to win their users’ hearts and minds (as well as wallets) via more intuitive and appealing user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. What that means is that users can now more quickly obtain all of the relevant information they need in a personalized way, with drill-downs and other slick navigational Web 2.0 gadgets.

For users, personalized screens and forms provide immediate access to issues that require immediate action or reassurance that situations are under control. Such intuitive UI allows users to diagnose the most critical business situations they face and immediately drill into the source transactional systems to get the data they need and decide on appropriate actions.

The analysis then focused on Infor and its Open SOA framework, which is the enabling linchpin for the vendor’s delivery of next-generation interoperable value-adding solutions. About two years ago, Infor espoused its so-called “Three E’s” strategy (“Enrich, Extend & Evolve”) to deliver agile and adaptive software components on top of the Infor Open SOA platform. Read the rest of this entry »

While attending a number of vendors’ annual user conferences and/or by being briefed by vendors about their future directions, I’ve lately discerned this trend: virtually every vendor is attempting to win its users’ hearts and minds (as well as wallets) via a more intuitive and appealing user interface (UI). But it would be a real understatement to attribute everything to improved screens without talking about improved (i.e., “rich” and targeted) user experience (UX) design as a whole.

Namely, a UI is a means to an improved UX end, and the recipe for success is to deliver forms and screens designed for a particular user’s role in the organization. In other words, employees can now log into their own role-tailored user profile and personal place in the business management system. The role-personalized UI displays only the selected tasks, metrics, alerts, and activities they need to perform, providing the users with an overview of what they’ve done and what’s next in line. Read the rest of this entry »