Food production and distribution is a serious and strategic business, and I am not aware of anyone in my surroundings that takes it lightly; food can not only delight us, but can also make us quite sick and indisposed. While my inner circles (pets included) have luckily not been casualties of recent salmonella, E.coli, and whatnot outbreaks from tainted chilly peppers, tomatoes, spinach, pet food, or most recently peanut butter, the 2008 year-end holidays were not much fun for my family.

Namely, the “G.I. bug” that our 18-month-old likely got in her playgroup spread so quickly and violently to anyone who was in contact with her (including the broader family members that stopped by to just traditionally exchange holiday gifts). Sure, viral gastroenteritis might likely have had nothing to do with what we ate at the time, but the feeling of being listless and other unpleasant (and unspeakable) G.I. bug symptoms were quite similar to those that food poisoning outbreaks can “treat” us to.

Food processing and distribution are not be the only market with burning product safety issues, since similar issues can also apply to the drug and pharmaceuticals sector or consumer packaged goods (CPGs); remember lead-tainted toys or antifreeze-laced toothpaste coming from China? Still, we all seem to be the most sensitive about food-related breaking news, possibly due to the likelihood of those hitting home (perhaps even in a willful way by bio-terrorists).

Thus, some food processing market experts have lately been frustrated by companies’ focus on location and lot control, serial number tracking, and traceability as the panaceas to solve product safety issues. Read the rest of this entry »

Lawson Software has hardly ever been associated with flamboyance and ostentatious behavior, let alone in these murky economic times. Still, its chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) recent dismissal of the software as a service (SaaS) market’s prospects will have drawn some consternation in the vendors’ and analysts’ community. However, a somewhat amended and clarified stance on SaaS recently came from Lawson’s senior vice president (SVP) of product development and strategy, Dean Hager.

Like the vast majority of enterprise applications vendors, Lawson concedes the tough economic milieu, which was recognized in its sloppy fiscal Q109 performance. Prospective customers are simply slowing down the “looking and decision-making” process, and also the negotiations are admittedly much more involved. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors’ competition is getting dirtier, with everyone fighting very hard over what looks like fewer deals.

Still (at least not yet), Lawson has not given the impression of despair or panic, despite recent cost-cutting (read: layoffs) measures. Such measures appear to be in line with the economic climate and the measures of other peer companies. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 2 of this blog series analyzed Microsoft platform parts that are slated for shared use within the Microsoft Dynamics family of products. Particular attention was given to Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint, and parts of Microsoft .NET Framework.

What About Visualization and User Interface (UI) Technologies?

However, what has somewhat intrigued me is Microsoft’s not-so-vocal touting and promoting of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), although it is an intrinsic part of the .NET Framework. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the tool has not yet been used within the Dynamics set in earnest, although Lawson Software  and Verticent would be the two independent software vendors (ISV) that I am aware of deploying it. Read the rest of this entry »

Reading in-flight magazines and running through airports today, we can see advertising for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, but it is always a serious stuff (albeit well done and to the point), such as “Best run businesses run on SAP” (or so). Nowadays, however, if we go to the virtual online, social-networking world (with viral marketing and advertising at its core), we can even find attempts at humor in marketing ERP. To see what I mean, please go to YouTube and see a humorous take on ERP systems and ERP vendors.

With the “cat in the tree” theme, Lawson Software (evaluate some of its products) is attempting to use viral marketing, with cartoonish humor, to gain a small corner in the otherwise big budget advertising fight between SAP and Oracle (if not Microsoft and IBM too). Lawson is a relatively large vendor, with revenues nearing the US$1 billion mark, but is quite far from the financial muscle of SAP (evaluate some of its products) and Oracle (evaluate some of its products). Therefore, can creativity and viral marketing make a dent in this big budget world or is this just “budget envy” on the part of Lawson? Read the rest of this entry »