Part 1 of this blog series outlined Epicor 9 (aka Epicor ERP [evaluate this product]), Epicor Software’s next-generation converged product suite. A similar feat has yet to be accomplished even by mighty Oracle within Oracle Fusion Applications.

The article also discussed Epicor’s accompanying “Protect, Extend, and Converge” strategy for providing customers with  a migration path choice on their own timetable and convenience. The article then continued on by digging deeper and explaining a number of enabling technologies and concepts within Epicor 9, starting with Epicor BPM (Business Process Management).

Part 2 of this blog series analyzes the major enabling concepts and technologies within the product, such as Epicor ICE 2.0, which is based on Epicor True SOA™, and includes the Epicor Everywhere Framework™. The article also digs deeper into the suite’s built-in business intelligence (BI) and enterprise performance management (EPM) capabilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering. The analysis then moved into Oracle’s VAD Remarketer Program, which was launched about two years ago to allow partners to determine the best growth path for their business.

A Remarketer is a new class of Oracle reseller with the ability to resell only the products that fall under Oracle’s 1-Click Ordering Programs and strictly under standard terms and conditions. The current figures show over 1,200 recruited Remarketers with over 2,000 placed orders since the launch. Read the rest of this entry »

I certainly anticipated that the nearly 60 acquisitions by Oracle since 2005 would help the largest business software company in the world (with more than 320,000 customers in over 145 countries) continue to make even more money (e.g., via increasing cross-selling opportunities and by penetrating more markets) and deliver an array of reliable upper-range technology products. What I did not expect back then, though, was that Oracle would concurrently solve some shortcomings that had customarily plagued the powerhouse before this (still ongoing) acquisition spree.

Namely, Oracle was not then known for being the most partner-friendly company. The giant was also largely a horizontal technology infrastructure (i.e., relational database and middleware) provider rather than a trusted industry solutions adviser (and provider) at the time. To be fair, Oracle had an established presence in certain industries, but that was more coincidental (e.g., many financial service companies have bought Oracle Database or Oracle E-Business Suite) than a deliberate attempt by Oracle to provide a vertical industry solution per se.

With its techno-macho corporate culture (as opposed to more touchy-feely approaches by former PeopleSoft or JD Edwards), Oracle was also more of a fit for the largest global corporations than for the lower-end of the market. Indeed, its customers include 100 of the Fortune Global 100 companies. Well, what difference a few years and several dozen acquisitions may make!

In an upcoming series of blog posts, I plan to analyze Oracle’s recent moves to mitigate its abovementioned traditional shortcomings. The series starts with this post on Oracle’s strategy to become both a better partner in general and to attract smaller partners and customers. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series went through the five previous generations of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) product. In late 2008, at the European Microsoft Convergence user conference, attendees saw the sixth major release of the product, dubbed Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009.

The product’s subsequent launch in the US was in February 2009 (the replay can be seen here). But rather than merely reciting the enhancements from the official PR and sounding like other media and analyst reposts, this final part will try to focus more on the nitty-gritty. Namely, it will analyze how this particular product release might have mitigated many of the traditional flaws of Dynamics NAV (and former Navision) while building upon the product’s traditional (if not proverbial by now) positive traits. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series went through the first three generations of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV product, which at the time was called Navision and was owned by the formerly independent namesake company. How has new parent Microsoft treated the product since acquiring it in 2002? Read the rest of this entry »

The first week of February 2009 was marked by two notable product launches, from vendors touting their respective simplified, more flexible, and intuitive products as exactly “what the doctor ordered” for the current economic malaise. While the unveiling of SAP Business Suite 7 has caused a flurry of media articles and blog posts like the ones from Ray Wang and Brian Sommer  (and one of mine might still come down the track when all the dust settles), it is interesting that the North American launch of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 a day later went with comparably much less buzz.

There were related Dynamics NAV 2009 events in some other world regions, but I cannot say much about their attendance and noise level. Despite the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 launch in the US proceeding somewhat quietly (the replay of the event can be seen here), I think it might have as much future impact in the market as SAP’s mega-counterpart.

Namely, the clout SAP Business Suite [evaluate this product] has in the upper end of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market, Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly called Navision and Attain) [evaluate this product] has in the lower end of the market. Read the rest of this entry »

Time and again during my decade or so of covering the enterprise applications market as an industry analyst I have witnessed what difference a year can make. And boy, would 2008 be such a year!

A year ago or so, I concluded an in-depth four-part series on Deltek (NASDAQ: PROJ), whose executives were recently happy to tell me that 2008 was not that terrible a year for the company. Quite the contrary, Deltek feels comfortable as a company even in these troubled economic times. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series outlined the problem that, as the number of systems, applications, databases, and whatnot platforms increases, the IT business community requires a holistic approach across all these various systems to provide a single point of running IT jobs and workload automation. It also pointed out the difficulties in achieving this noble idea, and introduced Advanced Systems Concepts Inc. (ASCI) and its ActiveBatch cross-platform enterprise job scheduling and workload automation solution. Read the rest of this entry »

I can partly understand analysts’ temptation to beat up on Microsoft’s forays into the enterprise applications space. To be fair, ”the empire” has had its share of strategic and tactical miscues, as if it had wanted to give these naysayers some ammunition. For one, many analysts and market observers first criticized the giant for not having a unified enterprise resource planning (ERP) product line, but rather several diverse ones, coming from acquisitions of former Great Plains Software and Navision Software a/s.

Today, we are talking about the following four Microsoft Dynamics ERP product lines:

1. Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) [evaluate this product];
2. Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) [evaluate this product];
3. Microsoft Dynamics SL (formerly Solomon) [evaluate this product] ; and
4. Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta) [evaluate this product] .

Read the rest of this entry »

The Part I of this blog topic concluded with SAP’s supremacy in the upper-end of the regional market. What also helps SAP ERP [evaluate this product] is a number of well-established value added resellers (VARs) that cover the entire former Yugoslavia region, some of which have a few dozen renowned installation sites (customer references) and a roster of experienced consultants. Some of these are the earlier mentioned S&T Group from Austria and Croatia-based B4B.

While one can always be doubtful about the success of implementations and users’ adoption in those divisions/plants where the implementation mandate came from the HQ office abroad and without any due selection process and users’ involvement (buy-in) in selecting it, some implementations at certain life science companies were apparently successful. That was in part because of implementing corporate-wide best practice templates, such as for current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs). Read the rest of this entry »

The launch of TEC’s blog has somewhat coincided with my visit to Belgrade, Serbia (what used to be Yugoslavia and then Serbia & Montenegro) for personal reasons. Those several days spent in my homeland in late October/early November (whereby I missed my beloved Boston Red Sox’ winning the MLB World Series ’07 Championship, darn it!) I at least used this time to also learn about the enterprise applications market in that region, and maybe even in the entire Balkan region. I have never seen any such market report from any other analyst house about this (possibly obscure) region, and I thought this topic might be of interest to our (curious) readers as well as to me. To be fair, I’ve seen other similar trip reports, such as this recent one about the Australian enterprise applications market. Read the rest of this entry »