The “little” SAP Business One solution is an unsung hero of sorts at SAP. Indeed, more than 38,000 customers worldwide in nearly 30 languages and over 630 partners are often ignored as less newsworthy by market observers. The business management solution for small businesses (with 10–20 users, on average) can be deployed on premises or in the cloud, and is accessible via mobile devices.

During the SAPPHIRENOW 2013 conference, SAP announced the general availability of the 9.0 version of the SAP Business One running on Microsoft SQL Server (which is the product’s original database). With more than 50 new features, the latest version offers enhanced capabilities for warehouse management, infrastructure, and inventory management, as well as improved systems performance.

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SOFTWARE SELECTIONS & IMPLEMENTATIONS

Seaspan selects IFS Applications to support its shipbuilding projects
Industry tags: manufacturing
“Seaspan is an association of companies primarily involved in multiple sea transportation businesses. Many such activities are project-based, which is IFS’ focus. No wonder that IFS was selected to provide an ERP system for Seaspan’s shipbuilding and repair facilities. Plus, it has a long track record of projects in the same industry, which is definitely a point in the vendor’s favor. Seaspan has also specifically mentioned that integration with its existing CAD system was a very important factor.” — Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

• Profile: IFS Applications
• Compare IFS Applications side by side with other engineer-to-order ERP solutions

GIS Federal chooses Deltek First GovCon Essentials
Industry tags: US government contractors (GovCon)
“This win is yet another proof that Deltek really has hardly any competition in this space. Deltek is differentiated by its deep GovCon functionality that hardly anyone can match combined with an easy-to-implement, easy-to-use software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model. The vendor is reportedly selling its Deltek First GovCon Essentials solution like gangbusters since it was introduced at the Insight 2011 conference. Well over 200 customers have already purchased the solution in a little more than a year. It’s been quite a success story and validates Deltek’s move to the SaaS model.” — P.J. Jakovljevic, TEC Principal Analyst

• TEC blog post (Apr 2012): Deltek Providing Clarity for Government Contractors

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The 13th Vendor Shootout for ERP is a great opportunity for companies looking for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to evaluate some of the important players. Previous editions featured Oracle E-Business Suite, IFS, Sage ERP X3, SYSPRO, and others.

The 13th edition features eight vendors specializing in discrete manufacturing, with one exception (SAP Business ByDesign, which focuses on services). Read the rest of this entry »

The 2011 holiday shopping season seems to have arrived a bit sooner for SAP, who forked out US$3.4 billion for SuccessFactors during the first weekend of December 2011 (see SAP’s official press release). Another curiosity of the acquisition is that it took place on Saturday, which hasn’t prevented bloggers and twitterers from swiftly contributing with their off-the-cuff opinions.

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the 11^th Vendor Shootout^TM for ERP event, which took place in Boston in mid-August 2011. I was able to experience this co-opetitive gathering of eight solution providers and several dozen end users seeking new solutions first-hand as a neutral (and yet very active) observer (for the inner workings of the event, see my article Demystifying “Vendor Shootout for ERP” events).

My blog post then mentioned the following four enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions (based on my partial attendance of their scripted demos): Infor ERP SyteLine, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Epicor 9, and Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Part 2 of this blog series will conclude with the remaining four products that I had the chance to see at great length.

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Over the last few years I have repeatedly seen ads for the Vendor Shootout^TM for ERP event appearing in TEC’s website banners and newsletters. In addition, I would come across mentions of the event in other industry magazines, press releases (PRs), social media feeds, Web site banners, and so on and so forth.

Needless to say, I was curious (and dismayed by my lack of information) about the event that even carried the “Moderated by TEC” tagline on its official logo. Even more, every now and again various software vendors’ staff and other industry contacts would ask me about the event (probably expecting my in-depth knowledge), and I would somewhat embarrassingly have to pass them on to my selection services colleagues in the Montreal HQ office (who have been directly involved with the event).

Well, in mid-August 2011, the 11^th Vendor Shootout for ERP event took place in my neck of the woods, Boston, and I was able to experience it first-hand as a neutral (and yet very active) observer. What follows now is my report on the event and my take on several vendors’ demos that I attended. Read the rest of this entry »

The recently held SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 event in Orlando, Florida had many newsworthy items with regards to SAP’s solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For one, the much publicized and anticipated multi-tenanted software as a service (SaaS) SAP Business ByDesign product has reached a milestone of 500 customers and availability in a dozen countries or so (after initial hiccups and faltering). For its part, the proven lower-end SAP BusinessOne offering has reached a whopping 30,000 customers worldwide.

The upper-end product for SMEs, SAP Business All-in-One, which packages functionality from the flagship SAP ERP product (i.e., the two products have the exact same DNA), continues to do well in its target markets. The product has lately been bolstered by 22 (and many more coming soon) SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions (SAP RDS), which are fixed-scope and fixed-price add-on (tuck-in) sets of focused functionality that can be deployed with SAP Business All-in-One, including those in the realm of supply chain management (SCM), sales & marketing, product development & manufacturing, and finance.

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering and catering enterprise applications to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis then moved onto the Oracle Accelerate program, which was launched about three years ago to allow partners to sell more of smaller projects in a fixed time and price manner.

Oracle Accelerate is not only a partner program but also Oracle’s go-to-market approach to provide business software solutions to midsize organizations. Part 1 described the main constituent parts of the approach, while Part 2 talked about the program’s current state of affairs. Part 3 of this blog series analyzed the program’s latest partner-enablement developments as well as the inevitable room for improvements.

This final part will analyze the offering that Oracle Accelerate is most likely to face in the market, which is SAP Business All-in-One. The series will end with analyzing mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) incumbents with an innate industry focus (i.e., without the need for templates and pre-configured approaches) as well as with general conclusions and recommendations. 

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering and catering enterprise applications to small and medium enterprises (SME’s). The analysis then moved onto the Oracle Accelerate program, which was launched about three years ago to allow partners to sell more smaller projects in a fixed time and price manner.

Oracle Accelerate is not only a partner program but also Oracle’s go-to-market approach to provide business software solutions to midsize organizations. Part 1 described the main constituent parts of the approach, while Part 2 talked about the program’s current state of affairs. Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the program’s latest partner-enablement developments as well as the inevitable room for improvements.

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In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series depicted the three evolutionary phases (or waves) of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud computing adoption. The post ended with some glimpses into the future and the likely implications for SaaS users.

Part 2 then explored the apparent opportunities and accompanying challenges (and painstaking soul-searching exercises) that SaaS aspirants face in their endeavors. Some concrete examples of vendors and their new strategies and solutions were presented, most notably SAP Business ByDesign.

Part 3 of this blog series analyzed recent SaaS initiatives by mainstream mega-vendors. Some concrete examples of vendors and their new strategies and solutions were presented, most notably Oracle’s Platform for SaaS and SAP’s recently unveiled on-demand strategy for large enterprises.

Coming back to the company that has inspired this series, Progress Software, the vendor believes that most mega-vendors, based on their nascent and budding SaaS offerings described in Part 2 and Part 3, have been slow to market with SaaS offerings. Thus, the window of opportunity for Progress’ partners is still open. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series depicted the three evolutionary phases (or waves) of software as a service (SaaS) and the adoption of cloud computing. The post ended with some glimpses into the future and likely implications for SaaS users.

Part 2 then explored the apparent opportunities and accompanying challenges (and painstaking soul-searching exercises) that SaaS aspirants face in their endeavors. Some concrete examples of vendors and their new strategies and solutions were presented, most notably SAP Business ByDesign.

Part 3 of this blog series analyzes recent SaaS initiatives by mainstream mega-vendors with some concrete examples. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series depicted the three evolutionary phases (or waves) of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud computing adoption. The article ended with some glimpses into the future and likely implications for SaaS users.

Part 2 explores the apparent opportunities and accompanying challenges (and inevitable soul-searching exercises) that SaaS aspirants face in their endeavors. Some concrete examples of vendors and their new strategies and solutions will be presented. Read the rest of this entry »

The first part (Part II) of this blog series described the opportunities for software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand applications, especially in the current difficult economic milieu. Part IIa then analyzed the top five SaaS assumptions (misconceptions) recently outlined by Gartner.

Before any vendor can embark onto delivering a SaaS offering, it must thoroughly consider a number of harrowing SaaS technology choices and their implications. Thus, Part IIa also analyzed the decision’s impact on the functional footprint (scope) of the future SaaS product, after which the aspiring SaaS vendor must identify gaps within its in-house skill sets and define how to fill them.

This part continues with the other major remaining technical considerations before any vendor can embark on delivery of a SaaS offering. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me start this blog post with a huge disclaimer: I have no intentions of wilfully beating up on SAP whatsoever!

Sure, the enterprise applications titan has lately been embroiled in an intellectual property lawsuit with archrival Oracle over improper use of support data through its TomorrowNow third-party support (recently discontinued) subsidiary.

As if this wasn’t enough, SAP is being sued again, and this time over an allegedly failed software implementation. Namely, in late March, Waste Management Inc. filed suit against SAP with claims of fraud (or gross over-promise, if one wants to sound a bit gentler here). Read the rest of this entry »