TEC regularly works with companies to identify the right software vendors for their industry and particular needs. I’m going to provide you with information about ERP systems and how they relate to steel industry requirements (note: you can always consult our Vendor Showcase to find out more about specific software vendors). 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 »

The worn-out saying about how we learn new things every day applies to this blog topic too. Namely, my interest in Progress Software Corporation has long been due to its renowned OpenEdge development platform. Indeed, many enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other applications providers leverage (embed) OpenEdge as Progress Software partners. Sure, I also follow and have recently written about the company’s forays in the service-oriented architecture (SOA) space with its two respective offerings: Actional for web services management and Sonic for enterprise service bus (ESB) and messaging.

But in late 2007, out of mere courtesy, I accepted a briefing about Progress Apama, the company’s platform for complex event processing (CEP), algorithmic trading, and whatnot. Given the overwhelming nature (“rocket science” of a sort) of the offering’s concept, I now admit that I could not wait for the briefing to end.

Actually, I felt bamboozled like those ordinary mortal FBI agents in CBS’ primetime hit show “Numb3rs.” In that show, time and again the whiz kid math genius (the brother of the FBI team leader) tries to explain to these action-rather-than-theory agents how some complex and arcane math theory can be applied to make sense out of seemingly chaotic and unrelated events. Eventually, complex math solves some important crimes, often by detecting patterns that are not obvious to the naked eye.

Well, fast forward to early 2009, where at Progress’ Analyst Summit (a traditional Boston winter fixture event) we could all find out that Progress Apama is possibly the best performing and growing part of the company. OpenEdge, while still contributing to over 60 percent to Progress’ total revenues, is a mature business that is now sold mostly to independent software vendors (ISVs). In addition, the recent financial markets (and consequently the overall economic) crisis and related cases of high-profile frauds (”white-collar crimes”) have made me conduct my own study of Apama and become familiar with its underlying concept. 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 »

Part 1 of this blog topic analyzed IBM’s rationale to acquire ILOG to bolster its service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) platforms. Eventually, with ILOG fully integrated, IBM hopes to establish the following:

• a leading rule repository and end-to-end rule lifecycle management;
• a full spectrum of rules definition and execution methods;
• maximum rules reuse – across all BPM initiatives, SOA initiatives, applications and modernization efforts; and
• tight integration between IBM WebSphere and ILOG.

In addition, as hinted in Part 1, IBM is expected to leverage ILOG’s presence in optimization and visualization, which are also of relevance to BPM, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) & analytics, and Complex Event Processing (CEP) opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog topic introduced the notion of how complex and tricky it can be to manage and govern enterprise applications’ service oriented architecture (SOA). That blog post also tackled Progress Software’s recent acquisition of Mindreef in order to round out its SOA governance solution for distributed information technology (IT) environments.

Mindreef joined the Progress Actional SOA Management product family that provides policy-based visibility, security, and control for services, middleware, and business processes. This acquisition continues Progress’ expansion of its burgeoning SOA portfolio and strengthens the company’s position as a leader in independent, standards-based, heterogeneous, distributed SOA enterprise infrastructures.

Prior to being acquired, Mindreef decoupled some plug-in features from its previously all-in-one SOAPscope Server suite. Read the rest of this entry »

While my two separate blog post series about workflow automation and Business Process Management (BPM) and about the long tails of supply chains were coming to their respective ends, one event that is curiously pertinent to both topics has meanwhile taken place in the market.

Namely, at the end of July 2008, IBM acquired ILOG, a specialized software provider with headquarters in France and the US. Over 3,000 direct corporate customers in over 30 countries currently “make better decisions faster” with ILOG’s technology.

Also, more than 500 independent software vendors (ISV’s) rely on embedding ILOG’s business rule management systems (BRMS), optimization, and visualization software components into their products. These ISV customers, some of which are leaders in their respective markets, embed ILOG’s software engines to create their own differentiating products and services and improve their competitive edge.  Read the rest of this entry »

Certainly, I admit to not being a programmer or a techie expert (not to use somewhat derogatory words like “geek” or “nerd”) per se. Still, my engineering background and years of experience as a functional consultant should suffice for understanding the advantages and possible perils of service oriented architecture (SOA).

On one hand, SOA’s advantages of flexibility (agility), components’ reusability and standards-based interoperability have been well publicized. On the other hand, these benefits come at a price: the difficulty of governing and managing all these mushrooming “software components without borders”, as they stem from different origins and yet are able to “talk to each other” and exchange data and process steps, while being constantly updated by their respective originators (authors, owners, etc.).

At least one good (or comforting) fact about the traditional approach to application development was that old monolithic applications would have a defined beginning and end, and there was always clear control over the source code. Read the rest of this entry »