UNIT4, a cloud-focused business software  and services company, has announced a partnership with Amazon, one of the top global providers of cloud services. Under this agreement UNIT4 will develop the necessary consultancy services and technical support to deploy its UNIT4’s business software with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Read the rest of this entry »

Software vendor UNIT4 and analyst Cindy Jutras, from the Mint Jutras analyst and research firm, today announced the availability of a new market research report prepared by Mint Jutras on the business impact of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. The study is worth reading in itself as it provides detailed data related to ERP usage by real organizations.

This study has been conducted a second time, and it is interesting to see how respondents’ answers have changed since the first study in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently released FinancialForce PSA Winter ’13 builds on FinancialForce.com’s commitment to making professional services teams more effective, mobile, and social (having been built on the Salesforce Platform and natively embedded with Salesforce CRM). Winter ’13 is based on enhancement ideas submitted online by the company’s growing community of users via the FinancialForce Community portal that was launched in 2012.

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It is not surprising to hear that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are not particularly beloved by their users. Indeed, companies are not exactly infatuated with their pricey enterprise system “toys” the way some consumers love their tablets or smartphones (not to mention the unconditional way my 5.5-year-old loves her teddy bear). So the recent InformationWeek piece on users being frustrated with their ERP purchases could have been just another article on that theme. But, what caught my eye here were the words “the UK” and “public sector.” Reportedly, more than 60 percent of IT decision makers in British local government feel their ERP investments haven’t delivered, according to a recent poll.

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UNIT4 has successfully completed a new TEC Certification process for Agresso Business World, its global enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for people-centric businesses and organizations such as professional services, education and local government.

TEC Certification is designed to help organizations evaluate enterprise software solutions so they can make more informed buying decisions. For a product to be certified, the vendor must complete a detailed research questionnaire and deliver a formal product demonstration to show our analysts the product’s support for a specific set of real-world business processes. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, FinancialForce.com, the cloud applications company formed as a joint venture between UNIT4 and salesforce.com, announced the availability of trust.financialforce.com, a resource for customers that describes the control processes, security, application quality, and platform monitoring environment that underpin all FinancialForce.com cloud business applications. Built on the Salesforce Platform (a.k.a., Force.com), FinancialForce.com applications inherit all the benefits of the investments made by salesforce.com in infrastructure, data management, controls, security and certifications including SysTrust, Truste, VeriSign Secured, Safe Harbor, SAS70, and ISO 27001. Read the rest of this entry »

I am glad I was among the analysts invited to the traditional December analyst roadshow, which takes place in the beautiful city of Boston, by the event organizer, Judith Rothrock, the energetic and vibrant president of JRocket Marketing. In this event, several software vendors announce their latest software offerings and convene with analysts for friendly and informal discussions. The 2012 event hosted two ambitious business software vendors—the UNIT4 and SYSPRO. Both companies are well represented in North America and have significant operations and major offices on the continent. And, of course, they used this analyst-gathering event to announce new and important aspects of their business (they are presented below in alphabetical order). Read the rest of this entry »

TEC’s recent article Rootstock Software Steps Out on Force.com outlined the genesis of Rootstock Software and its cloud-based ERP offering. Rootstock Software and FinancialForce.com (a joint venture between UNIT4 and salesforce.com) announced a partnership earlier in the year to deliver a comprehensive manufacturing and accounting solution on Force.com. Rootstock is vying for its ERP solution to become the standard for manufacturing ERP solutions in the cloud, as discussed in the aforementioned recent blogpost all about Rootstock, looking at the background and capabilities of the Force.com-fortified solution. Read the rest of this entry »

TEC is pleased to announce that Coda Financials software by UNIT4 has been TEC certified and is now available for online evaluation in the TEC Accounting and Financial Packages Evaluation Center. As usual, the vendor performed an in-depth demonstration of software capabilities following a demo script suggested by TEC research analysts. So we had a good opportunity to see the system in real time, assessing its performance with requested tasks and its workflow capabilities, in addition to trying out the system’s navigation, and selected features and functions.

Netherlands-based UNIT4 is well-known as a global ERP and other business software vendor; in fact it is in the top ten mid-market ERP vendors worldwide. Its customer base is also impressive—the group has more than 6,000 clients with over 2 million users, and there have been more than 10,000 global deployments of UNIT4’s software applications.

The company has been pioneering and successfully leveraging its solution within a unique market niche of software that offers the capability of accommodating any business-related changes easier, faster, and, consequently, at a much lower cost compared to other solutions offered by competitors in the space. As such it targets a segment of the market that’s referred to as “Businesses Living IN Change” (BLINC). The change-friendly design runs through all of UNIT4’s applications. Read the rest of this entry »

UNIT4 is known for providing its software applications to a wide range of not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations, and a signed contract with one of the largest US-based environmental organization is another step in this direction. Read the rest of this entry »

With UNIT4’s announcement that it will launch 35 role-based and fast-deployment BI apps via a pay-for-use subscription model, as well as SYSPRO’s announcement of its new Business Software App Store, the idea of consumerization of software comes to mind, again … Read the rest of this entry »

In the mid-2000s there was a beginning of public discussions and a surge in market awareness about support & maintenance (S&M) alternatives for users of enterprise applications. Companies in the market for enterprise software S&M services, like nearly every other market in the world, has responded to monopolistic-like pricing and profit margins by seeking choice. Enterprise software licensees now have a choice of annual support providers. Read the rest of this entry »

Among the interesting developments at the recent Grape Escape event in Boston was the announcement of UNIT4’s multitenant model for its Agresso ERP offering, which generated a great deal of discussion, if not some controversy. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTWARE SELECTIONS

Jeanswest selects Manhattan Associates
Industry tags: Fashion/retail
“Manhattan Associates once again shows the strength of its SCALE platform; Jeanswest was in much need of a supply chain solution that could help them streamline logistics across and between three continents. Jeanswest will now be able to better manage its operations across its branded stores and distribution center, while establishing a more efficient framework to support its extended supply chain.”—Philippe Reney, TEC Research Analyst

• Manhattan Associates: TEC profile

Another instance of UNIT4-based ERP shared service goes live for several UK local authorities
Industry tags: Public administration and defense
“Since I am already a bit familiar with UNIT4’s shared-services projects and have spoken to few key people from client’s side, I realize how challenging they can be. The issues have less to do with the technology (which is impressive), or the hardware, than with challenges that are internal to the clients themselves, whether it be political/economic hurdles, or even end users’ and top management’s psychological readiness to use shared back-office software. In view of all this, my congratulations to UNIT4’s team and, certainly, to the local authorities in the UK that made this project a reality.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

• UNIT4: TEC profile

Standby Screw Machine Products Co. replaces five old systems with IQMS ERP
Industry tags: Manufacturing
This contract parts company, which owns two manufacturing facilities in the US and China, will replace its five disparate and aged applications with a single modern system that should help it consolidate all company data and eliminate difficulties caused by multiple systems. Another consideration was that the company wanted to acquire industry-specific ERP software that included industry best practices. Among eight vendors, IQMS was judged by Standby Screw Machine as offering the best fit for its needs.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

• IQMS: TEC profile
• Compare IQMS to leading competitors

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Not as well known as the JRocket Marketing Grape Escape but still highly effective (and entertaining), the analyst road show organized by Judith Rothrock every year in December brings together C-level executives from SYSPRO and UNIT4 and analysts from the most important firms in the field, including Technology Evaluation Centers.

I had briefings with both SYSPRO and UNIT4. They highlighted some of their accomplishments for 2011, and made some interesting announcements. Here’s a summary of the conversations I had with the two vendors: Read the rest of this entry »