Infor comes out punching on consolidator criticism: shows technology roadmap

At the company’s Inforum multi-system user conference in Newport, South Wales this week, he said: “The competition’s assertions don’t match the facts. We have customer retention of 93%; we have 11,000 new licenses and 1,700 brand new customers that have signed up over the last 12 months. “We’ve also invested $4.39 billion in our software and services. Each of the 31 acquisitions we have made has matched our business plan, building on our functionality, industry coverage, experience and reach. We’re a five-year old company with 30 years of history.” Schaper also contrasts Infor’s approach with that of its top rivals. “Back in 20002, manufacturing users were caught between a rock and a hard place. They could either go for the likes of SAP or Oracle, which are big and scaleable, but expensive to implement and customise – or they could select a niche player that fits perfectly, but lacks the financial scale and geographic coverage. “We’re providing something different. Something that fills the gap –with systems that fit industry niches, but are also agile, scale and have global support and regionalisation.” Which is how he turns multiple systems and technologies into a virtue, rather than an expensive millstone. Additionally. Schaper makes the point that Infor’s acquired systems have not only not been sunset, but have instead been considerably developed. “We have provided 879 upgrades in the last year alone. We’ve also reversed some of the product end decisions made by companies we acquired.” He cites Geac’s decision to cut work of System 21 and SSA’s to stop development of Baan: “13,000 customers would have suffered that are now able to benefit from our technology developments.” And he points to Infor’s first acquisition back in 2002 – the process centric Adage ERP. “We could have left that product but we invested in it. Now it looks different and modern, and it’s integrated with other applications that process manufacturers need so it solves their problems without having to be heavily bespoked or customised. That’s why we will never have just one platform.” All of which aligns with the fact that today, maintenance accounts for just 49% of Infor’s $2.3 billion revenues—which themselves have grown at 100% per year since its birth in 2002 – with new licence and services revenues accounting for the rest. Schaper is also brutally candid about what he sees as valid criticism – recognising, for example, customers’ complaints that the company didn’t have enough professional services staff to handle the sheer number of projects despite its consolidated 1,100 partners around the world. But he says that’s changing fast. “We have hired 300 professional services staff in the last 90 days alone – and each of our consultants has at least 10 years experience. They’re not just a bunch of new graduates. We’re changing what users can expect from a software company.” As for that software and platform diversity, the way forward is with Infor’s standards-based SOA (services orientated architecture) and its federated MDM (master data management) approach, currently in year two of a six-year development programme. Infor needs this in order to make ongoing development of its vast range of applications affordable and to enable its considerable cross-application selling of acquired applications to acquired users. It also needs it to stay in the modern technology frame, providing what it, and the rest of the software industry, has long seen as the optimal IT solution to businesses’ future challenges – agile, interoperable, service-enabled components that allow users to remain free from vendor lock-in and able to take advantage of newer functionality without the rip and replace approach. Hence, the SOA and MDM developments: most interesting, they are being provided free to all customers on maintenance. “We’re not betting on revenue from SOA. We’re not in the infrastructure business: we’re an applications company,” says Schaper. “The reality is we are providing SOA and it will be there when customers want it.” What does that mean in terms of useful products soon to come? Both Schaper and Infor CTO Bruce Gordon say it’s all about “enriching, extending and evolving” their products. In terms of enrich, they promise more of the feature packs that allow relatively painless functional upgrades designed to allow users systems to support them over 15—20 year cycles rather than the current five to 10. As for extend, that’s the acquisitions and integration piece – with applications way beyond ERP but linking right into it, for example, asset management (EAM) and product data management (Optiva PLM). Evolve is the new technology piece. Gordon refers to software components being built under its SOA, such as a new general ledger component, dubbed Multi-books (effectively from its Systems Union stable), due in December next year, that enables general ledger financial reporting and compliance from all regions, sitting on top of existing systems, irrespective of software vendor. Others due in the next few months include: a single user interface with role-based templated web home pages (due mid 2008 initially on LN, with 40 roles, rising to around 130 eventually), an actual costing system genuinely able to take account of all changes and operations involved by SKU and order; and webstore order management – all again able to sit on any system or group of systems’ databases, Infor or non-Infor; It’s a convincing story and a convincing line-up. Existing users of infor’s now very wide range of systems spanning much more than manufacturing ERP must be feeling very confident of their future support and development. New users in the market should be putting the company on their long list for analysis – particularly if they’re contemplating a two-tier approach to ERP support across multiple sites, or if they want tightly integrated systems for maintenance, supply chain or product management – and especially if they’re in the process sector.