Infor roadmap looks a lot like Oracle’s, with open SOA the goal

Infor chairman and CEO Jim Schaper paints a picture of platform- and manufacturing style-centric groups of suites resulting from its copious acquisitions, all still being supported and expanded for existing users, but with the goal of an integrated SOA (services orientated architecture) type offering in the next 18—36 months. He makes the point that Datastream, Geac, Extensity, Systems Union and SSA – all acquired by Infor in the last nine months – were rapidly integrated into Infor’s three business units (manufacturing and distribution; financial solutions; and strategic solutions) at a corporate level, and hence its ability to promise not only support across all systems but what he sees as a consistent, ERP agnostic approach. “It’s very like Oracle Applications Unlimited, but our approach to SOA is different,” says Schaper. “Infor is entirely open source with licensing from key partners and our developments will be part of every release of every application and provided to customers at no charge.” What about the challenge of so many quite different systems to sell – Mapics, Syteline and Lilly, as well as those mentioned above? He insists that the business unit focus prevents confusion over what to offer against specific manufacturing business projects. “Our sales people have a crisp, clear view of the applications and are very focused on adding value for our customers,” he says. “They are absolutely ERP platform agnostic, and look at customers’ requirements first and then Styeline, Visual, our iSeries applications and so on. “So our SSA acquisition and specifically the LN product is tailored to complex and contract manufacturing projects of the size of Boeing for example. So it’s a great fit for that type of customer or a company that needs to scale to a number of remote sites. “Then Syteline is good for repetitive and discrete manufacturing, and then the Visual product for the lower end of where we currently serve. Competitors try to make it sound confusing but there’s not nearly the overlap people think.” In fact, Infor achieved 400 net new accounts in the last quarter globally, with its .Net and Java platform systems winning most of the new business. “iSeries takes care of itself and we’re busy selling that back into our [customer] base and integrating it with extended applications like asset management from the Datastream side, and warehouse management, CRM and management information systems and analytics.” Incidentally, Schaper also observes that a large number of manufacturers run with a large number of different platforms – many of which are now in the Infor stable. “They’re looking for fit for consolidation or an SOA strategy to tie their applications together and allow a mix and match approach going forward, and we’re there for them. So from our perspective that’s incredibly positive: customers want a choice, one shoe does not fit all, and we offer that choice. “So we have a huge opportunity in manufacturing mid market and another set of potential customers looking for plant or divisional level applications that have low total cost of ownership and high functionality that they can get up and running quickly.”