Lawson M3 software promised significant investment under Infor
1 min read
Infor and Lawson Software said today (19 July 2011) that they plan to deliver complete industry suites built around the core M3 application, harnessing existing Infor technology.
Henrik Billgren, vice president for Lawson product management, says that the Infor and Lawson M3 product development teams have initially focused on three levels – the user experience, technology and the applications themselves.
"We are truly looking to bring the best of both companies to provide immediate value to M3 customers," states Billgren.
"One example is the user experience with the Lawson Smart Office and Infor Workspace products," he adds. "We see Lawson Smart Office as ideal for power users within an organisation, while Infor Workspace is great for day-to-day workplace users. We are also looking to bring Lawson's mashup designer capabilities and Lawson Enterprise Search into Infor Workspace."
Billgren also lists a unified look and feel, single sign-on, improved navigation and in-context business intelligence as other planned improvements for the user experience.
Then, at the technology level, he cites Infor ION, the company's interoperability architecture, as providing a bridge to M3 Collaborator, to create "a unified and uniform middleware stack".
This change in M3 architecture, he says, will deliver end-to-end processes across disparate applications, whether M3, Infor, home-grown or third-party applications.
Finally, at the application level, Billgren explains that initial work has focused on building out industry suites for the core M3 verticals: manufacturing, distribution, fashion, food and beverage, and equipment service management and rental.
First examples, he says, are targeted at the process manufacturing and distribution verticals with process supply chain scheduling, process product lifecycle management, corporate performance management (using the existing M3 Opportunity Analyser) and warehouse management integrated with the core M3 application.
"Over the past five years, the Global Association of M3 User Groups [GAM3] has witnessed significant improvements in functionality and technical advances, such as Smart Office and Enterprise Search, to the Java-based M3 ERP software," comments Graham Maxfield, general manager of GAM3, which represents all M3 customers worldwide.
"Following the acquisition of Lawson, GAM3 anticipates that these advances will continue and will accelerate to the benefit of M3 customers, both existing and new."
