Manufacturing SMEs can expect dominant ERP provider

Infor, the highly acquisitive private ERP company that last month added distribution software firm Intuita to its holdings, says it expects dominance in manufacturing software for SMEs. Mike Spragg, UK managing director, says that with SAP at the top end and Sage and Microsoft covering the other, companies in the mid-market want global support, and will increasingly see Infor as a safe pair of hands. And with Mapics, Frontstep, Lilly, Mercia, Brain and a string of other ERP and supply chain names under its belt, plus “access to a further $1.2bn of venture capital funding,” it’s clear that there aren’t many other contenders. Making it work is largely about merging technologies and milking customers, and Spragg says that’s the job of its Corestone initiative. Brief details include a drive to a common user interface, navigation method and messaging standards, plus database independence and the adoption of dominant IT standards, including in particular J2EE and Microsoft’s .Net platform. “It’s a major initiative,” says Spragg. “We will exploit both platforms and offer the same business functionality on each. That means users currently running different technologies at different sites can select the J2EE offering, while others can go for .Net.” Infor expects the first Corestone release to include the client, browser and data dictionary, followed by a master data application. But by the fourth quarter of 2006, all functionality will be available. As for how it will play out, Spragg says that Syteline is already on .Net, and that Lilly’s Quality module, for example, will be ported onto it and then made generally available. Similarly, Brain’s SupplyWeb supply chain system will run with all systems.