Archive for June, 2009

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Vendor Event: VMWorld 2009

Published on June 30, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

screen-shot-2009-09-05-at-51146-am

Title: Vendor Event: VMWorld 2009
Location: Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA
Link out: Click here
Description:

So long to the way things used to be done. Wave goodbye to the old. Say hello to freedom. VMware has enabled the IT industry to be freed from the limitations of conventional computers and has given back the power to innovate. From desktop to mobile, datacenter to cloud, geek to chic–virtualization is liberating the minds and spirits of IT engineers. At VMworld 2009 see how the transition to a virtualized computing platform frees the lives of those who embrace it.
Start Date: 2009-08-31
End Date: 2009-09-03

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Wednesday’s Whispers: Corporate Whispers and Monthly Market Trends – June 2009

Published on June 24, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

CORPORATE WHISPERS AND MONTHLY MARKET TRENDS*
Starting this month, we’ll be splitting the trends in Corporate Whispers from the People Whispers series.  Catch the latest monthly random thoughts, trend points, and corporate trends.  Hearing from twitterati, software execs, and industry experts about:

User trends

  • Recent win by SUSEN Software over SAP enhances validity of the used software market in the EU.  Other players like Used Software have battled Microsoft to open up competition in the market.  Many CIO’s hope that Nellie Kroes at the EU will investigate the lack of third party maintenance options and anti-competitive behaviour in some segments of enterprise software (i.e. Oracle DB, SAP, etc.) before her term expires.
  • Hybrid deployment options continue to gain ground.  Conversations with over 101 software decision makers highlight a shift from single source vendor strategies.  Move to support hybrid deployments benefit enterprise service bus and integration providers such as Boomi, Pervasive, and Informatica.
  • Japanese CIO’s finally realizing that they need to break free from their existing ERP software vendor relationships.  SaaS options now in consideration.  Recent advancements by NTT to host Zoho, Siemens’ 420K employee move to Success Factors, and Flextronics 240k employee deal with Workday have shifted perception that SaaS can’t solve large enterprise requirements.
  • Conversations with over 100 EMEA decision makers show a big push to move away from a single source vendor strategy.  Third party maintenance, virtualization, SaaS, Open Source, and BPO top lists of planned initiatives in 2009/2010.
  • Support for Apple Macs in corporate environments gaining significant traction.  Despite shipment gains, lack of real corporate support models (i.e. go to the Apple Store to fix your MacBook) do not engender the backing of corporate IT support departments.

Software vendor and system integrators trends

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? What are you hearing in the market?  Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Infor Flex Reflects Proactive Maintenance Policy

Published on June 22, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Infor announced two new maintenance options for its customers today. These actions represent a proactive approach to provide its customers with new ownership models.  The key offerings include:

  • Flex Upgrade: customers move to the latest application version, no change to existing maintenance and support costs, little or no license fees
    POV: Support and maintenance fees should often cover the rights to future versions.  The key issue – can my vendor innovate quickly enough? Customer’s should find progress in Infor’s investment in Open SOA and MyDay.  These solutions will help clients find a path to modernization from their existing applications.   Flex upgrade allows customers to move at their own pace.
  • Flex Exchange: switch to another related Infor application of similar size and scope, no change to existing maintenance and support costs, nominal transaction fees
    POV: This offering provides access to Infor’s portfolio.  A customer on one ERP product can migrate to another product with minimal switching costs.  Only a handful of vendors allow this today.  Imagine buying PeopleSoft ERP and switching for Oracle EBS.  Only one other vendor is unique in this – Microsoft Dynamics provides this today by allowing customers to move between its acquired products.

Each offering also provides discounted and bundled project services and incentive pricing for additional users, modules, and extended applications.

The bottom line – Infor Flex provides unique value in a rapidly consolidating market

In many recent surveys, the top customer priorities for 2009 include upgrading, updating, or replacing legacy applications.  Many enterprises face decisions as to which vendors to keep and upgrade with; and which vendors to jettison and migrate from.  Amidst this move to upgrade, many vendors have imposed maintenance support increases or vendor imposed upgrade time lines based on support costs.  Infor’s policy adds a fresh perspective by offering choice, value, and predictability.  In fact, these new policies may engender good will among loyal customers and be just enough incentive to keep competitors from poaching existing accounts.   The only thing that would make this offering better would be flex down options for lower tiered options akin to third party maintenance, but that might be asking too much!

Your POV

Are you ready to flex?  What Infor products do you own?  Would you benefit from Flex UPgrade or Flex Exchange? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

Related links

See additional coverage from different POV’s

Infor’s Flex Release

Frank Scavo’s Favorable View

Vinnie Mirchandani’s Preference for Flex Down

Dennis Howlett’s Pragmatic Perspective

2009622 IDG News Service – Chris Kanaracus “Infor Rolls out New ‘Flex’ Upgrade Policy”

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Used Software Rights Upheld In SusenSoftware Win Over SAP

Published on June 21, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

A new secondary market for used software has emerged

Some time back in December 2006, we wondered why enterprises could not resell unused and used software and transfer related services to a willing buyer under a perpetual license.  Enterprises could resell hardware, telecom equipment, and other services contracts.  So why couldn’t a licensee retain the right to sell their software in the secondary market?  In addition to licenses, this could include maintenance agreements, support contracts, training, and consulting services to either an unrelated third party, joint venture, partnership, or subsidiary.  In fact, we even put this in as the 36th right in the landmark Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights.  Well, since that time, several German vendors such as Preo Software, SusenSoftware and UsedSoft in EMEA have pioneered such a capability in the German market.

Recent lawsuit with SAP highlights some tactics vendors have tried to mislead customers

German copyright law (UrhG) upholds the principle of the “Exhaustion Rule”, which means that the developer’s copyright expires at the time of sale.  This legal foundation was upheld in the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) on July 6th, 2000.  In summary, a developer can only make money on the initial sale and any attempt to restrict trade of used software through specific trade terms conflicts with the exhaustion rule.  Experts cite that this rule applies throughout the EU and Switzerland based on recent case law.

In the most recent case against SAP, apparently an SAP employee told a customer that they must seek permission from the software vendor to purchase used software. Based on a previous ruling between UsedSoft and Microsoft in the Hamburg courts on June 29, 2006, vendors can not mislead customers on the legality of used software.  In specific, “It is forbidden (416 O 103/08) to the software producer to spread misleading statements for the legal standard of the using software trade”.  The provisional order won by SusenSoft over SAP also reinforces the previous legal challenges.

Ruling also applies to the U.S.

To date, the “Exhaustion Rule” also known as the “First-Sale” doctrine has been upheld most recently in the June 2nd 2008 case of Timothy S. Vernor v. Autodesk Inc.  In fact the specific ruling cites, “This doctrine is stated in the following statutory provisions: “Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3) [17 USCS § 106(3)], the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.” 17 U.S.C. § 109(a).  Because a first sale exhausts the copyright holder’s distribution right, future distributions of the copy do not implicate the Copyright Act. Opinion, p.7, citing United States v. Wise, 550 F.2d 1180, 1187 (9th Cir. 1977).  A first sale does not, however, exhaust other rights, such as the copyright holder’s right to prohibit copying of the copy he sells. Id. For example, the first sale doctrine permits a consumer who buys a lawfully made DVD copy of “Gone With the Wind” to resell the copy, but not to duplicate the copy. Id.

The bottom line -  consider the secondary market as part of your long term apps strategy

Enterprises seeking to optimize enterprise software costs may want to consider the used software or secondary market as an option.  It appears that the legal precedents have been set in EMEA (we’re hearing mixed things in the US (revised 6/22/2009 8:05 am PT).  Now may be the time to pick up additional SAP R/3 4.7, Oracle 11i EBS, or Infor Baan 4CIV licenses!  Resellers, VARs, and distributors should take the opportunity to create this new market.  Pressure from vendors will most likely be limited as the sentiment in the courts now side with the customer.

Your POV

Wondering when you can unload your used software licenses?  Are you looking to unload an acquired entities assets to use?  Would you want to benefit from the secondary enterprise software market? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

Related research and links

June 12, 2009, Channel Partner, “Used software – SAP suffers defeat”

June 9, 2009 Channel Partner, “UsedSoft obtains a provisional order against Microsoft”

December 22, 2008, Forrester Research – Peter O’Neill  “The Spread Of Remarketed Software Could Be A European Response To The Economic Crisis”

June 2, 2008, Law Updates – “Federal Judge Approves eBay Auction of Copyrighted Autodesk AutoCAD Design Software”

December 18, 2006, Forrester Research – R “Ray” Wang “An Enterprise Software Licensee’s Bill of Rights”

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

* This post provides an alternative that must be vetted by proper legal professionals.  Please consult your own legal counsel for specific advice on legalities.

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Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers – June 2009

Published on June 17, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Starting this month, we’ll be splitting the trends in Corporate Whispers from the People Whispers series.  Catch the latest monthly random thoughts, trend points, and corporate trends here.   For the latest on career moves, promotions, and milestones, stay tuned here.

Congratulations to all!  Thanks for your emails and alerts.  If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line!  If you need a referral, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Jean-Sebastien Bardet became Application Portfolio Manager at Orange Business Services in March 2009.  He is responsible for the Management of Portal and Business Intelligence domains within the health business unit of Orange Business Services – Almerys.  Jean-Sebastien formerly was an advanced technology architect at Michelin and has served consulting roles at Steria, Sylis Group, and Cambridge Technology Partners.

Brian Benedict became Business Development Director at Aite Group in January 2009.  Brian was a Star sales professional at Forrester Research and joins former Forrester Research alumni such as Ron Shevlin. Previous experiences include serving as the Board Member at AIIM International, Board of Directors at ARMA International, and Business Development Lead at InfoCurrent.

David Benson leaves his Global CIO position at News Corporation to serve as the Chief Information Officer at Progress Software reporting to President and Chief Executive Officer Rick Reidy. David brings more than 25 years of business and IT experience to Progress and has held multiple CIO positions at GE where he led significant organizational and process change.
Aneesh Chopra was confirmed as the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer on May 21st by unanimous consent..  Chopra will also serve as the Associate Director for the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.  Aneesh previously served as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Secretary of Technology.

Sally Cohen leaves Forrester Research where she last served as an analyst for Environmentally & Socially Responsible Consumer Product Strategy at Forrester Research.  Her new roles will be a User Experience Researcher at AnswerLab.

Brian Carpizo joins as CEO of Eventric.  Brian formerly led Junction Solutions, Inc. as the Founder and CEO.  Previous roles include management positions at consulting practices such as Charter Consulting, Future Next Consulting, Horizon Consulting, and Accenture.  Eventric focuses on technologies to improve the live event experience.

Aileen Chen is now an Integration Manager for Strategic Accounts at Marin Software.  Her previous position includes multiple roles at RedEnvelope.com.

Guy Courtin joins as the Director of Marketing at SmartOps.  Guy leaves i2 Technologies where he served as a Senior Manager in marketing.

Ned Desmond became President at GoSportn, Inc. a new online community for outdoor sports enthusiasts.  Ned has served senior roles as President at Time Inc. Interactive, President and Editor at Business 2.0, and a Vice President at Infoseek.com.

Madhu Ghosh takes on a new job with ADP as the Sr. Director, Marketing.  Madhu was previously the Executive Director for Product Management & Business Operations at The College Board.  Other roles include seving as an Assistant Vice President for Program Management and Product Strategy at Dun & Bradstreet.

Kosin Huang moves from her Senior Manager, Competitive Strategy role into the newly created Office of Marketing Excellence at SAP role.  Her focus will be to design and build global initiatives to drive pipeline acceleration for SAP’s Global Field Marketing organization and define KPIs and benchmark best practices for measuring marketing success.  Kosin previously held analyst roles at The Yankee Group and Harbor Research.

Abhyudaya Kanoria became Manager, Corporate Strategy at Aditya Birla Management Corporation in March 2009.  He previously served as a Business Analyst for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

Esteban Kolsky became a Consultant at Managed Experiences, Loyal Customers in April 2009.  Esteban’s a Star Analyst in the field of customer service and previously served as a Vice President and Practice Leader at eVergance, Research Director at Gartner Group, and CTO of Tiedosta.

Ashwani Kumar left Oracle in January 2009 to become the CEO of a stealth analytics reinvented company.  Ashwani held product strategy and development management responsibilities for industry specific BI initiatives at Oracle.

Paul Lambert in February became the Global Head of Architecture at Hoffmann-La Roche.  He now leads the Information Architecture, Application Architecture and Technology (Infrastructure) Architecture groups for Roche Pharma.  Previous roles include Global Head of Application Architecture at Hoffmann-La Roche and Astra Zeneca.

Eric Lundquist has been named Vice President for Strategic Content at Ziff Davis Enterprise. Eric previously served as Content Director for New Media Products at IDG.  Eric brings decades of experience from serving as the Editor-in-Chief at eWEEK Magazine (formerly PC Week, Editor-in-Chief at Ziff Davis Enterprise, and Editor-in-Chief PC Week/eWeek at Ziff-Davis

Michael McDermott has been promoted from Director to Vice President of Corporate Development at QL2 Software.  Mike’s served roles as Senior Product Manager at Amazon.com, Competitive Intelligence Manager at Microsoft, and Competitive Intelligence Senior Manager at PeopleSoft.

Michael Murphy is now Vice President Business Development at Martiz Research Canada.  Mike served as Star Sales Professional at Forrester responsible for the Canadian IT Vendor market.  Prior to Forrester, Mike was at IBM.

Thomas Raschke has left Forrester Research to join Verizon Business as a  Senior Product Marketing Manager in Government, Risk, and Compliance.  Thomas served as an analyst at both Forrester Research and IDC in previous career experiences.

Yuval Shavit is now QA Engineer at Kiva Systems.  He formerly served as an assistant editor at Tech Target for searchITChannel.

Inhi Cho Suh was promoted in January 2009 to a Vice President of Product Strategy at IBM.  She’s responsible for driving portfolio strategy, marketing, and industry solutions for IBM’s information management division which is comprised on DB2, Informix, Optim, Filenet, InfoSphere, and Cognos.  Previous roles at IBM include serving as a Vice President of Management Marketing and Director of BPM and strategy.

Doug Topken becomes the Director of Global eCommerce Programs at Elsevier – Division of Reed Elsevier. Previous roles include serving as the Vice President for Business Relationship Management.

Donna Troy was promoted to VP and GM of Large Enterprise Americas at Dell in January 2009.  She previously served as the Vice President and General Manager for Corporate Accounts Division.  Donna brings a wealth of channel and sales experience as EVP of Global SME Indirect Channels at SAP, EVP of Global SMB and channel sales at McAfee, and CEO of Partnerware.

Carl Zetie has become a Member of Foundation Strategy Committee at Eclipse Foundation.  Carl currently serves as a strategist at IBM and Advisory Council Member at Utest, the usability community.  Previous roles include serving as a Star Analyst at Giga Information Group and Forrester Research.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday’s Tip: Drive Cost Savings By Optimizing Commoditized Business Processes

Published on June 16, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Enterprises continue to transform themselves from the functional fiefdoms of the past and move towards a business process orientation.  As organizations begin that process of documenting business processes, they must differentiate among the 3 major types of business processes.  In key flows such as order to cash, hire to retire, incident to resolution, procure to pay, etc, remember to categorize key processes into three buckets:

  • Mission critical business processes. Core to the identity and mission of the business, these processes represent trade secrets.  No one in their right mind would let someone else manage mission critical processes.  To be clear, email is not a mission critical process unless you have top secret content.  For example, payroll is not a mission critical process.  This is something that could be done by someone else without much market differentiation.  However, revenue cycle management with complex risk algorithms would be a mission critical process that would not necessarily be outsourced.
  • Commoditized business processes. Often the “best practices” of the 1990′s that vendors profess to bring to an engagement, these processes represent well-defined, common industry practices.   Lack of unique intellectual property forces organizations to take the time to optimize these processes to achieve operational efficiencies.  Payroll is an example of a commoditized process.  Financial close is another one where there should not be too much variation among competitors.
  • Innovative business processes.  Processes focused on solving a unique challenge or provide a competitive advantage fall in this category.  In addition, processes that deliver a unique customer experience or provides differentiators in the market place represent innovative business processes.  Often, these processes have not yet been defined as they will be created.

The bottom line – optimize commoditized processes to fund mission critical and innovative business processes

If an organization can identify their commoditized business processes, they can generate cost savings through a variety of technology and business strategies.  Top of mind technology strategies will follow the business process and include, shared services, data center consolidation, business process outsourcing, third party maintenance, and instance consolidation.  With those savings in hand, enterprises can shift the two-thirds of their budget keeping the lights on to the one-third of their budget focused on new projects.  After each project, this business process approach will shift the spending towards new projects and fund the innovation required to meet today’s business challenges.

For more details, read the 9 part Forrester series on Long Term Apps Strategy starting with:

  1. Why You Need A Long-Term Apps Strategy
  2. Forrester’s Long-Term Packaged Applications Strategy Framework
  3. Does Your Apps Strategy Support Your Corporate Business Drivers?
  4. Packaged Apps Strategies Take A Back Seat At Most Enterprises
  5. The ROI Of Packaged Apps Instance Consolidation
  6. Five Steps To Building A Recession Proof Packaged Apps Strategy
  7. Shape Your Apps Strategy To Reflect New SaaS Licensing And Pricing Trends
  8. Third Party Apps Maintenance Rebounds
  9. Craft Your Negotiations Strategy To Reflect New Packaged Apps Licensing And Pricing Trends

Your POV.

Have you thought through your core business processes or are you still functionally oriented? Can you identify the commoditized business process? Have you seen any cost savings based on business process transformation Please post here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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News Analysis: Infor Snags SoftBrands for $80M

Published on June 12, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Infor surprised many software industry veterans this morning with its acquisition of SoftBrands. Why?  Well, Infor competitors have been spreading FUD that the company was out of cash, the company was in severe debt, and the company could not execute any more acquisitions.  Well, this acquisition puts a kabash on such talk.  In fact, having had the privilege of reviewing Infor’s financial health a few months back and hearing from Infor Chairman Jim Schaper about his go forward strategy, this acquisition falls in line with how Infor has executed previous acquisitions.  The acquisition adds new capabilities to Infor’s line up because:

  • Significant opportunities exist in hospitality. Infor will gain the assets of Hotel Information Systems (HIS), a major global property management solution provider.  Today, this concern generates $43M in revenue across 4000 hotel properties.  Key capabilities include reservation systems, rate and channel management, food and beverage, property management, and golf and spa.

    POV: HIS will give Infor significant up-sell and cross-sell opportunities in its existing hospitality and gaming verticals.  For example, most Las Vegas casinos run Infinium for their financials and a hodge podge of legacy IBM legacy applications such as Lodging Management System (LMS) owned by Agilysys. (Note: Agilisys was the old Infor name and this company was also based in Alpharetta, GA. They are not related).  This microvertical capability will expand Infor’s reach into this growing industry with a market leading solution.

  • FourthShift gives Infor a strong small enterprise offering across discrete and process. Infor adds a strong manufacturing offering for midmarket enterprises that serves 2000 customers.  FourthShift targeted process industries such as Chemicals, Consumer Products, Food & Beverage, and Pharmaceuticals.  Discrete manufacturing verticals included high tech and medical devices that required make-to-stock and strong lot traceability.

    POV:  Along with the assets of FourthShift, Infor could gain new capabilities to defend against or sell into the SAP market.  In fact FourthShift edition for SAP Business One serves subsidiaries of large enterprises running SAP and vendors an customers of SAP install base customers.  It remains quite doubtful that SAP would maintain this relationship over time.

  • BPM expertise from Evolution and Infra:NET. Both Evolution and Infra:NET products provided rich sets of process expertise.  Evolution focused on providing process flexibility across production, purchasing, sales, and accounting via its BPM capabilities.  Infra:NET served a primarily German based market with strong make-to-order (MTO) process expertise.

    POV: Infor will gain a strong MTO solution that handles low-volume runs, one-offs, mixed-mode, variant parts, and prototyping scenarios.  Infor customers can potentially expect some of these core capabilities to trickle into OpenSOA components.

The bottom line – expect more and more targeted vendor consolidation around verticals and micro-verticals

As seller expectations on valuation come back in line with reality, expect acquirers to expand their presence in new micro-verticals.  This will open the gates to more acquisitions with an industry bent towards hospitality, healthcare, construction, real estate, public sector,and retail.  Expect other acquirers such as Oracle, IBM, and Epicor to soon jump into the fray as market conditions improve.

Other Points of View (POV)

See Frank Scavo’s take on the acquisition

Your POV.

What do you think of the continued consolidation in the ERP market?  Were you surprised Infor still was acquiring companies?  Please post here or send me a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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