The Future of the Enterprise User Interface | AMR Research
Application Infrastructure
The New UI
The user interface (UI) will evolve into a pervasive layer for user interaction in the next five years, extending established enterprise systems to users in their work environments—wherever they happen to be. The new UI will also serve as the platform for enterprises to deploy and tie together an emerging array of personal, group, and community productivity and collaboration tools.
While the new UI won’t be a simple, thin facade, it will seem simple to end users, insulating them from the complexity of numerous internal and external applications. As such, it will no longer be trivialized as eye candy by IT developers. Instead it will be an intrinsic part of every company’s software architecture. It will allow end users a persistent, consistent, and personalized means of accessing, contributing, and delivering information across internal and external sources; structured and unstructured systems; and business, personal, and community services. By allowing people and communities to engage in new ways, the new UI will be the crucial mechanism for ensuring their ideas, expertise, and knowledge contribute more directly to enterprise performance.
Enterprises should lay out their own five-year vision for the new UI in the context of their business, with a view toward the business opportunities and advantages it could bring. They should match their vision with their strategic vendors’ abilities or willingness to achieve it. Portal frameworks are rightly the method most are using today. Large infrastructure, software, and suite providers must recognize that resistance to interoperability will increasingly hinder their ability to grow. This may not be immediately obvious when selling individual applications, but long-term sales may suffer as a result of customer frustration and lack of seamless interoperability. Vendors focused on specific business processes or industries can maximize the opportunity by adopting portal standards, componentizing applications, and providing rich visual components to demonstrate their ability to reach many environments. Those in the knowledge management space, including collaboration platforms, search, content management, and emerging social networking (such as Web 2.0-style applications), should position themselves to address new UI demands. And service providers should make the effort to understand the evolving demands for the new UI and extend their expertise commensurately in designing an engaging user experience. They should gear their technology and process expertise toward overcoming technical, organizational, and cultural obstacles, as companies look eagerly toward more pervasive approaches to ubiquitous computing and unified communications and collaboration.
For more details on where user interfaces are headed see, “The Future of the Enterprise User Interface,” and its companion pieces, “New Technology Trends for the New User Interface” and “The New UI: Prime Software Players To Watch.”
Monday, April 02, 2007
Saturday, March 31, 2007
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
Friday, March 30, 2007
FTD.de - Köpfe - Kopf des Tages - Leo Apotheker: Der neue Kronprinz
FTD.de - Köpfe - Kopf des Tages - Leo Apotheker: Der neue Kronprinz
Eigentlich zieht ihn nicht viel nach Walldorf, den Sitz der SAP-Zentrale, zwischen Spargelfeldern in der badischen Provinz gelegen. Léo Apotheker lebt seit mehr als 20 Jahren in Paris. Aus der Peripherie ist er vor einigen Jahren ins vornehme 17. Arrondissement im Zentrum gezogen, in eine "sehr komfortable Wohnung", die er zuvor aufwendig umgebaut hat.
Eigentlich zieht ihn nicht viel nach Walldorf, den Sitz der SAP-Zentrale, zwischen Spargelfeldern in der badischen Provinz gelegen. Léo Apotheker lebt seit mehr als 20 Jahren in Paris. Aus der Peripherie ist er vor einigen Jahren ins vornehme 17. Arrondissement im Zentrum gezogen, in eine "sehr komfortable Wohnung", die er zuvor aufwendig umgebaut hat.
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP shares fall after research chief quits
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP shares fall after research chief quits
SAP shares fall after research chief quits
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt
Published: March 29 2007 20:19 Last updated: March 29 2007 20:19
SAP shares fell to a near two-year low in the course of Thursday trading, after the world’s biggest maker of software for companies lost its star product developer and prepared for succession at the top of the group without him.
The departure of 38-year-old technology head Shai Agassi extended a run of bad news, which includes missed targets in two recent quarters, investor doubts about a new product and a lawsuit from rival Oracle alleging theft.
But the shares managed to make up early losses as investors seemed to realise the likely elevation of sales chief Léo Apotheker to sole chief executive in two years’ time might be no bad thing, given a vital new product launch.
SAP stock fell as much as 2 per cent to €32.83 per share, near a closing low of €32.80 recorded on May 23 2005, but they rallied to close only 0.5 per cent lower. However, SAP was still the loser among German blue chip stocks.
Hasso Plattner, SAP chairman, said Mr Agassi’s “personal career timeline” had jarred with SAP’s plan to make him and Mr Apotheker co-chief executives after the departure of Henning Kagermann in the spring of 2009.
People who know SAP said the US-based ex-software entrepreneur was not willing to spend years in tandem with Mr Apotheker, an SAP veteran fifteen years his senior, before someday – maybe – taking sole control.
Mr Agassi said he would concentrate on public policy issues such as the environment. But SAP will retain him as “special consultant” to Mr Plattner – a move clearly designed to stop Mr Agassi working for competitors.
His departure also led to a reorganisation of SAP’s top management, with Mr Apotheker being named deputy chief executive and Mr Kagermann taking over research from Mr Agassi, who will leave on April 1.
Although Mr Plattner refused to say whether Mr Apotheker would actually succeed Mr Kagermann, further organisational changes show the influence the new deputy chief executive will wield at SAP headquarters in Walldorf.
Half of a new 10-member executive council will report directly to Mr Apotheker. One of these, Hans-Peter Klaey, is in charge of SAP’s efforts to sell to small companies after coming to dominate the big company sector.
SAP says a key to success in this sector is a new internet service “hosted” on its computers but investors have balked at an investment of €400m ($534m) and worry about nimble rivals. Its shares have fallen 25 per cent in a year.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SAP shares fall after research chief quits
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt
Published: March 29 2007 20:19 Last updated: March 29 2007 20:19
SAP shares fell to a near two-year low in the course of Thursday trading, after the world’s biggest maker of software for companies lost its star product developer and prepared for succession at the top of the group without him.
The departure of 38-year-old technology head Shai Agassi extended a run of bad news, which includes missed targets in two recent quarters, investor doubts about a new product and a lawsuit from rival Oracle alleging theft.
But the shares managed to make up early losses as investors seemed to realise the likely elevation of sales chief Léo Apotheker to sole chief executive in two years’ time might be no bad thing, given a vital new product launch.
SAP stock fell as much as 2 per cent to €32.83 per share, near a closing low of €32.80 recorded on May 23 2005, but they rallied to close only 0.5 per cent lower. However, SAP was still the loser among German blue chip stocks.
Hasso Plattner, SAP chairman, said Mr Agassi’s “personal career timeline” had jarred with SAP’s plan to make him and Mr Apotheker co-chief executives after the departure of Henning Kagermann in the spring of 2009.
People who know SAP said the US-based ex-software entrepreneur was not willing to spend years in tandem with Mr Apotheker, an SAP veteran fifteen years his senior, before someday – maybe – taking sole control.
Mr Agassi said he would concentrate on public policy issues such as the environment. But SAP will retain him as “special consultant” to Mr Plattner – a move clearly designed to stop Mr Agassi working for competitors.
His departure also led to a reorganisation of SAP’s top management, with Mr Apotheker being named deputy chief executive and Mr Kagermann taking over research from Mr Agassi, who will leave on April 1.
Although Mr Plattner refused to say whether Mr Apotheker would actually succeed Mr Kagermann, further organisational changes show the influence the new deputy chief executive will wield at SAP headquarters in Walldorf.
Half of a new 10-member executive council will report directly to Mr Apotheker. One of these, Hans-Peter Klaey, is in charge of SAP’s efforts to sell to small companies after coming to dominate the big company sector.
SAP says a key to success in this sector is a new internet service “hosted” on its computers but investors have balked at an investment of €400m ($534m) and worry about nimble rivals. Its shares have fallen 25 per cent in a year.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Oracle to Acquire a Lead in Extreme Transaction Processing
Oracle to Acquire a Lead in Extreme Transaction Processing
The acquisition of Tangosol will make Oracle an even more credible player in the market for extreme transaction processing software. Its rivals will have to step up their plans if they don't want to fall further behind.
The acquisition of Tangosol will make Oracle an even more credible player in the market for extreme transaction processing software. Its rivals will have to step up their plans if they don't want to fall further behind.
Executive Changes at SAP Reflect Ongoing Changes in Strategy
Executive Changes at SAP Reflect Ongoing Changes in Strategy
Shai Agassi, who appeared to be next in line to become CEO of SAP, has left the company. This change in leadership of SAP reflects an ongoing change to a parallel, multiproduct strategy.
Shai Agassi, who appeared to be next in line to become CEO of SAP, has left the company. This change in leadership of SAP reflects an ongoing change to a parallel, multiproduct strategy.
Shai Agassi Out at SAP | AMR Research
Shai Agassi Out at SAP | AMR Research
The phone call came at 5:30 a.m. PST. Could I be available for an urgent call at 10:00 a.m. with Hasso Plattner, co-founder and former CEO of SAP AG? The only other question was “have you heard anything yet?” No other details were provided.
Needless to say, going back to sleep was not an option. My immediate thought was that SAP had either made a major acquisition or a management change. I discounted the acquisition figuring that SAP would make that announcement after the close of the market, not during the middle of the day. It also wouldn’t make sense to create any distractions during the last week of the quarter.
The fact that the call was with Dr. Plattner only added to the mystery. While his presence and influence still resonate throughout SAP offices worldwide, he had stepped down from active management four years ago. Why was the call with him and not with current CEO Henning Kagermann?
The irony was that Jim Shepherd and I had to leave a meeting at Oracle’s headquarters to take the call with Dr. Plattner. Shortly before excusing ourselves, I bet our hosts that the news would be that Shai Agassi, president of SAP’s Product and Technology Group, would be leaving the firm. Mr. Agassi had been Dr. Plattner’s protégé.
Plattner to Agassi: “You’re the heir apparent”
For the next 40 minutes or so, Jim Shepherd and I talked to Dr. Plattner about Mr. Agassi’s sudden departure. Mr. Agassi had joined SAP six years ago when the ERP giant acquired TopTier, a portal vendor, for $400M. At the time, the most amazing point of the acquisition was the price, 20 times trailing revenue. Since that time, Mr. Agassi had enjoyed a meteoric rise.
Dr. Plattner said he had told Mr. Agassi 15 months ago that he planned to make him co-CEO of SAP AG, and that he was the “heir apparent.” The plans went awry last month when SAP’s supervisory board extended Mr. Kagermann’s contract two more years to May 31, 2009.
Dr. Plattner talked to Mr. Agassi about the board’s decision and told him to think about his plans during a vacation. A few weeks later, Mr. Agassi told his very disappointed mentor that he wouldn’t wait for the top spot. Dr. Plattner then told us that they discussed Mr. Agassi’s resignation which was offered to and accepted by the supervisory board. The resignation is effective April 1. Noting the date, the co-founder assured us that “it’s not an April Fool’s joke.”
According to the press release, Mr. Agassi will remain as a “special consultant to the office of the Chairman of the Supervisory Board on technology, innovation, and competitive trends.” The release also said that he would be exploring new opportunities, including “alternative energy and environmental policy issues, as well as the future of Israel.” While I have not talked to Mr. Agassi since the news, I think there is a high likelihood that he ends up at a venture capital firm, at least in the near term. This would allow him to spend more time with his family. While at SAP, Mr. Agassi had maintained a grueling travel schedule.
Odd timing with 2.5 days left in the quarter
The phone call was on Wednesday—the middle of the last week of the first quarter. This is a crucial period for SAP, as it comes after Oracle had just posted strong growth in the applications business and claimed it was closing the gap with SAP.
Naturally, our first question was about the timing of the call. Dr. Plattner explained that the news was slowly leaking out and that SAP needed to make the announcement.
We followed that with a question about Mr. Agassi’s successor. Rather than name one person, Dr. Plattner said that the company was bringing back the Executive Council, which consists of five corporate officers reporting to Mr. Kagermann. The council will be responsible for synchronizing the branding, user interface, architecture and strategy, joint repository, and NetWeaver plans around SAP’s three product lines: SAP Business Suite (formerly mySAP), BusinessOne, and the much talked about A1S line that has not been officially launched.
Executive council members include Doug Merritt (responsible for the “development of software for the business user”), Klaus Kreplin (leads NetWeaver technology), Jim Hagemann Snabe (heads SAP Business Suite), Michael Kleinemeier (heads collaboration and takes over the industry development reins from Mr. Snabe), and Bob Stutz (leads CRM).
All of the members have extensive SAP and/or applications experience. While I don’t know Mr. Kleinemeier, he had been president of SAP EMEA Central and managing director of SAP Germany. Mr. Kreplin and Mr. Snabe have been with SAP for more than a decade. The others have been with SAP for less than two years. Mr. Merritt is a former PeopleSoft executive running the human capital management (HCM) business unit. Prior to joining SAP, Mr. Stutz’s responsibilities including managing Siebel’s 21 vertical product lines.
Who will take Shai’s place?
In terms of which council member succeeds Mr. Agassi, the answer seems to be all of them, and maybe Peter Zencke, too. If Mr. Snabe moved to the United States, it would be tempting to name him as the “new Shai.” Instead, the plans are for him to remain at SAP headquarters. Mr. Merritt appears to be the key executive in Palo Alto. He has a lot of the new application initiatives including the nascent GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) unit, the joint Duet effort with Microsoft, and analytics. He also heads all of the U.S. labs. In terms of head count, though, Mr. Kreplin runs the largest development group thanks to the continued expansion of the NetWeaver suite.
As for Dr. Zencke, he is a member of the executive board, a level above the executive council. I mention him because he is leading the A1S development team. Dr. Plattner noted that 2,500 of SAP’s engineers report in to Dr. Zencke, and that he has more than 50% of the NetWeaver team.
We asked Dr. Plattner if he would be taking a more active role at the company. He said that “I will talk at SAPPHIRE, but I won’t be designing the third generation,” a reference to the new A1S line. The first two generations were R/2 and the ever evolving R/3/mySAP/SAP Business Suite.
Leo Apotheker named Deputy CEO
In the same press release, SAP named Leo Apotheker as deputy CEO. While this is kind of an odd title for a high-tech company, it seems clear that he is now the No. 2 person at SAP. Mr. Apotheker had been president of customer solutions and operations, which encompasses all of SAP’s sales and marketing.
Bill McDermott also gains more responsibility. In addition to the Americas, he is now responsible for the Asia-Pacific and Japan regions. This news delighted at least one competitor who told us that Mr. McDermott was a formidable presence in U.S. deals. He figures that the SAP executive will be less of a threat now that he has added at least 12 more time zones to his territory.
What’s the impact of Shai’s departure on SAP?
On the flight back from California, Jim Shepherd and I talked about the implications of Mr. Agassi’s departure. While Mr. Agassi was SAP’s best public speaker and the face of its technology vision, the focus shifted too much from the applications.
Here’s Shep’s take:
“I think that Shai’s interest was always technology instead of applications. He never understood that SAP’s great strength has always been its focus on business problems and business processes. Shifting the debate from functionality to technical elegance was a critical error. It leveled the playing field and allowed Oracle and the infrastructure players back in the game.
SAP was always unique in its ability to talk to, and appeal to the senior executives in a company while everyone else was relegated to courting the IT department. Shai’s obsession with NetWeaver and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) was bound to alienate a development organization that had always been oriented to solving complex business and industry problems. Even Peter Zencke has always understood that the proper purpose of technology is to address a manufacturing scheduling dilemma or support a supply chain decision—not to create a cooler composite app development tool.
I think once it gets back to a situation where application development is king and technology development is a supporting role, the compatibility issues, both social and technical, will start to go away.”
Shep is being too kind. Reducing the politics and the internal tensions will take some time. As I write this, e-mails are coming in from customers and former SAP employees weighing in on the Mr. Agassi and his NetWeaver legacy. As one person described it, NetWeaver is a “collection of non-integrated technologies with separate release cycles and QA (quality assurance) processes.” The writer could have added that development is spread all over many of SAP’s 10 major labs, too, adding to the complexity of the release management and QA processes.
How did SAP do in Q1?
By the time you read this, SAP’s quarter will have ended. Will the news of the last two weeks have had any impact on deals that were expected to close? Or, do buyers not care? What do you think Shai Agassi’s legacy will be?
As always, I welcome your comments and ideas—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
The phone call came at 5:30 a.m. PST. Could I be available for an urgent call at 10:00 a.m. with Hasso Plattner, co-founder and former CEO of SAP AG? The only other question was “have you heard anything yet?” No other details were provided.
Needless to say, going back to sleep was not an option. My immediate thought was that SAP had either made a major acquisition or a management change. I discounted the acquisition figuring that SAP would make that announcement after the close of the market, not during the middle of the day. It also wouldn’t make sense to create any distractions during the last week of the quarter.
The fact that the call was with Dr. Plattner only added to the mystery. While his presence and influence still resonate throughout SAP offices worldwide, he had stepped down from active management four years ago. Why was the call with him and not with current CEO Henning Kagermann?
The irony was that Jim Shepherd and I had to leave a meeting at Oracle’s headquarters to take the call with Dr. Plattner. Shortly before excusing ourselves, I bet our hosts that the news would be that Shai Agassi, president of SAP’s Product and Technology Group, would be leaving the firm. Mr. Agassi had been Dr. Plattner’s protégé.
Plattner to Agassi: “You’re the heir apparent”
For the next 40 minutes or so, Jim Shepherd and I talked to Dr. Plattner about Mr. Agassi’s sudden departure. Mr. Agassi had joined SAP six years ago when the ERP giant acquired TopTier, a portal vendor, for $400M. At the time, the most amazing point of the acquisition was the price, 20 times trailing revenue. Since that time, Mr. Agassi had enjoyed a meteoric rise.
Dr. Plattner said he had told Mr. Agassi 15 months ago that he planned to make him co-CEO of SAP AG, and that he was the “heir apparent.” The plans went awry last month when SAP’s supervisory board extended Mr. Kagermann’s contract two more years to May 31, 2009.
Dr. Plattner talked to Mr. Agassi about the board’s decision and told him to think about his plans during a vacation. A few weeks later, Mr. Agassi told his very disappointed mentor that he wouldn’t wait for the top spot. Dr. Plattner then told us that they discussed Mr. Agassi’s resignation which was offered to and accepted by the supervisory board. The resignation is effective April 1. Noting the date, the co-founder assured us that “it’s not an April Fool’s joke.”
According to the press release, Mr. Agassi will remain as a “special consultant to the office of the Chairman of the Supervisory Board on technology, innovation, and competitive trends.” The release also said that he would be exploring new opportunities, including “alternative energy and environmental policy issues, as well as the future of Israel.” While I have not talked to Mr. Agassi since the news, I think there is a high likelihood that he ends up at a venture capital firm, at least in the near term. This would allow him to spend more time with his family. While at SAP, Mr. Agassi had maintained a grueling travel schedule.
Odd timing with 2.5 days left in the quarter
The phone call was on Wednesday—the middle of the last week of the first quarter. This is a crucial period for SAP, as it comes after Oracle had just posted strong growth in the applications business and claimed it was closing the gap with SAP.
Naturally, our first question was about the timing of the call. Dr. Plattner explained that the news was slowly leaking out and that SAP needed to make the announcement.
We followed that with a question about Mr. Agassi’s successor. Rather than name one person, Dr. Plattner said that the company was bringing back the Executive Council, which consists of five corporate officers reporting to Mr. Kagermann. The council will be responsible for synchronizing the branding, user interface, architecture and strategy, joint repository, and NetWeaver plans around SAP’s three product lines: SAP Business Suite (formerly mySAP), BusinessOne, and the much talked about A1S line that has not been officially launched.
Executive council members include Doug Merritt (responsible for the “development of software for the business user”), Klaus Kreplin (leads NetWeaver technology), Jim Hagemann Snabe (heads SAP Business Suite), Michael Kleinemeier (heads collaboration and takes over the industry development reins from Mr. Snabe), and Bob Stutz (leads CRM).
All of the members have extensive SAP and/or applications experience. While I don’t know Mr. Kleinemeier, he had been president of SAP EMEA Central and managing director of SAP Germany. Mr. Kreplin and Mr. Snabe have been with SAP for more than a decade. The others have been with SAP for less than two years. Mr. Merritt is a former PeopleSoft executive running the human capital management (HCM) business unit. Prior to joining SAP, Mr. Stutz’s responsibilities including managing Siebel’s 21 vertical product lines.
Who will take Shai’s place?
In terms of which council member succeeds Mr. Agassi, the answer seems to be all of them, and maybe Peter Zencke, too. If Mr. Snabe moved to the United States, it would be tempting to name him as the “new Shai.” Instead, the plans are for him to remain at SAP headquarters. Mr. Merritt appears to be the key executive in Palo Alto. He has a lot of the new application initiatives including the nascent GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) unit, the joint Duet effort with Microsoft, and analytics. He also heads all of the U.S. labs. In terms of head count, though, Mr. Kreplin runs the largest development group thanks to the continued expansion of the NetWeaver suite.
As for Dr. Zencke, he is a member of the executive board, a level above the executive council. I mention him because he is leading the A1S development team. Dr. Plattner noted that 2,500 of SAP’s engineers report in to Dr. Zencke, and that he has more than 50% of the NetWeaver team.
We asked Dr. Plattner if he would be taking a more active role at the company. He said that “I will talk at SAPPHIRE, but I won’t be designing the third generation,” a reference to the new A1S line. The first two generations were R/2 and the ever evolving R/3/mySAP/SAP Business Suite.
Leo Apotheker named Deputy CEO
In the same press release, SAP named Leo Apotheker as deputy CEO. While this is kind of an odd title for a high-tech company, it seems clear that he is now the No. 2 person at SAP. Mr. Apotheker had been president of customer solutions and operations, which encompasses all of SAP’s sales and marketing.
Bill McDermott also gains more responsibility. In addition to the Americas, he is now responsible for the Asia-Pacific and Japan regions. This news delighted at least one competitor who told us that Mr. McDermott was a formidable presence in U.S. deals. He figures that the SAP executive will be less of a threat now that he has added at least 12 more time zones to his territory.
What’s the impact of Shai’s departure on SAP?
On the flight back from California, Jim Shepherd and I talked about the implications of Mr. Agassi’s departure. While Mr. Agassi was SAP’s best public speaker and the face of its technology vision, the focus shifted too much from the applications.
Here’s Shep’s take:
“I think that Shai’s interest was always technology instead of applications. He never understood that SAP’s great strength has always been its focus on business problems and business processes. Shifting the debate from functionality to technical elegance was a critical error. It leveled the playing field and allowed Oracle and the infrastructure players back in the game.
SAP was always unique in its ability to talk to, and appeal to the senior executives in a company while everyone else was relegated to courting the IT department. Shai’s obsession with NetWeaver and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) was bound to alienate a development organization that had always been oriented to solving complex business and industry problems. Even Peter Zencke has always understood that the proper purpose of technology is to address a manufacturing scheduling dilemma or support a supply chain decision—not to create a cooler composite app development tool.
I think once it gets back to a situation where application development is king and technology development is a supporting role, the compatibility issues, both social and technical, will start to go away.”
Shep is being too kind. Reducing the politics and the internal tensions will take some time. As I write this, e-mails are coming in from customers and former SAP employees weighing in on the Mr. Agassi and his NetWeaver legacy. As one person described it, NetWeaver is a “collection of non-integrated technologies with separate release cycles and QA (quality assurance) processes.” The writer could have added that development is spread all over many of SAP’s 10 major labs, too, adding to the complexity of the release management and QA processes.
How did SAP do in Q1?
By the time you read this, SAP’s quarter will have ended. Will the news of the last two weeks have had any impact on deals that were expected to close? Or, do buyers not care? What do you think Shai Agassi’s legacy will be?
As always, I welcome your comments and ideas—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Agassis Weggang stand länger fest
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
SAP-Aufsichtsratschef Hasso Plattner hat Spekulationen zurückgewiesen, wonach der überraschende Rückzug von Technologievorstand Shai Agassi mit der Klage des Konkurrenten Oracle zusammenhängen könnte. Bereits zwei Tage vor Bekanntwerden der Klage habe Agassi sich entschieden, SAP zu verlassen.
FTD.de - Das Kapital - Das Kapital - SAP entgeht einer Nachfolgeproblematik
FTD.de - Das Kapital - Das Kapital - SAP entgeht einer Nachfolgeproblematik
Am meisten ärgern wird man sich im SAP- Vorstand wohl über das suboptimale Timing von Shai Agassi, um seinen Rücktritt bekannt zu geben. Weiteres Thema in diesem Kapital: Unternehmenskredite.
Am meisten ärgern wird man sich im SAP- Vorstand wohl über das suboptimale Timing von Shai Agassi, um seinen Rücktritt bekannt zu geben. Weiteres Thema in diesem Kapital: Unternehmenskredite.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Nine (Plus) Lives of Ariba and i2 Technologies | AMR Research
The Nine (Plus) Lives of Ariba and i2 Technologies | AMR Research
Ariba and i2 find new life
Two years ago Ariba and i2 Technologies had bleak outlooks. But the companies have renewed vigor now, having distinguished themselves as resilient software companies that are positioned to maintain or take share as competition increases. As companies continue to strive for more revenue, higher margins, and lower costs, Ariba and i2 move front and center on the competitive landscape.
For its part, Ariba should continue to be a major player in sourcing and procurement, gaining more traction in direct materials, with demand for its Low Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS) and Commodity Services products. Overall development of the sourcing and procurement market is providing a tailwind for Ariba, as the sourcing and procurement market continues to grow 9% to10% in the next couple of years, following at least 9% expansion in 2006. At the company-specific level, continued execution on the successful transition to an on-demand model could generate even higher-than-forecast growth. Current AMR Research sourcing and procurement revenue numbers have Ariba second to SAP. While SAP’s numbers showed an increase in 2006 with the acquisition, we expect Ariba to grow by at least 5% based on its successful transition to software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology and the resulting increased revenue opportunities.
Meanwhile, i2 is deriving more growth in sourcing and procurement with its direct materials support and product lifecycle management (PLM) partnership with Dassault Systemes. i2 is hitting on almost all cylinders since its reorganization, and continues to deliver innovative products into a increasingly receptive client base despite a more competitive landscape. i2 is also taking advantage of partnerships to extend its ecosystem, making inroads where it had lost mindshare to SAP. Also, many companies are less likely to be using end-to-end packaged suites and are instead making use of a set of well-integrated tools targeting distinct business problems, bolstered by a focus on strong business processes. i2 currently ranks third in supply chain management (SCM) revenue behind SAP and Oracle by 6% to 8%.
Details on Agile and i2’s recoveries and market factors involved in future success can be found in “The Nine (Plus) Lives of Ariba and i2 Technologies.”
Ariba and i2 find new life
Two years ago Ariba and i2 Technologies had bleak outlooks. But the companies have renewed vigor now, having distinguished themselves as resilient software companies that are positioned to maintain or take share as competition increases. As companies continue to strive for more revenue, higher margins, and lower costs, Ariba and i2 move front and center on the competitive landscape.
For its part, Ariba should continue to be a major player in sourcing and procurement, gaining more traction in direct materials, with demand for its Low Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS) and Commodity Services products. Overall development of the sourcing and procurement market is providing a tailwind for Ariba, as the sourcing and procurement market continues to grow 9% to10% in the next couple of years, following at least 9% expansion in 2006. At the company-specific level, continued execution on the successful transition to an on-demand model could generate even higher-than-forecast growth. Current AMR Research sourcing and procurement revenue numbers have Ariba second to SAP. While SAP’s numbers showed an increase in 2006 with the acquisition, we expect Ariba to grow by at least 5% based on its successful transition to software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology and the resulting increased revenue opportunities.
Meanwhile, i2 is deriving more growth in sourcing and procurement with its direct materials support and product lifecycle management (PLM) partnership with Dassault Systemes. i2 is hitting on almost all cylinders since its reorganization, and continues to deliver innovative products into a increasingly receptive client base despite a more competitive landscape. i2 is also taking advantage of partnerships to extend its ecosystem, making inroads where it had lost mindshare to SAP. Also, many companies are less likely to be using end-to-end packaged suites and are instead making use of a set of well-integrated tools targeting distinct business problems, bolstered by a focus on strong business processes. i2 currently ranks third in supply chain management (SCM) revenue behind SAP and Oracle by 6% to 8%.
Details on Agile and i2’s recoveries and market factors involved in future success can be found in “The Nine (Plus) Lives of Ariba and i2 Technologies.”
FTD.de - Medien+Internet - Nachrichten - SAP-Technologievorstand Agassi will nicht warten - und geht
FTD.de - Medien+Internet - Nachrichten - SAP-Technologievorstand Agassi will nicht warten - und geht
Shai Agassi kehrt dem deutschen Softwarekonzern SAP den Rücken. Der Produktvorstand galt als Top-Kandidat für die Ära nach dem amtierenden Konzernchef Henning Kagermann. Doch Agassis Geduld reichte nicht aus.
Shai Agassi kehrt dem deutschen Softwarekonzern SAP den Rücken. Der Produktvorstand galt als Top-Kandidat für die Ära nach dem amtierenden Konzernchef Henning Kagermann. Doch Agassis Geduld reichte nicht aus.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP hit by loss of research chief
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP hit by loss of research chief
SAP hit by loss of research chief
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt
Published: March 28 2007 20:05 | Last updated: March 28 2007 20:05
Germany’s SAP, the world’s biggest maker of business software, took another hit on Wednesday night with the departure of research and development head Shai Agassi, long tipped as the group’s future chief executive.
People close to SAP said Mr Agassi’s decision led to the appointment of marketing head Léo Apotheker to the new post of deputy chief executive, formalising his status as the heir apparent to Henning Kagermann.
These people said Mr Agassi seemed to have lost hope of speedy promotion or did not like the prospect of becoming co-CEO with Mr Apotheker. He did not appear to be switching to a rival software company, they stressed,
The loss of Mr Agassi, 39, a former software entrepreneur, could further worry investors beset by doubts that SAP can appeal to smaller businesses after coming to dominate sales to big companies.
Mr Agassi’s move comes only weeks after chief executive Henning Kagermann, 60, extended his contract by only one year – a clear sign he was preparing to hand over the reins of the company soon.
Though seen as a successor to the cerebral Mr Kagermann, Mr Agassi’s youth and his base in California always made him more contentious among SAP’s German staff than Mr Apotheker.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SAP hit by loss of research chief
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt
Published: March 28 2007 20:05 | Last updated: March 28 2007 20:05
Germany’s SAP, the world’s biggest maker of business software, took another hit on Wednesday night with the departure of research and development head Shai Agassi, long tipped as the group’s future chief executive.
People close to SAP said Mr Agassi’s decision led to the appointment of marketing head Léo Apotheker to the new post of deputy chief executive, formalising his status as the heir apparent to Henning Kagermann.
These people said Mr Agassi seemed to have lost hope of speedy promotion or did not like the prospect of becoming co-CEO with Mr Apotheker. He did not appear to be switching to a rival software company, they stressed,
The loss of Mr Agassi, 39, a former software entrepreneur, could further worry investors beset by doubts that SAP can appeal to smaller businesses after coming to dominate sales to big companies.
Mr Agassi’s move comes only weeks after chief executive Henning Kagermann, 60, extended his contract by only one year – a clear sign he was preparing to hand over the reins of the company soon.
Though seen as a successor to the cerebral Mr Kagermann, Mr Agassi’s youth and his base in California always made him more contentious among SAP’s German staff than Mr Apotheker.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
FT.com / Technology - Valley view: Will twittering be big business?
FT.com / Technology - Valley view: Will twittering be big business?
Valley view: Will twittering be big business?
Chris Nuttall
Published: March 28 2007 10:21 | Last updated: March 28 2007 10:21
Spring has sprung, the birds are singing and San Francisco is hearts a-flutter over a Web 2.0 service called Twitter.
I encountered it first in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tekkies were using it to track events and each other’s movements around the vast show. It has been growing exponentially ever since.
Twitter essentially allows you to broadcast SMS-type messages to friends and the public about what you’re up to, with an archive of your one-sentence twitterings available on the twitter.com website.
Opinions are divided on whether to love or hate Twitter and whether it is full of useless minutiae or useful information. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk finds it as addictive as Flickr and says: “It is the micro blogging platform du jour, allows me to stay in contact with over 400 people, serves as a great daily record of what I’ve been up to for archive purposes, and is fun as hell.”
Others might say this is taking Web 2.0’s interactive tools and blogging into the realms of the absurd.
Just looking at the current twitterings on the public page, there are some interesting comments but also entries such as “same thing I was doing eight hours ago”, “uploading a new image”, “getting dinner on my way home” and commercial messages including the BBC posting what is up next on the World Service.
These may tell us little about the zeitgeist but there is no doubt that Twitter itself is very much of the moment – the Hitwise research team says its traffic has risen 55 per cent in the space of a week, and although still niche, it is already spawning related sites such as Twittersearch, Twitterholic, which ranks “twits” by postings, and Twittermaps and Twittervision, mash-ups that mix Google maps of the world with the latest twitterings and their locations.
What is also interesting about Twitter is what it says about Web 2.0 and Silicon Valley’s culture. Valley companies have a habit of working on one idea until a better one comes along. This is not a world of carefully hatched business plans leading to world domination, it is one of happenstance and serendipity, quick adaptations and imaginative improvisations on existing themes.
In Twitter’s case, Evan Williams is behind the service, an entrepreneur and developer who founded Blogger, the blogging service bought by Google in 2003. He went on to create Odeo, a podcasting technology that has made little impression, but one of his engineers came up with Twitter as a project and this has now changed the course of the business.
But what is the business? Williams doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to care. Build a great user experience and the business model will follow, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
I have heard this more than once in recent weeks from Web 2.0 companies, including Izimi, a British company that is following other foreign start-ups in setting up in San Francisco, the heart of the movement.
This seems part of a new confidence and independence that Web 2.0 fosters. The code-sharing that goes on, the coffee-shop offices and the cheap technology now available means these small companies can survive for long periods without the need to seek venture capital or go to the markets.
It’s a refreshing change from the 1999 bubble of MBAs with carefully prepared business plans designed to attract venture capital. There were too many me-too ideas and everyone had the same SASSy proposals for making money, as in Subscriptions, Advertising, selling Services or earning Sponsorship. All the while, they had sweet FA – as in Flotation or Acquisition – in the back of their minds as the best way to cash in.
So in contrast, the Web 2.0 crowd seem happy to, and can afford to, go with the flow of where their users take their services. Look at Google, they point out, it went four years before finding a business model, and a pretty spectacular one at that.
This is all very well, but there is only one Google, and MySpace and YouTube have achieved similar dominance in social networking and online video. The future could be big for Twitter or it could end up as a passing fad – already many people are learning to turn down or turn off the constant messaging to their phones.
Instead of understanding their market in advance with focus groups, Web 2.0 companies are doing it on the fly by observing user behaviour. They are user-driven in every sense and will live or die by those users and their attention spans.
The best outcome for most would be an acquisition by a larger company, in the way that Google and Yahoo! have picked up Web 2.0 services such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, JotSpot, Keyhole, Konfabulator, Oddpost, Upcoming and Writely.
The rest need to partner and club together, according to a new Forrester Research survey, if they want to address enterprises with their services. Businesses made clear they wanted to buy suites of Web 2.0 applications not stand-alone services.
And mass-market consumers may prefer integrated offerings rather than idle twitterings as well.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Valley view: Will twittering be big business?
Chris Nuttall
Published: March 28 2007 10:21 | Last updated: March 28 2007 10:21
Spring has sprung, the birds are singing and San Francisco is hearts a-flutter over a Web 2.0 service called Twitter.
I encountered it first in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tekkies were using it to track events and each other’s movements around the vast show. It has been growing exponentially ever since.
Twitter essentially allows you to broadcast SMS-type messages to friends and the public about what you’re up to, with an archive of your one-sentence twitterings available on the twitter.com website.
Opinions are divided on whether to love or hate Twitter and whether it is full of useless minutiae or useful information. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk finds it as addictive as Flickr and says: “It is the micro blogging platform du jour, allows me to stay in contact with over 400 people, serves as a great daily record of what I’ve been up to for archive purposes, and is fun as hell.”
Others might say this is taking Web 2.0’s interactive tools and blogging into the realms of the absurd.
Just looking at the current twitterings on the public page, there are some interesting comments but also entries such as “same thing I was doing eight hours ago”, “uploading a new image”, “getting dinner on my way home” and commercial messages including the BBC posting what is up next on the World Service.
These may tell us little about the zeitgeist but there is no doubt that Twitter itself is very much of the moment – the Hitwise research team says its traffic has risen 55 per cent in the space of a week, and although still niche, it is already spawning related sites such as Twittersearch, Twitterholic, which ranks “twits” by postings, and Twittermaps and Twittervision, mash-ups that mix Google maps of the world with the latest twitterings and their locations.
What is also interesting about Twitter is what it says about Web 2.0 and Silicon Valley’s culture. Valley companies have a habit of working on one idea until a better one comes along. This is not a world of carefully hatched business plans leading to world domination, it is one of happenstance and serendipity, quick adaptations and imaginative improvisations on existing themes.
In Twitter’s case, Evan Williams is behind the service, an entrepreneur and developer who founded Blogger, the blogging service bought by Google in 2003. He went on to create Odeo, a podcasting technology that has made little impression, but one of his engineers came up with Twitter as a project and this has now changed the course of the business.
But what is the business? Williams doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to care. Build a great user experience and the business model will follow, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
I have heard this more than once in recent weeks from Web 2.0 companies, including Izimi, a British company that is following other foreign start-ups in setting up in San Francisco, the heart of the movement.
This seems part of a new confidence and independence that Web 2.0 fosters. The code-sharing that goes on, the coffee-shop offices and the cheap technology now available means these small companies can survive for long periods without the need to seek venture capital or go to the markets.
It’s a refreshing change from the 1999 bubble of MBAs with carefully prepared business plans designed to attract venture capital. There were too many me-too ideas and everyone had the same SASSy proposals for making money, as in Subscriptions, Advertising, selling Services or earning Sponsorship. All the while, they had sweet FA – as in Flotation or Acquisition – in the back of their minds as the best way to cash in.
So in contrast, the Web 2.0 crowd seem happy to, and can afford to, go with the flow of where their users take their services. Look at Google, they point out, it went four years before finding a business model, and a pretty spectacular one at that.
This is all very well, but there is only one Google, and MySpace and YouTube have achieved similar dominance in social networking and online video. The future could be big for Twitter or it could end up as a passing fad – already many people are learning to turn down or turn off the constant messaging to their phones.
Instead of understanding their market in advance with focus groups, Web 2.0 companies are doing it on the fly by observing user behaviour. They are user-driven in every sense and will live or die by those users and their attention spans.
The best outcome for most would be an acquisition by a larger company, in the way that Google and Yahoo! have picked up Web 2.0 services such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, JotSpot, Keyhole, Konfabulator, Oddpost, Upcoming and Writely.
The rest need to partner and club together, according to a new Forrester Research survey, if they want to address enterprises with their services. Businesses made clear they wanted to buy suites of Web 2.0 applications not stand-alone services.
And mass-market consumers may prefer integrated offerings rather than idle twitterings as well.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Oracle/SAP Suit Highlights Care Required in Using Third-Party Support
Oracle/SAP Suit Highlights Care Required in Using Third-Party Support
Oracle has filed suit against SAP, alleging theft of intellectual property by SAP's TomorrowNow subsidiary. Customers using third-party support vendors should evaluate their contracts while monitoring the legal action's progress.
Oracle has filed suit against SAP, alleging theft of intellectual property by SAP's TomorrowNow subsidiary. Customers using third-party support vendors should evaluate their contracts while monitoring the legal action's progress.
Friday, March 23, 2007
FTD.de - Kommentare - Kommentar - SAP braucht härtere Bandagen
FTD.de - Kommentare - Kommentar - SAP braucht härtere Bandagen
Larry Ellison lässt nicht locker. Mit der Klage gegen SAP hat der Oracle-Chef dem Rivalen aus Walldorf einen weiteren Schlag versetzt. Von SAP-Computern sollen US-Mitarbeiter mit fremden Passwörtern in großem Stil Software und weitere Angebote des Konkurrenten heruntergeladen haben.
Larry Ellison lässt nicht locker. Mit der Klage gegen SAP hat der Oracle-Chef dem Rivalen aus Walldorf einen weiteren Schlag versetzt. Von SAP-Computern sollen US-Mitarbeiter mit fremden Passwörtern in großem Stil Software und weitere Angebote des Konkurrenten heruntergeladen haben.
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP geht aggressiv gegen Oracle vor
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP geht aggressiv gegen Oracle vor
Deutschlands größter Softwarekonzern hat angekündigt, sich aggressiv gegen die von seinem US-Konkurrenten Oracle erhobene Diebstahl-Klage zu wehren. Ins Detail geht SAP allerdings nicht.
Deutschlands größter Softwarekonzern hat angekündigt, sich aggressiv gegen die von seinem US-Konkurrenten Oracle erhobene Diebstahl-Klage zu wehren. Ins Detail geht SAP allerdings nicht.
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Oracle verklagt SAP wegen Diebstahls
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - Oracle verklagt SAP wegen Diebstahls
Der erbitterte Konkurrenzkampf zwischen dem US-Softwarekonzern Oracle und dem deutschen Rivalen SAP hat eine neue Dimension erreicht: Oracle verklagte den Dax-Konzern in San Francisco.
Der erbitterte Konkurrenzkampf zwischen dem US-Softwarekonzern Oracle und dem deutschen Rivalen SAP hat eine neue Dimension erreicht: Oracle verklagte den Dax-Konzern in San Francisco.
Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research
Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research
My initial plan for this week’s First Thing Monday was to analyze Oracle’s 3Q07 results. While the third-quarter performance was the strongest in more than five years, the financial news was overshadowed by the company’s news that it is suing archrival SAP, alleging “corporate theft on a grand scale.” Here’s our analysis of both.
My initial plan for this week’s First Thing Monday was to analyze Oracle’s 3Q07 results. While the third-quarter performance was the strongest in more than five years, the financial news was overshadowed by the company’s news that it is suing archrival SAP, alleging “corporate theft on a grand scale.” Here’s our analysis of both.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
QAD Finishes Q4 Strong | AMR Research
QAD Finishes Q4 Strong | AMR Research
QAD closed out 2007 with a strong fourth quarter, but stealing the spotlight was the sneak peek into the firm’s future plans for deploying its ERP products.
QAD closed out 2007 with a strong fourth quarter, but stealing the spotlight was the sneak peek into the firm’s future plans for deploying its ERP products.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
FTD.de - Medien+Internet - Nachrichten - Oracles Einkaufstour zahlt sich aus
FTD.de - Medien+Internet - Nachrichten - Oracles Einkaufstour zahlt sich aus
Der kalifornische Softwarekonzern Oracle profitiert von seiner mehrjährigen, weit über 22 Mrd. $ teuren Einkaufstour. Umsatz und Gewinn stiegen im dritten Quartal deutlich. Experten sorgen sich aber über die Risiken der Expansion - denn satt ist Oracle noch lange nicht.
Der kalifornische Softwarekonzern Oracle profitiert von seiner mehrjährigen, weit über 22 Mrd. $ teuren Einkaufstour. Umsatz und Gewinn stiegen im dritten Quartal deutlich. Experten sorgen sich aber über die Risiken der Expansion - denn satt ist Oracle noch lange nicht.
Oracle steigert Gewinn im dritten Quartal um 34,6 Prozent
Oracle steigert Gewinn im dritten Quartal um 34,6 Prozent
Der SAP-Konkurrent Oracle hat vor allem wegen starker Verkäufe neuer Softwareanwendungen im Quartal Gewinn und Umsatz stärker gesteigert als erwartet. Wie der Softwareriese am Dienstag nach amerikanische Börsenschluss mitteilte, kletterte der Nettogewinn im dritten Geschäftsquartal auf 1,03 Milliarden Dollar nach 765 Millionen Dollar im Vorjahreszeitraum. Der Umsatz legte um 27 Prozent zu auf 4,41 Milliarden Dollar. Oracle-Aktien gewannen nachbörslich drei Prozent. Finanzchefin Safra Catz sagte zu den Zahlen, im Quartal habe sich Oracle über alle Produktbereiche weltweit sehr stark entwickelt. Das Wachstum sei so hoch gewesen wie seit mehr als fünf Jahren nicht mehr. Die Erlöse mit Lizenzen aus neuer Software kletterten um 27 Prozent und damit stärker als vom Unternehmen mit 16 bis 22 Prozent erwartet. Analysten sagten, Oracles Marktanteil bei Unternehmens-Anwendungssoftware wachse schneller als der von SAP. Zudem zahle sich die Expansionsstrategie von Oracle aus. Oracle hat in den vergangenen drei Jahren mehr als 23 Milliarden Dollar für Zukäufe ausgegeben, unter anderem für die einstigen Rivalen Hyperion Solutions, PeopleSoft und Siebel Systems. Für das vierte Quartal rechnet Oracle mit einem Gewinn je Aktie von 34 Cent. Dies liegt im Rahmen der bisherigen Markterwartungen. Beim Umsatz prognostiziert das Unternehmen ein Wachstum von zehn bis 14 Prozent. Im dritten Quartal lag der Gewinn je Aktie bei 20 Cent. Oracle-Aktien legten nachbörslich auf 18,14 Dollar zu. Den offiziellen Handel hatten die Titel bereits 2,15 Prozent im Plus bei 17,55 Dollar beendet. Seit Montag haben sie damit fast fünf Prozent zugelegt. (Reuters)
Der SAP-Konkurrent Oracle hat vor allem wegen starker Verkäufe neuer Softwareanwendungen im Quartal Gewinn und Umsatz stärker gesteigert als erwartet. Wie der Softwareriese am Dienstag nach amerikanische Börsenschluss mitteilte, kletterte der Nettogewinn im dritten Geschäftsquartal auf 1,03 Milliarden Dollar nach 765 Millionen Dollar im Vorjahreszeitraum. Der Umsatz legte um 27 Prozent zu auf 4,41 Milliarden Dollar. Oracle-Aktien gewannen nachbörslich drei Prozent. Finanzchefin Safra Catz sagte zu den Zahlen, im Quartal habe sich Oracle über alle Produktbereiche weltweit sehr stark entwickelt. Das Wachstum sei so hoch gewesen wie seit mehr als fünf Jahren nicht mehr. Die Erlöse mit Lizenzen aus neuer Software kletterten um 27 Prozent und damit stärker als vom Unternehmen mit 16 bis 22 Prozent erwartet. Analysten sagten, Oracles Marktanteil bei Unternehmens-Anwendungssoftware wachse schneller als der von SAP. Zudem zahle sich die Expansionsstrategie von Oracle aus. Oracle hat in den vergangenen drei Jahren mehr als 23 Milliarden Dollar für Zukäufe ausgegeben, unter anderem für die einstigen Rivalen Hyperion Solutions, PeopleSoft und Siebel Systems. Für das vierte Quartal rechnet Oracle mit einem Gewinn je Aktie von 34 Cent. Dies liegt im Rahmen der bisherigen Markterwartungen. Beim Umsatz prognostiziert das Unternehmen ein Wachstum von zehn bis 14 Prozent. Im dritten Quartal lag der Gewinn je Aktie bei 20 Cent. Oracle-Aktien legten nachbörslich auf 18,14 Dollar zu. Den offiziellen Handel hatten die Titel bereits 2,15 Prozent im Plus bei 17,55 Dollar beendet. Seit Montag haben sie damit fast fünf Prozent zugelegt. (Reuters)
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
SAP macht Ernst im Mittelstand - computerwoche.de - Archiv 2007 / 12
SAP macht Ernst im Mittelstand - computerwoche.de - Archiv 2007 / 12
Schon seit fünf Jahren baut der Softwarekonzern angeblich an seiner neuen Mittelstandslösung. Nun bläst das Management zum Sturm auf die bislang SAP-resistenten Kleinbetriebe.
Schon seit fünf Jahren baut der Softwarekonzern angeblich an seiner neuen Mittelstandslösung. Nun bläst das Management zum Sturm auf die bislang SAP-resistenten Kleinbetriebe.
FT.com / Companies / IT - Oracle shares surge as earnings soar
FT.com / Companies / IT - Oracle shares surge as earnings soar
Oracle bounced back to report robust growth across its range of software products in the latest quarter, shrugging off the softness in sales that was apparent recently at arch-rival SAP.
Oracle bounced back to report robust growth across its range of software products in the latest quarter, shrugging off the softness in sales that was apparent recently at arch-rival SAP.
Friday, March 16, 2007
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
Bis dahin soll das Paket, das mit neuen Vertriebs- und Servicemodellen verbunden ist, von einzelnen Anwendern erprobt werden. "Hier auf der Cebit zeigen wir ausgewählten Kunden und Partnern das Produkt", sagte Kagermann.
Das neue Angebot ist ein wichtiger Baustein für SAPs künftiges Geschäft. Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Programmen zur Unternehmenssteuerung will in den kommenden Jahren im Mittelstand besonders stark wachsen. Um mehr Kunden in diesem Marktsegment gewinnen zu können, hat das Unternehmen Anfang des Jahres ein neues Produkt angekündigt. In die Mittelstandssoftware mit dem Codenamen A1S will SAP rund 300 bis 400 Mio. Euro investieren.
Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv
Der Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv für Firmensoftwarehersteller, weil hier die Nachfrage stark wächst. Von der neuen Software verspricht sich SAP ab 2010 rund 760 Mio. Euro zusätzlichen Jahresumsatz und 10.000 neue Kunden pro Jahr. Das Produkt soll als Software zur Miete im Internet angeboten werden - ein Geschäftsmodell, mit dem andere Anbieter in den vergangenen Jahren hohe Wachstumsraten erzielt haben. Die SAP-Software soll vor allem über Internet und Telefon verkauft werden. Sie ist auf Unternehmen zugeschnitten, die sich mit einer Standardlösung zufriedengeben und auf eine firmenspezifische Anpassung verzichten können.
Das ist ein neues Geschäftsmodell, und das bringen sie nicht an einem Tag heraus", sagte Hans-Peter Klaey, bei SAP weltweit für das Mittelstandsgeschäft verantwortlich, der FTD. Im laufenden Jahr soll es mehrere Schritte geben, um das Produkt, aber auch Service und Marktzugangsstrategien zu prüfen.
Laut Kagermann wird das neue Angebot im zweiten und dritten Quartal ausgewählten Kunden vorgestellt. Im zweiten Halbjahr können erste Unternehmen mit dem Programm arbeiten. Dann soll das Geschäftsmodell auf den Masseneinsatz ausgerichtet werden. Weil SAP nicht nur die Software fertigstellen, sondern auch die nötige Infrastruktur und den Service aufbauen muss, ist der Zeitplan nicht in Stein gemeißelt. "All die Dinge sind Risikofaktoren, die natürlich zu anderen Einschätzungen führen können", sagte Kagermann.
Vertrauen der Anleger soll zurückgewonnen werden
Der SAP-Chef hofft, während der Phase der Einführung des neuen Produkts das Vertrauen der Investoren wiederzugewinnen. Das Unternehmen hatte zuletzt enttäuscht: Sowohl die Ankündigung der zusätzlichen Investitionen als auch eine unter den Erwartungen gebliebene Geschäftsentwicklung im vergangenen Jahr ließen den Aktienkurs fallen.
Kagermann schloss nicht aus, dass SAP weiteren Kundengruppen künftig Software zur Miete anbietet. "Wenn das funktioniert, will ich nicht ausschließen, dass wir mit dem Ansatz auch in andere Schichten hineingehen", sagte er. Allerdings ist er sich sicher, dass das neue standardisierte Produkt für den Mittelstand nicht von Großkunden eingesetzt werden wird. Der SAP-Chef sieht auch keine Gefahr für die bereits etablierten Produkte seines Konzerns. "Wir wollen nicht ein bestehendes Geschäft ablösen, sondern ein Zusatzgeschäft eröffnen", sagte Kagermann.
Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Unternehmenssoftware ist für sein Wachstum auf den Mittelstand angewiesen: Bis 2010 soll der Anteil, den diese Kunden zum konzernweiten Umsatz beisteuern, von heute 30 Prozent auf 40 bis 45 Prozent wachsen. Bis 2010 will der Anbieter den Kundenstamm von 38.000 auf 100.000 ausbauen. Als mittelständisch gelten Firmen mit bis zu 2500 Mitarbeitern.
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
Bis dahin soll das Paket, das mit neuen Vertriebs- und Servicemodellen verbunden ist, von einzelnen Anwendern erprobt werden. "Hier auf der Cebit zeigen wir ausgewählten Kunden und Partnern das Produkt", sagte Kagermann.
Das neue Angebot ist ein wichtiger Baustein für SAPs künftiges Geschäft. Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Programmen zur Unternehmenssteuerung will in den kommenden Jahren im Mittelstand besonders stark wachsen. Um mehr Kunden in diesem Marktsegment gewinnen zu können, hat das Unternehmen Anfang des Jahres ein neues Produkt angekündigt. In die Mittelstandssoftware mit dem Codenamen A1S will SAP rund 300 bis 400 Mio. Euro investieren.
Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv
Der Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv für Firmensoftwarehersteller, weil hier die Nachfrage stark wächst. Von der neuen Software verspricht sich SAP ab 2010 rund 760 Mio. Euro zusätzlichen Jahresumsatz und 10.000 neue Kunden pro Jahr. Das Produkt soll als Software zur Miete im Internet angeboten werden - ein Geschäftsmodell, mit dem andere Anbieter in den vergangenen Jahren hohe Wachstumsraten erzielt haben. Die SAP-Software soll vor allem über Internet und Telefon verkauft werden. Sie ist auf Unternehmen zugeschnitten, die sich mit einer Standardlösung zufriedengeben und auf eine firmenspezifische Anpassung verzichten können.
Das ist ein neues Geschäftsmodell, und das bringen sie nicht an einem Tag heraus", sagte Hans-Peter Klaey, bei SAP weltweit für das Mittelstandsgeschäft verantwortlich, der FTD. Im laufenden Jahr soll es mehrere Schritte geben, um das Produkt, aber auch Service und Marktzugangsstrategien zu prüfen.
Laut Kagermann wird das neue Angebot im zweiten und dritten Quartal ausgewählten Kunden vorgestellt. Im zweiten Halbjahr können erste Unternehmen mit dem Programm arbeiten. Dann soll das Geschäftsmodell auf den Masseneinsatz ausgerichtet werden. Weil SAP nicht nur die Software fertigstellen, sondern auch die nötige Infrastruktur und den Service aufbauen muss, ist der Zeitplan nicht in Stein gemeißelt. "All die Dinge sind Risikofaktoren, die natürlich zu anderen Einschätzungen führen können", sagte Kagermann.
Vertrauen der Anleger soll zurückgewonnen werden
Der SAP-Chef hofft, während der Phase der Einführung des neuen Produkts das Vertrauen der Investoren wiederzugewinnen. Das Unternehmen hatte zuletzt enttäuscht: Sowohl die Ankündigung der zusätzlichen Investitionen als auch eine unter den Erwartungen gebliebene Geschäftsentwicklung im vergangenen Jahr ließen den Aktienkurs fallen.
Kagermann schloss nicht aus, dass SAP weiteren Kundengruppen künftig Software zur Miete anbietet. "Wenn das funktioniert, will ich nicht ausschließen, dass wir mit dem Ansatz auch in andere Schichten hineingehen", sagte er. Allerdings ist er sich sicher, dass das neue standardisierte Produkt für den Mittelstand nicht von Großkunden eingesetzt werden wird. Der SAP-Chef sieht auch keine Gefahr für die bereits etablierten Produkte seines Konzerns. "Wir wollen nicht ein bestehendes Geschäft ablösen, sondern ein Zusatzgeschäft eröffnen", sagte Kagermann.
Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Unternehmenssoftware ist für sein Wachstum auf den Mittelstand angewiesen: Bis 2010 soll der Anteil, den diese Kunden zum konzernweiten Umsatz beisteuern, von heute 30 Prozent auf 40 bis 45 Prozent wachsen. Bis 2010 will der Anbieter den Kundenstamm von 38.000 auf 100.000 ausbauen. Als mittelständisch gelten Firmen mit bis zu 2500 Mitarbeitern.
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP eager for new product launch
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP eager for new product launch
By Gerrit Wiesmann
Published: March 16 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 16 2007 02:00
Henning Kagermann, chief executive of SAP, said he hoped the phased introduction of a new subscription service over the next three quarters would restore investor confidence after difficult months.
The world's largest maker of business software expects an online product allowing small companies to manage client relations or factory inventories to hit the mass market around the end of the year.
"We're at the start of a number of phases that will test how well A1S works," Mr Kagermann told the Financial Times. "I think positive investors will say quite quickly they like what they see. The critical ones will need more time."
SAP is under pressure after missing growth targets in its big-company business in two quarters in 2006. It also said it would spend €400m ($529m) until 2008 to launch the new product for small companies, lowering profits.
Investors worry this signals the company is struggling to cater to small companies as well as big ones. The stock has fallen 15 per cent to about €34 per share since January, well off a peak of €47 seen last spring.
Mr Kagermann dismissed whispers of a takeover and said SAP would stick to its tradition of investing in organic growth, even if there would "always be cases" in which investments hit earnings.
Speculation that founders Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira and Dietmar Hopp were in talks to sell their30 per cent stake in SAP to private equity was "like déjà vu", he said, referring to past takeover talk. "I made three calls and then we were able to publish a denial," he said. Shares had suffered under the product announcement, which came in early 2007 to allow time for testing. "But the stock will recover."
Taking a swipe at acquisitive US rival Oracle, Mr Kagermann said he was "amazed" a company could reap applause for buying rivals "with money that still has to be earned" while SAP met with scepticism.
"I can understand that someone wants to buy other technology if he can't do it himself," he said. "But it's not the only model. Ifthe market doesn't digest this, we will simply have to prove [our model] works."
He said SAP would "confront" selected customers with the new subscription system for small-company software in the second and third quarters and raise the volume of users until the end of the year.
"At that point, we have to decide whether the system is volume ready," he said, voicing confidence the web-based service would be opened to general access by the start of next year at the latest.
The one-size-fits-all software that SAP will "host" for its clients on its computers marks a break and a gamble for the Walldorf-based company, which has thrived as a bespoke provider to big companies.
In this sector it holds about a quarter of the market, easily twice as much as Oracle. But its success means SAP has had to turn to small and medium-sized companies to keep growing strongly.
Mr Kagermann said investors were nervous as the new product was coupled with a new business model. While big groups buy SAP's software for their offices, small companies will rent A1S and use it online.
Installing databases meant the subscription model had big start-up costs. "People know this is the better model. But the upfront cost means few dare to introduce it," he said. "You only start printing money later."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
By Gerrit Wiesmann
Published: March 16 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 16 2007 02:00
Henning Kagermann, chief executive of SAP, said he hoped the phased introduction of a new subscription service over the next three quarters would restore investor confidence after difficult months.
The world's largest maker of business software expects an online product allowing small companies to manage client relations or factory inventories to hit the mass market around the end of the year.
"We're at the start of a number of phases that will test how well A1S works," Mr Kagermann told the Financial Times. "I think positive investors will say quite quickly they like what they see. The critical ones will need more time."
SAP is under pressure after missing growth targets in its big-company business in two quarters in 2006. It also said it would spend €400m ($529m) until 2008 to launch the new product for small companies, lowering profits.
Investors worry this signals the company is struggling to cater to small companies as well as big ones. The stock has fallen 15 per cent to about €34 per share since January, well off a peak of €47 seen last spring.
Mr Kagermann dismissed whispers of a takeover and said SAP would stick to its tradition of investing in organic growth, even if there would "always be cases" in which investments hit earnings.
Speculation that founders Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira and Dietmar Hopp were in talks to sell their30 per cent stake in SAP to private equity was "like déjà vu", he said, referring to past takeover talk. "I made three calls and then we were able to publish a denial," he said. Shares had suffered under the product announcement, which came in early 2007 to allow time for testing. "But the stock will recover."
Taking a swipe at acquisitive US rival Oracle, Mr Kagermann said he was "amazed" a company could reap applause for buying rivals "with money that still has to be earned" while SAP met with scepticism.
"I can understand that someone wants to buy other technology if he can't do it himself," he said. "But it's not the only model. Ifthe market doesn't digest this, we will simply have to prove [our model] works."
He said SAP would "confront" selected customers with the new subscription system for small-company software in the second and third quarters and raise the volume of users until the end of the year.
"At that point, we have to decide whether the system is volume ready," he said, voicing confidence the web-based service would be opened to general access by the start of next year at the latest.
The one-size-fits-all software that SAP will "host" for its clients on its computers marks a break and a gamble for the Walldorf-based company, which has thrived as a bespoke provider to big companies.
In this sector it holds about a quarter of the market, easily twice as much as Oracle. But its success means SAP has had to turn to small and medium-sized companies to keep growing strongly.
Mr Kagermann said investors were nervous as the new product was coupled with a new business model. While big groups buy SAP's software for their offices, small companies will rent A1S and use it online.
Installing databases meant the subscription model had big start-up costs. "People know this is the better model. But the upfront cost means few dare to introduce it," he said. "You only start printing money later."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
FTD.de - IT+Telekommunikation - Nachrichten - SAP startet Tests der Mittelstandssoftware
von Martin Ottomeier und Matthias Lambrecht (Hannover)
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
Bis dahin soll das Paket, das mit neuen Vertriebs- und Servicemodellen verbunden ist, von einzelnen Anwendern erprobt werden. "Hier auf der Cebit zeigen wir ausgewählten Kunden und Partnern das Produkt", sagte Kagermann.
Das neue Angebot ist ein wichtiger Baustein für SAPs künftiges Geschäft. Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Programmen zur Unternehmenssteuerung will in den kommenden Jahren im Mittelstand besonders stark wachsen. Um mehr Kunden in diesem Marktsegment gewinnen zu können, hat das Unternehmen Anfang des Jahres ein neues Produkt angekündigt. In die Mittelstandssoftware mit dem Codenamen A1S will SAP rund 300 bis 400 Mio. Euro investieren.
Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv
Der Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv für Firmensoftwarehersteller, weil hier die Nachfrage stark wächst. Von der neuen Software verspricht sich SAP ab 2010 rund 760 Mio. Euro zusätzlichen Jahresumsatz und 10.000 neue Kunden pro Jahr. Das Produkt soll als Software zur Miete im Internet angeboten werden - ein Geschäftsmodell, mit dem andere Anbieter in den vergangenen Jahren hohe Wachstumsraten erzielt haben. Die SAP-Software soll vor allem über Internet und Telefon verkauft werden. Sie ist auf Unternehmen zugeschnitten, die sich mit einer Standardlösung zufriedengeben und auf eine firmenspezifische Anpassung verzichten können.
"Das ist ein neues Geschäftsmodell, und das bringen sie nicht an einem Tag heraus", sagte Hans-Peter Klaey, bei SAP weltweit für das Mittelstandsgeschäft verantwortlich, der FTD. Im laufenden Jahr soll es mehrere Schritte geben, um das Produkt, aber auch Service und Marktzugangsstrategien zu prüfen.
Laut Kagermann wird das neue Angebot im zweiten und dritten Quartal ausgewählten Kunden vorgestellt. Im zweiten Halbjahr können erste Unternehmen mit dem Programm arbeiten. Dann soll das Geschäftsmodell auf den Masseneinsatz ausgerichtet werden. Weil SAP nicht nur die Software fertigstellen, sondern auch die nötige Infrastruktur und den Service aufbauen muss, ist der Zeitplan nicht in Stein gemeißelt. "All die Dinge sind Risikofaktoren, die natürlich zu anderen Einschätzungen führen können", sagte Kagermann.
Vertrauen der Anleger soll zurückgewonnen werden
Der SAP-Chef hofft, während der Phase der Einführung des neuen Produkts das Vertrauen der Investoren wiederzugewinnen. Das Unternehmen hatte zuletzt enttäuscht: Sowohl die Ankündigung der zusätzlichen Investitionen als auch eine unter den Erwartungen gebliebene Geschäftsentwicklung im vergangenen Jahr ließen den Aktienkurs fallen.
Kagermann schloss nicht aus, dass SAP weiteren Kundengruppen künftig Software zur Miete anbietet. "Wenn das funktioniert, will ich nicht ausschließen, dass wir mit dem Ansatz auch in andere Schichten hineingehen", sagte er. Allerdings ist er sich sicher, dass das neue standardisierte Produkt für den Mittelstand nicht von Großkunden eingesetzt werden wird. Der SAP-Chef sieht auch keine Gefahr für die bereits etablierten Produkte seines Konzerns. "Wir wollen nicht ein bestehendes Geschäft ablösen, sondern ein Zusatzgeschäft eröffnen", sagte Kagermann.
Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Unternehmenssoftware ist für sein Wachstum auf den Mittelstand angewiesen: Bis 2010 soll der Anteil, den diese Kunden zum konzernweiten Umsatz beisteuern, von heute 30 Prozent auf 40 bis 45 Prozent wachsen. Bis 2010 will der Anbieter den Kundenstamm von 38.000 auf 100.000 ausbauen. Als mittelständisch gelten Firmen mit bis zu 2500 Mitarbeitern.
von Martin Ottomeier und Matthias Lambrecht (Hannover)
Der deutsche Softwarekonzern SAP plant, seine mit Spannung erwartete neue Mittelstandssoftware bis zum Jahreswechsel zur Marktreife zu bringen. Dann falle die Entscheidung, ob das Produkt einer breiten Masse potenzieller Kunden angeboten werde, sagte Konzernchef Henning Kagermann der FTD.
Bis dahin soll das Paket, das mit neuen Vertriebs- und Servicemodellen verbunden ist, von einzelnen Anwendern erprobt werden. "Hier auf der Cebit zeigen wir ausgewählten Kunden und Partnern das Produkt", sagte Kagermann.
Das neue Angebot ist ein wichtiger Baustein für SAPs künftiges Geschäft. Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Programmen zur Unternehmenssteuerung will in den kommenden Jahren im Mittelstand besonders stark wachsen. Um mehr Kunden in diesem Marktsegment gewinnen zu können, hat das Unternehmen Anfang des Jahres ein neues Produkt angekündigt. In die Mittelstandssoftware mit dem Codenamen A1S will SAP rund 300 bis 400 Mio. Euro investieren.
Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv
Der Mittelstand gilt als besonders attraktiv für Firmensoftwarehersteller, weil hier die Nachfrage stark wächst. Von der neuen Software verspricht sich SAP ab 2010 rund 760 Mio. Euro zusätzlichen Jahresumsatz und 10.000 neue Kunden pro Jahr. Das Produkt soll als Software zur Miete im Internet angeboten werden - ein Geschäftsmodell, mit dem andere Anbieter in den vergangenen Jahren hohe Wachstumsraten erzielt haben. Die SAP-Software soll vor allem über Internet und Telefon verkauft werden. Sie ist auf Unternehmen zugeschnitten, die sich mit einer Standardlösung zufriedengeben und auf eine firmenspezifische Anpassung verzichten können.
"Das ist ein neues Geschäftsmodell, und das bringen sie nicht an einem Tag heraus", sagte Hans-Peter Klaey, bei SAP weltweit für das Mittelstandsgeschäft verantwortlich, der FTD. Im laufenden Jahr soll es mehrere Schritte geben, um das Produkt, aber auch Service und Marktzugangsstrategien zu prüfen.
Laut Kagermann wird das neue Angebot im zweiten und dritten Quartal ausgewählten Kunden vorgestellt. Im zweiten Halbjahr können erste Unternehmen mit dem Programm arbeiten. Dann soll das Geschäftsmodell auf den Masseneinsatz ausgerichtet werden. Weil SAP nicht nur die Software fertigstellen, sondern auch die nötige Infrastruktur und den Service aufbauen muss, ist der Zeitplan nicht in Stein gemeißelt. "All die Dinge sind Risikofaktoren, die natürlich zu anderen Einschätzungen führen können", sagte Kagermann.
Vertrauen der Anleger soll zurückgewonnen werden
Der SAP-Chef hofft, während der Phase der Einführung des neuen Produkts das Vertrauen der Investoren wiederzugewinnen. Das Unternehmen hatte zuletzt enttäuscht: Sowohl die Ankündigung der zusätzlichen Investitionen als auch eine unter den Erwartungen gebliebene Geschäftsentwicklung im vergangenen Jahr ließen den Aktienkurs fallen.
Kagermann schloss nicht aus, dass SAP weiteren Kundengruppen künftig Software zur Miete anbietet. "Wenn das funktioniert, will ich nicht ausschließen, dass wir mit dem Ansatz auch in andere Schichten hineingehen", sagte er. Allerdings ist er sich sicher, dass das neue standardisierte Produkt für den Mittelstand nicht von Großkunden eingesetzt werden wird. Der SAP-Chef sieht auch keine Gefahr für die bereits etablierten Produkte seines Konzerns. "Wir wollen nicht ein bestehendes Geschäft ablösen, sondern ein Zusatzgeschäft eröffnen", sagte Kagermann.
Der weltgrößte Hersteller von Unternehmenssoftware ist für sein Wachstum auf den Mittelstand angewiesen: Bis 2010 soll der Anteil, den diese Kunden zum konzernweiten Umsatz beisteuern, von heute 30 Prozent auf 40 bis 45 Prozent wachsen. Bis 2010 will der Anbieter den Kundenstamm von 38.000 auf 100.000 ausbauen. Als mittelständisch gelten Firmen mit bis zu 2500 Mitarbeitern.
AMR Research -Servigistics Alchemy: Turning Post -Sales Service into Profits
AMR Research -Servigistics Alchemy: Turning Post -Sales Service into Profits
March 16, 2007
AMR Research -Servigistics Alchemy: Turning Post -Sales Service into Profits
Bruce Richardson, AMR Research - Alert Article
We were in Washington D.C. this week to attend Servigistics’ EXCHANGE user conference. Compared to the oversized gatherings hosted by SAP and Oracle, this was a more intimate networking event populated by more than 100 evangelists for the nascent “strategic service management” (SSM) market.
Mike Landry started the company in 1999 with the goal of providing decision support software to help customers manage service parts. His second customer was the legendary Ernie Boch, New England’s super car salesman. Mr. Boch bought the software for improving his share of the Subaru aftermarket parts business.
Through acquisitions, Servigistics has added software for workforce management and service parts pricing. Matching labor and parts is a natural pairing; why send a service rep if the part is not there?
Pricing is a very clever offering. In the past, many companies charged for parts on a cost-plus basis or a multiple of the part’s cost. Servigistics said that its pricing software can help customers increase revenue from service and parts by 5% to 15%. It achieves these results by monitoring competitive data, customer reaction to price changes, and part availability data.
The company also recently built a new command center application, which Dell currently has implemented. In my one-on-one meetings with customers, nearly all had made the pilgrimage to Texas to see Dell’s Enterprise Command Center. Imagine a large map of the United States with lights indicating the status of people and parts. Overlaid on the map can be data on local/regional weather and traffic.
As soon as a service request comes in, Dell begins the dispatch process. Every dispatch consists of a series of time stamps that track the technician and parts. If one misses a “gate,” a “red alert” is sent to the ECC to save the customer call. Recently, bad weather in Houston grounded a DHL flight. Dell was able to alert the affected customers and service partners that shipment was going to be delayed. The next step will be to adopt the FedEx approach and let customers track their own status.
Dell’s ECC is a great marketing tool, too. A tour is included as part of every customer briefing. All of the Servigistics customers I talked to developed a bad case of “ECC envy” after touring the facility.
What’s next... warranty management and/or simulation?
If customers have their way, the next additions to SSM will be warranty management software for helping determine customer entitlement at the time of the service request and additional, what-if simulation capabilities. Every customer also wants faster and cheaper integration with its ERP vendor(s). More than 60% use either SAP or Oracle.
The company has a very impressive customer base. Its 100 customers are brand names drawn primarily from high tech, automotive, aerospace, medical equipment, consumer products, third-party logistics firms, and other discrete manufacturers. With the current interest in direct store delivery (DSD), there may be a play in consumer packaged goods (CPG), though it’s hard to think of snack foods as service parts. The command center, though, would be very cool for virtually every industry.
Servigistics is one of the fastest-growing companies that we cover. In a briefing before the conference, the company said revenue had grown more than 65% year over year. Deal sizes have quadrupled. A deal in excess of $1M is now the norm.
While competitors will likely e-mail me to question the revenue or the deal size (this is a bitterly contested market), it would be hard for them to doubt the customer satisfaction. Every customer described them as a partner, not a vendor. The challenge will be to retain that sense of partnership while managing high growth.
Opportunity: replacing millions of Excel spreadsheets
If you add the revenue from all of the SSM/service parts planning vendors, it would come in somewhere between $100M and $200M. The potential market is enormous. Ask a company what it was using before Servigistics, and there is a 90% chance that it will answer “spreadsheets.”
Our research shows that post-sale service represents 24% of revenue. More importantly, it contributes 40% to 80% of profit. Packaged software can cut your cost-to-serve by 10% to 15% by cutting parts inventory and logistics costs, increase first time fix to 95%, and lower inventory by 10%. For the first time, you can optimize all of your service assets, people, parts, and fleets, while sharply improving customer loyalty and employee morale. Don’t take my word for it—ask a customer.
Next week: Miami
Next week’s travel takes us to an Accenture event in Miami. Look for our analysis next week. My goal is to sneak in a round of golf on the Blue Monster before the PGA event starts later that week. When I get back, I will also be meeting with Don Klaiss, the new president and CEO at Compiere, the open source ERP vendor. Many of you may know Mr. Klaiss from his 15 years at Oracle.
In the meantime, I welcome your comments and ideas—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright by AMR Research, Inc.
AMR Research® is a registered trademark of AMR Research, Inc.
Copyright © 2007 AMR Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
March 16, 2007
AMR Research -Servigistics Alchemy: Turning Post -Sales Service into Profits
Bruce Richardson, AMR Research - Alert Article
We were in Washington D.C. this week to attend Servigistics’ EXCHANGE user conference. Compared to the oversized gatherings hosted by SAP and Oracle, this was a more intimate networking event populated by more than 100 evangelists for the nascent “strategic service management” (SSM) market.
Mike Landry started the company in 1999 with the goal of providing decision support software to help customers manage service parts. His second customer was the legendary Ernie Boch, New England’s super car salesman. Mr. Boch bought the software for improving his share of the Subaru aftermarket parts business.
Through acquisitions, Servigistics has added software for workforce management and service parts pricing. Matching labor and parts is a natural pairing; why send a service rep if the part is not there?
Pricing is a very clever offering. In the past, many companies charged for parts on a cost-plus basis or a multiple of the part’s cost. Servigistics said that its pricing software can help customers increase revenue from service and parts by 5% to 15%. It achieves these results by monitoring competitive data, customer reaction to price changes, and part availability data.
The company also recently built a new command center application, which Dell currently has implemented. In my one-on-one meetings with customers, nearly all had made the pilgrimage to Texas to see Dell’s Enterprise Command Center. Imagine a large map of the United States with lights indicating the status of people and parts. Overlaid on the map can be data on local/regional weather and traffic.
As soon as a service request comes in, Dell begins the dispatch process. Every dispatch consists of a series of time stamps that track the technician and parts. If one misses a “gate,” a “red alert” is sent to the ECC to save the customer call. Recently, bad weather in Houston grounded a DHL flight. Dell was able to alert the affected customers and service partners that shipment was going to be delayed. The next step will be to adopt the FedEx approach and let customers track their own status.
Dell’s ECC is a great marketing tool, too. A tour is included as part of every customer briefing. All of the Servigistics customers I talked to developed a bad case of “ECC envy” after touring the facility.
What’s next... warranty management and/or simulation?
If customers have their way, the next additions to SSM will be warranty management software for helping determine customer entitlement at the time of the service request and additional, what-if simulation capabilities. Every customer also wants faster and cheaper integration with its ERP vendor(s). More than 60% use either SAP or Oracle.
The company has a very impressive customer base. Its 100 customers are brand names drawn primarily from high tech, automotive, aerospace, medical equipment, consumer products, third-party logistics firms, and other discrete manufacturers. With the current interest in direct store delivery (DSD), there may be a play in consumer packaged goods (CPG), though it’s hard to think of snack foods as service parts. The command center, though, would be very cool for virtually every industry.
Servigistics is one of the fastest-growing companies that we cover. In a briefing before the conference, the company said revenue had grown more than 65% year over year. Deal sizes have quadrupled. A deal in excess of $1M is now the norm.
While competitors will likely e-mail me to question the revenue or the deal size (this is a bitterly contested market), it would be hard for them to doubt the customer satisfaction. Every customer described them as a partner, not a vendor. The challenge will be to retain that sense of partnership while managing high growth.
Opportunity: replacing millions of Excel spreadsheets
If you add the revenue from all of the SSM/service parts planning vendors, it would come in somewhere between $100M and $200M. The potential market is enormous. Ask a company what it was using before Servigistics, and there is a 90% chance that it will answer “spreadsheets.”
Our research shows that post-sale service represents 24% of revenue. More importantly, it contributes 40% to 80% of profit. Packaged software can cut your cost-to-serve by 10% to 15% by cutting parts inventory and logistics costs, increase first time fix to 95%, and lower inventory by 10%. For the first time, you can optimize all of your service assets, people, parts, and fleets, while sharply improving customer loyalty and employee morale. Don’t take my word for it—ask a customer.
Next week: Miami
Next week’s travel takes us to an Accenture event in Miami. Look for our analysis next week. My goal is to sneak in a round of golf on the Blue Monster before the PGA event starts later that week. When I get back, I will also be meeting with Don Klaiss, the new president and CEO at Compiere, the open source ERP vendor. Many of you may know Mr. Klaiss from his 15 years at Oracle.
In the meantime, I welcome your comments and ideas—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright by AMR Research, Inc.
AMR Research® is a registered trademark of AMR Research, Inc.
Copyright © 2007 AMR Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
destinationCRM.com: Microsoft Goes Vertical
destinationCRM.com: Microsoft Goes Vertical
At day two of Convergence Microsoft deepens Dynamics' vertical investments by announcing an acquisition and a new ISV certification program to deliver industry-relevant software to customers.
At day two of Convergence Microsoft deepens Dynamics' vertical investments by announcing an acquisition and a new ISV certification program to deliver industry-relevant software to customers.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Ufida Hopes to Extend Market Reach Through IBM Partnership
Ufida Hopes to Extend Market Reach Through IBM Partnership
China's largest software company, Ufida, seeks to expand the market for its enterprise resource planning products by partnering with IBM. Chinese service providers can use partnerships to gain market share outside of China.
Ufida, a leading services provider within China, plans to expand its business to other markets, including Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Southeast Asia. It will leverage IBM’s brand, technology and customer base to sell high-end Ufida products, including its NC products and services, targeting large manufacturing companies with headquarters or a significant presence in the Asia/Pacific region. The partnership with IBM is also likely to strengthen Ufida’s leading position in the Chinese market.
China's largest software company, Ufida, seeks to expand the market for its enterprise resource planning products by partnering with IBM. Chinese service providers can use partnerships to gain market share outside of China.
Ufida, a leading services provider within China, plans to expand its business to other markets, including Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Southeast Asia. It will leverage IBM’s brand, technology and customer base to sell high-end Ufida products, including its NC products and services, targeting large manufacturing companies with headquarters or a significant presence in the Asia/Pacific region. The partnership with IBM is also likely to strengthen Ufida’s leading position in the Chinese market.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
FT.com / Technology - Product lifecycle management: Benefits of being streamlined
FT.com / Technology - Product lifecycle management: Benefits of being streamlined
Product lifecycle management: Benefits of being streamlined
Geoff Nairn
Published: March 14 2007 09:36 | Last updated: March 14 2007 09:36
Product lifecycle management goes way beyond design. Downstream functions such as production and marketing are important, while regulations on recycling and traceability are forcing manufacturers to take an interest in their products after they have been sold.
“PLM is morphing to be much more than just building better tools for engineers,” says Walter Donaldson, general manager of IBM’s PLM business.
The software includes not just computer-aided design but also tools to improve downstream functions, often characterised by disjointed processes and archaic systems.
“A lot of investment in PLM is now based on this downstream impact,” says Mike Burkett, research director at AMR Research, who is credited with popularising the term PLM.
He gives the example of Motorola, which engineers its products to use fewer parts and fewer vendors. “That makes a strategic difference,” he says
In similar fashion, Toyota says it has saved $1,000 on the cost of making each vehicle by standardising commodity components.
PLM makes these types of cost-saving initiative easier, as one of its key functions is to bring together all information on parts and products, which are traditionally spread over many systems.
The strategic difference PLM can make is shown in the aerospace sector.
Analysts say that Boeing’s success in winning orders owes much to its use of “digital tooling” to build its latest aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner.
The Dreamliner project is the first time Boeing has used PLM technology on such a scale, from inception to production and product support.
Its PLM software, from French vendor Dassault Systèmes, cut the time needed to develop the 787 from five years – the time it took to develop its predecessor, the 777 – to four.
In December, workers at Boeing’s factory in Washington state were shown, via a giant screen, a simulation of how the Dreamliner’s myriad parts will come together. The aircraft’s first flight is due this year.
Boeing’s success contrasts with that of its rival Airbus, whose new aircraft, the A380 has hit delays, forcing the European manufacturer to scale back the project.
Airbus also makes heavy use of Dassault’s PLM software but, crucially, different Airbus facilities have been running different versions of it. The resulting incompatibilities meant wiring harnesses designed in one Airbus factory did not fit in the fuselage that was being built in another.
This is the downside of digital manufacturing: one of the benefits is that no prototype is needed, but had Airbus built a physical prototype, the problem might have been spotted sooner and the solution would have been much cheaper and quicker.
“PLM offers a new way of working because you can eliminate prototypes, which are one of the biggest costs at the engineering stage,” says Heinz Mayer, chief engineer for information management at Magna Steyr, an Austrian car maker.
Magna Steyr is best known as the manufacturer of the BMW X3 but it also makes vehicles for other carmakers, including the new Fiat Bravo, which is being built without prototypes.
Magna Steyr has grown rapidly to become the largest carmaker in the world without a brand. Brand-name manufacturers turn to Magna Steyr to turn out low-volume vehicles that would take too long to develop themselves.
The engine and badge are supplied by the brand-name manufacturer, but everything else in cars such as the Saab 93 Cabrio or the BMW X3 has been developed and manufactured by Magna Stehr.
Mr Mayer says its PLM software, supplied by US vendor Agile Software, plays an important role in reducing the time and cost of developing cars, particularly when it comes to the inevitable design changes.
“By linking our PLM system to our production planning and manufacturing systems, we can immediately offer design options to our manufacturing planners,” he says.
This trend to outsource not just manufacturing but also product development is gathering force in many industries.
About 90 per cent of the work on the Boeing 787 has been outsourced and its partners collaborate using the PLM software from Dassault. Airbus is now planning to outsource more work to its “risk-sharing partners”.
Compared with building a new aircraft, the challenges involved in bringing a new toothpaste to market can seem trivial. Yet PLM is also emerging as a powerful tool for the consumer products industry.
In the US, 35,000 consumer products are introduced each year, yet more than 80 per cent of them fail to meet the financial objectives set by the manufacturer, says Daniel Staresinic, who heads the consumer products practice of UGS, a US-based PLM company.
He argues that the use of PLM can reduce the time needed to get a product to market, and so there is a greater chance that the product will live up to expectations.
One trend in the consumer products sector is customising items to the requirements of specific retailers, typically with special packaging or promotions – a toothbrush bundled with the toothpaste, for example.
The design element in these customised products is trivial, but nevertheless can create big headaches for manufacturers who have to decide not just if they can make the customised product but whether they can deliver it on time.
Mr Staresinic says the use of PLM for this application can reduce the decision time by 50 per cent and the “execution time” by 30 per cent or more.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Product lifecycle management: Benefits of being streamlined
Geoff Nairn
Published: March 14 2007 09:36 | Last updated: March 14 2007 09:36
Product lifecycle management goes way beyond design. Downstream functions such as production and marketing are important, while regulations on recycling and traceability are forcing manufacturers to take an interest in their products after they have been sold.
“PLM is morphing to be much more than just building better tools for engineers,” says Walter Donaldson, general manager of IBM’s PLM business.
The software includes not just computer-aided design but also tools to improve downstream functions, often characterised by disjointed processes and archaic systems.
“A lot of investment in PLM is now based on this downstream impact,” says Mike Burkett, research director at AMR Research, who is credited with popularising the term PLM.
He gives the example of Motorola, which engineers its products to use fewer parts and fewer vendors. “That makes a strategic difference,” he says
In similar fashion, Toyota says it has saved $1,000 on the cost of making each vehicle by standardising commodity components.
PLM makes these types of cost-saving initiative easier, as one of its key functions is to bring together all information on parts and products, which are traditionally spread over many systems.
The strategic difference PLM can make is shown in the aerospace sector.
Analysts say that Boeing’s success in winning orders owes much to its use of “digital tooling” to build its latest aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner.
The Dreamliner project is the first time Boeing has used PLM technology on such a scale, from inception to production and product support.
Its PLM software, from French vendor Dassault Systèmes, cut the time needed to develop the 787 from five years – the time it took to develop its predecessor, the 777 – to four.
In December, workers at Boeing’s factory in Washington state were shown, via a giant screen, a simulation of how the Dreamliner’s myriad parts will come together. The aircraft’s first flight is due this year.
Boeing’s success contrasts with that of its rival Airbus, whose new aircraft, the A380 has hit delays, forcing the European manufacturer to scale back the project.
Airbus also makes heavy use of Dassault’s PLM software but, crucially, different Airbus facilities have been running different versions of it. The resulting incompatibilities meant wiring harnesses designed in one Airbus factory did not fit in the fuselage that was being built in another.
This is the downside of digital manufacturing: one of the benefits is that no prototype is needed, but had Airbus built a physical prototype, the problem might have been spotted sooner and the solution would have been much cheaper and quicker.
“PLM offers a new way of working because you can eliminate prototypes, which are one of the biggest costs at the engineering stage,” says Heinz Mayer, chief engineer for information management at Magna Steyr, an Austrian car maker.
Magna Steyr is best known as the manufacturer of the BMW X3 but it also makes vehicles for other carmakers, including the new Fiat Bravo, which is being built without prototypes.
Magna Steyr has grown rapidly to become the largest carmaker in the world without a brand. Brand-name manufacturers turn to Magna Steyr to turn out low-volume vehicles that would take too long to develop themselves.
The engine and badge are supplied by the brand-name manufacturer, but everything else in cars such as the Saab 93 Cabrio or the BMW X3 has been developed and manufactured by Magna Stehr.
Mr Mayer says its PLM software, supplied by US vendor Agile Software, plays an important role in reducing the time and cost of developing cars, particularly when it comes to the inevitable design changes.
“By linking our PLM system to our production planning and manufacturing systems, we can immediately offer design options to our manufacturing planners,” he says.
This trend to outsource not just manufacturing but also product development is gathering force in many industries.
About 90 per cent of the work on the Boeing 787 has been outsourced and its partners collaborate using the PLM software from Dassault. Airbus is now planning to outsource more work to its “risk-sharing partners”.
Compared with building a new aircraft, the challenges involved in bringing a new toothpaste to market can seem trivial. Yet PLM is also emerging as a powerful tool for the consumer products industry.
In the US, 35,000 consumer products are introduced each year, yet more than 80 per cent of them fail to meet the financial objectives set by the manufacturer, says Daniel Staresinic, who heads the consumer products practice of UGS, a US-based PLM company.
He argues that the use of PLM can reduce the time needed to get a product to market, and so there is a greater chance that the product will live up to expectations.
One trend in the consumer products sector is customising items to the requirements of specific retailers, typically with special packaging or promotions – a toothbrush bundled with the toothpaste, for example.
The design element in these customised products is trivial, but nevertheless can create big headaches for manufacturers who have to decide not just if they can make the customised product but whether they can deliver it on time.
Mr Staresinic says the use of PLM for this application can reduce the decision time by 50 per cent and the “execution time” by 30 per cent or more.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, March 09, 2007
Will the Real SAP WM Please Stand Up? | AMR Research
Will the Real SAP WM Please Stand Up? | AMR Research
The most recent release of SAP’s supply chain management (SCM) module has many logistics and distribution managers confused. Few SAP customers understand what SAP’s warehouse management system (WM) options are and what the future development strategy is.
The most recent release of SAP’s supply chain management (SCM) module has many logistics and distribution managers confused. Few SAP customers understand what SAP’s warehouse management system (WM) options are and what the future development strategy is.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
5 March 2007
Bill Hostmann John E. Van Decker Nigel Rayner
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
5 March 2007
Bill Hostmann John E. Van Decker Nigel Rayner
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Oracle-Hyperion: 24 hours later (AMR)
It took 17 months, but we were right: consolidation has come to the business intelligence/performance management market. On September 29, 2005, John Hagerty and I collaborated on, “Handicapping the Next Big Deals,” that predicted the consolidation in the business intelligence/performance management space. In fact, one line looks prescient: “Don’t rule out Oracle-Hyperion.”
Within hours after Oracle announced it was buying Hyperion for $3.3B, John’s analysis was on our website (it’s included in this issue of First Thing Monday). Rather than repeating his work, let’s focus on three questions that warrant more analysis: Why Hyperion? Who’s next? What will SAP do?
Within hours after Oracle announced it was buying Hyperion for $3.3B, John’s analysis was on our website (it’s included in this issue of First Thing Monday). Rather than repeating his work, let’s focus on three questions that warrant more analysis: Why Hyperion? Who’s next? What will SAP do?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Duet Brings New Ease-of-Use to Enterprise Applications > Windows in Financial Services > The Mag
Duet Brings New Ease-of-Use to Enterprise Applications > Windows in Financial Services > The Mag
Microsoft and SAP have answered the prayers of millions of business end users who wanted to leverage the power of SAP business applications through the intuitive interface of their Microsoft desktop.
Duet, a jointly-developed solution, enables business users to access SAP applications like time and expense management, budgeting, travel management, as well as business intelligence applications directly via Microsoft Office.
Microsoft and SAP have answered the prayers of millions of business end users who wanted to leverage the power of SAP business applications through the intuitive interface of their Microsoft desktop.
Duet, a jointly-developed solution, enables business users to access SAP applications like time and expense management, budgeting, travel management, as well as business intelligence applications directly via Microsoft Office.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Monday, February 05, 2007
Ariba showcases for financial services
The banking and insurance industries got a close look at Ariba during the spend management vendor’s Financial Services Industry Summit, with customers and prospects gathering to exchange experiences and best practices for spend management in the sector. While the Summit focused on the top three priorities of the financial industry as identified by executives in a recent study—generating meaningful and measurable results, accessing and analyzing spend data, completing projects on time and within budget—the issues extend to many other industries as well with lessons for all.
These priorities continue to reinforce the importance of ongoing procurement transformation. Procurement professionals must focus efforts on automated processed and workflows to free up time so they can put their energy into strategic initiatives that deliver measurable and meaningful results. Such results demand a company use spend management to set strategies and objectives, formulate the plans, and then track the progress. For a detailed look at how financial services are bringing spend under control, see, “Financial Services Offers Spend Management Lessons for All”.
These priorities continue to reinforce the importance of ongoing procurement transformation. Procurement professionals must focus efforts on automated processed and workflows to free up time so they can put their energy into strategic initiatives that deliver measurable and meaningful results. Such results demand a company use spend management to set strategies and objectives, formulate the plans, and then track the progress. For a detailed look at how financial services are bringing spend under control, see, “Financial Services Offers Spend Management Lessons for All”.
Epicor posts milestone (AMR)
Epicor closed 4Q06 and the fiscal year in milestone fashion, with revenue for the quarter topping $100M. Net license revenue was up 26% from 4Q05 to $32.3M. Year-end revenue came in at just more than $384M (up from $289M in 2005). The company added 750 new customers (228 in the fourth quarter alone) and reported $99M in license revenue alone for the year (up from $77M a year before). In fact, the top 10 deals for 4Q came in at $300K from sales of the Vantage and Enterprise products. The largest revenue contribution for the quarter came from maintenance at $38.3M ($150M for all of 2006).
Epicor reported winning back just more than 450 accounts for maintenance alone in the year as well. While this is a small number for a company with more than 20,000 customers and specific percentage ranges for the maintenance agreements were not disclosed, maintenance revenue is a valuable metric for midmarket ERP providers. As the competition in this space continues to increase and battles brew over new deals, maintenance revenue continues to be a valuable annuity.
The success of the firm’s acquisition of CRS Retail Systems in late 2005 has been a particularly bright spot. At the time of the acquisition, Epicor had a minimal presence in retail, and there was a tiny cross-sell potential for CRS into the Epicor customer base, too. However, CRS contributed $14.1M in total revenue in 4Q06 and $69.7M total for all of 2006.
Epicor reported winning back just more than 450 accounts for maintenance alone in the year as well. While this is a small number for a company with more than 20,000 customers and specific percentage ranges for the maintenance agreements were not disclosed, maintenance revenue is a valuable metric for midmarket ERP providers. As the competition in this space continues to increase and battles brew over new deals, maintenance revenue continues to be a valuable annuity.
The success of the firm’s acquisition of CRS Retail Systems in late 2005 has been a particularly bright spot. At the time of the acquisition, Epicor had a minimal presence in retail, and there was a tiny cross-sell potential for CRS into the Epicor customer base, too. However, CRS contributed $14.1M in total revenue in 4Q06 and $69.7M total for all of 2006.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
FTD.de - Köpfe - Nachrichten - SAP baut europäische Führungsspitze um
FTD.de - Köpfe - Nachrichten - SAP baut europäische Führungsspitze um
Der unerwartete Abschied des Technologievorstands Shai Agassi von SAP wirkt sich auch auf die europäische und deutsche Führungsetage des Softwarekonzerns aus. Nicht nur Köpfe, auch Strukturen werden neu verhandelt.
Der unerwartete Abschied des Technologievorstands Shai Agassi von SAP wirkt sich auch auf die europäische und deutsche Führungsetage des Softwarekonzerns aus. Nicht nur Köpfe, auch Strukturen werden neu verhandelt.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Performance Management: Symphony in tune with Metreo (AMR)
Performance Management
Symphony in tune with Metreo
A little less than a year ago, Symphony Technology Group acquired price management vendor Metreo. An early pioneer in the emerging pricing software category, Metreo ran into some financial troubles that resulted in its acquisition by the privately held software investment group. The remainder of 2006 was spent supporting existing customers, enhancing the core product, and positioning the offering to new prospects.
In 4Q06, we published the “AMR Research Active Pricing and Profitability Framework” in which we emphasized that price management can also be used as an important cog in a broader pricing, profitability, and supply planning model. This interrelationship was also apparent to the Metreo management team. Another software asset they managed, SymphonyRPM, has been the foundation for customer-specific sales and operations planning (S&OP) deployments over the last few years. Now the distinct divisions have merged and will go to market as Metreo-Symphony.
We expect to see more details soon from the merged company as it fuses price, profit, and planning into a unified product. Suffice to say, many of us are intrigued by this combination and look forward to hearing more details in the next few months.
Symphony in tune with Metreo
A little less than a year ago, Symphony Technology Group acquired price management vendor Metreo. An early pioneer in the emerging pricing software category, Metreo ran into some financial troubles that resulted in its acquisition by the privately held software investment group. The remainder of 2006 was spent supporting existing customers, enhancing the core product, and positioning the offering to new prospects.
In 4Q06, we published the “AMR Research Active Pricing and Profitability Framework” in which we emphasized that price management can also be used as an important cog in a broader pricing, profitability, and supply planning model. This interrelationship was also apparent to the Metreo management team. Another software asset they managed, SymphonyRPM, has been the foundation for customer-specific sales and operations planning (S&OP) deployments over the last few years. Now the distinct divisions have merged and will go to market as Metreo-Symphony.
We expect to see more details soon from the merged company as it fuses price, profit, and planning into a unified product. Suffice to say, many of us are intrigued by this combination and look forward to hearing more details in the next few months.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
Five Predictions: From Obvious, to Out There, to Outrageous | AMR Research
Five Predictions: From Obvious, to Out There, to Outrageous | AMR Research
First Thing Monday
Monday, January 08, 2007
First Thing Monday
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Five Predictions: From Obvious, to Out There, to Outrageous
by Bruce Richardson
The dawn of a new year brings promise and uncertainty. As we complete the first week of 2007, we have more questions than answers: How will the economy fare? What will we be talking about next year at this time? Which company will Larry Ellison buy next?
With that as a backdrop, here are five predictions for 2007.
1. Strong global economy, though still not evenly distributed
Like you, I’m always in search for clues about the economy. Last week, Werner Brandt, SAP’s CFO, said his company is expecting double-digit revenue growth in 2007, with the United States and Asia being the top two sources of growth. SAP’s optimism is a good omen for the enterprise software market.
This week, we met with the CEO of a well-known industrial automation company. He cited Asia and Latin America as two engines for continued growth. Many of the new Asian opportunities involve infrastructure projects in China and India. As for Latin America, two strong verticals include life sciences and biofuels.
As a too-frequent traveler, I also look to hotel and airfare pricing as a harbinger. Business hotel rates in India are moving up from “expensive” to “obscene.” The same is true in the United States and many parts of Europe and Asia, too. The sense is that this will be a good year for business. Even the airlines are set to report their best years since 2000.
2. SOA moves from “SOA what?” to small pilots in manufacturing and retail
I initially put this list together for an IT executive. When I asked colleagues to add their predictions, one of them warned me of a very strong “anti-SOA” (service-oriented architecture) sentiment at a recent meeting of IT executives. Here is his summary of the conversation:
“People bought ERP packages because they wanted a packaged application. SOA seems to be a step back from that. Companies don’t necessarily want more customization, and this [SOA] seems to be driven by the vendors not the end users. I only mention this because it might be worth considering moving SOA down the list a bit.”
My colleague is right, but it doesn’t matter. My interviews with the largest SAP and Oracle application customers also reveal that they are in little or no hurry to explore the wonders of web services. Nonetheless, I’ll bet that SAP creates a sales incentive program to get to the first 100 or so ESOA accounts. Knowing SAP’s tendencies, Shai Agassi will want to close 2007 with a large base of name accounts in hand in order to demonstrate his company’s SOA leadership over archrival Oracle, which is not expected to ship its Fusion SOA applications until 2008.
3. SAP and Workday fuel model-based craze
I may be the only analyst interested in the model-based approach to creating applications. Nonetheless, I predict that First Thing Monday readers will come to appreciate what the model-based development or definitional services methodology will mean to application development, modifications, upgrades, and maintenance.
When First Thing Monday readers see this or hear me talk about it, the first reaction might be: “Sounds like you’re talking about a 4GL” or fourth-generation language for application development. While space limitations (and reader attention spans) prevent me from rehashing my November column “Dave Duffield’s Workday Ushers in New Era of Apps http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=11&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 here is how two Workday executives explained the difference between model-based and 4GLs:
“Programming has evolved from coding in binary (1GL if you will), through use of Assemblers (2GL), to higher level languages like C, Java, or other “3GLs,” and then to higher level 4GLs like ABAP, PLSQL, or PeopleCode. The next logical step in reducing code was to use a definitional or model-driven approach—using templates to prompt for application definitions, which could be turned into actual processing through either interpretation or code generation.”
There is no 3GL or 4GL code in Workday’s apps. Per the developers, “all parts of the application are defined as metadata, which is interpreted by our Object Management Server (OMS) at runtime.” This led into the discourse on the “19,000 method definitions” or “19,000 pieces of metadata without code” versus tens or hundreds of millions of lines of code in the leading ERP systems. Plus, with the new approach, you’ve severed the need to map all of the application data to a relational database and you can embrace new user interface technologies (such as AJAX) in the browser.
Workday is not alone. As we wrote last month in “SAP: A Tale of Two SOAs http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=15&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 SAP is poised to launch a new set of model-based applications. Jim Shepherd bet me this morning that we could see the launch of SAP’s A1S as early as next month.
Now some of you are thinking, “Poor Bruce has fallen down the object-oriented wormhole.” Not true. This time things are different. I think we’re on the edge of having “do-it-yourself” (DIY) Web 2.0 applications that will be based on a common development framework and metadata.
Now if SOA makes CIOs nervous, DIY may induce apoplexy.
4. Oracle or IBM buy part or all of Ingres
In July 2004, I wrote “The Panic in Software Park http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=9&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 in which I mentioned that I had bet a reporter that “one of the major software vendors would offer at least one of their products in an open source version.” Here were my two scenarios:
Scenario 1: PeopleSoft—PeopleSoft has two major CRM products, its own product developed after the Vantive acquisition, and the YOUcentric software that came with the J.D. Edwards merger. What if PeopleSoft offered the YOUcentric applications for free? Any loss in revenue could be offset by the offer of an annual support contract. The only vendors that could try to respond would be the other ERP vendors. Siebel and salesforce.com couldn’t match this with their own products.
Scenario 2: IBM—What if IBM bought an ERP vendor specializing in the small and midsize business (SMB) market? Rather than cede that market to Microsoft, IBM buys Syspro and offers it as an open source product.
Two and a half years later, I’m back to thinking about open source.
If you attended Larry Ellison’s keynote at the recent Oracle OpenWorld, you wondered why Oracle chose to launch an attack on the much-smaller Red Hat. After the event, I speculated that it might have been a pre-emptive strike on Microsoft against the new Vista operating environment or an attempt to launch a stack war on SAP.
One industry luminary said he believed everything Oracle does is an attempt to hurt IBM Software Group. He argued that the acquisitions of PeopleSoft (and JD Edwards by proxy) and Seibel was an attempt to reduce the oxygen to WebSphere and DB2 by eliminating its largest software partners. All that was missing was film of the man with the umbrella on the grassy knoll.
Assuming that my friend is right, what might Oracle do? How about this: Oracle has two very large targets for database, its existing base (especially very large organizations) and OEM customers. Now, I’m not a database expert, but I’d bet that customers with a large investment in Oracle database technology have little incentive to move to DB2 or an open source database. I’m guessing that switching costs and/or retraining might make this a non-starter.
If you look at the OEM segment, archrival SAP would do nearly anything to help its customers get off of the Oracle database. Again, it’s hard to envision that they would move. First-time customers, on the other hand, might be very amenable to mySQL or other offerings.
What if Oracle were to invest in or acquire Ingres, the self-described “business open source database”? Ingres has 10,000 customers and partners. One of the newest partners is Infor, the third-largest ERP vendor. Last month, Ingres said it would be providing database technology to Infor for one of its Adage ERP product line. Infor has 70,000 customers using software the company acquired via Baan, MAPICS, Marcam, and SSA. While the relationship with Infor is with the much smaller Adage customer base, Oracle would love to lure all of Infor’s ERP infrastructure business away from IBM.
Or, IBM gets to Ingres first.
5. U.S. government outlaws use of flash memory sticks
A few months ago I met with the founder of Verdasys, a small Boston area company specializing in security software. Here’s the premise: most companies have limited appeal to prevent the unwanted dissemination or theft of confidential data or intellectual property. A disgruntled employee (or entrepreneurial supplier) may cut-and-paste sensitive data to an Excel spreadsheet, e-mail it to a Gmail account, print it, fax it, or copy it to a memory stick or disk.
Verdasys’ Digital Guardian prevents this. The software deploys a number of safeguards including employee warnings, alerts, denial of access, and unexpected encryption of the targeted data.
Am I overreacting to the potential threat? During my recent swing through India, the cover story of Outlook, a weekly news magazine with 1.5 million readers, was entitled “India’s Top Secrets Sold.” According to the article, an Indian commander allegedly copied thousands of pages of military procurement plans from the ministry of defense on eight memory sticks, and gave them to an arms dealer who provided them to foreign weapons firms.
As it turns out, some of the Indian firms we visited have sealed the USB drives on employee laptops to prevent this type of activity from occurring.
Data theft or loss is not an India phenomenon. In the last year, I have received letters from my local newspaper and my college alma mater alerting me that my personal data has been compromised. I’m not saying Verdasys or similar tools could have stopped this, but looking for software solutions seems like a smarter approach than a government ban.
Your top predictions here
I initially started the list with 10 predictions, but it was already too long. Maybe I’ll add the other five next week. A better idea may be to solicit your 2007 predictions or reactions to my list—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=5&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1
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In Memoriam: Sam Starr
by Bruce Richardson
At 8:02 a.m.on January 2 I received a phone call from a friend at Sterling Commerce calling to tell us that Sam Starr, Sterling’s president and CEO, had passed away. He was 47.
I first met Sam 18 months ago at the Enterprise 2005 conference. He was a panelist on an M&A session that I was asked to moderate. My first impression of the Brooklyn-born Starr was that he was smart, funny, and focused. We became instant friends.
I last saw Sam a few months ago when he was in our office. I interrupted a briefing he was providing to our research team to make sure that he had a chance to meet Tony Friscia, our Brooklyn-born founder and CEO. They also became immediate friends.
Sam leaves his wife, Mary Ellen, and six children. Our thoughts go out to them on their loss. He will be sorely missed.
http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=12&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1
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This week’s must-read news
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ERP
Oracle posts 2Q
Oracle’s results for its second quarter ending November 30 show total GAAP revenue of $4.2B, up 26% over the same period last year. For the applications business, the closely-watched new license revenue is $340M, up 28% (25% in constant currencies). At first glance, applications license performance was very strong. However, we were caught by surprise when president and CFO Safra Catz said that if you subtract the revenue from Siebel (acquisition was completed last January), i-flex solutions (closed last December), and Portal Software (closed in July), the rest of the application suite grew only 1% over the year earlier period. Siebel software generated $59M in new license sales, while i-flex added $10M. Oracle executives attributed the slower organic growth to “sales execution” issues, particularly in the United States, where several deals failed to close as expected. Investors got at least two pieces of good news: a strong pipeline and growing success in retail and telco. For more on Oracle’s quarter, see “Oracle’s App Licenses Up 28% Though Organic Sales Nearly Flat” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=1&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1. We’ll also be talking to Oracle President Charles Phillips this month and hope to have more detail on a pending deal with Wal-Mart reportedly worth more than $10M and the outlook for 2007.
Customer Management
RightNow Plans for Later
RightNow Technologies pre-announced preliminary results for the quarter and year end. The company expects Q4 revenue of $28M (missing consensus expectations of $31M) and earnings below previous guidance of 2 cents per share to break even. However, Q4 bookings are expected to come in at $41M, which would result in about 50% growth between the full year 2005 and 2006.
CEO Greg Gianforte blamed the revenue and earnings miss on a continued shift to subscription-based recurring revenue agreements from perpetual licenses, noting one particularly large deal forecast as perpetual that came in as a subscription deal. Most other SaaS CRM vendors, such as salesforce.com, offer only the subscription model, charging customers a per-user, per-month fee.
The subscription-based model is better for RightNow in the long term, since hosting and support are continually funded by customers. The company has not stated it will completely do away with the perpetual model, but doing so would likely be good for investors as well as customers into the future. However, this demonstrates how difficult it may be for public software companies that have historically sold perpetual licenses to make the shift to the recurring revenue model of SaaS. For more on RightNow’s pre-announcement and how this shift in models may affect others, see “RightNow Bites Bullet Now for Longer Term Security” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=6&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
salesforce.com opens AppStore
salesforce.com recently unveiled its AppStore vision and monetization strategy. For the zero-touch sales model for AppExchange partners, salesforce.com will manage the marketing, selling, invoicing, delivery, and payment of partner products through the AppExchange, so integration is already assured. Today more than 430 applications from 230 partners are available. These range from a gamut of customer-facing applications—sales, marketing, service and support, partner management, and analytics—to financial services, finance and accounting, human resources, tools and utilities, and vertical solutions.
Whether these programs generate much revenue for salesforce.com is hard to say. One executive said that AppExchange has fueled a “$100M economy... and growing,” referring to the vendor sales generated by that marketplace. For a more detailed look at AppStore and what it means to the larger applications market, see “Inside salesforce.com’s New AppStore” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=10&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Application Infrastructure
Cognos shows momentum
As Cognos heads into the final lap for FY07 (ending February 2007), it put up some pretty solid numbers for 3Q07 that provide some much-needed momentum. The company posted total quarterly turnover of $248M, with license revenue of $94M, up 17% and 24% respectively from 3Q06.
The firm had been buffeted by an SEC investigation earlier this year—now cleared with no financial impact—as well as restructuring activities earlier this quarter. These were expected to affect company performance 3Q07, but didn’t seem to in the final analysis.
As we reported earlier, the company has a clear vision of what it needs to accomplish and has its collective down, executing through to the finish line. See “A Conversation With Cognos” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=13&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 for more on our opinion of the firm’s prospects.
IDS Scheer offers SAP BI answers
SAP Business Intelligence (BI) is a hot topic in the SAP customer base. Customer inquiry is high as companies plan 2007 projects, and it’s an ongoing topic of discussion in SAP Forum groups. Process modeling vendor IDS Scheer now offers a product to assist companies in documenting the transformation steps from transaction data to Business Warehouse (BW) InfoCubes.
ARIS BI Modeler extracts the data flows and structures from the SAP BI system and remodels them in a visual display that integrates with the ARIS repository for business process. Today, it is only one direction—from SAP to ARIS—but the company expects this to be bidirectional later in 2007.
Buyers consistently report that it’s extremely difficult to find trained resources to assist in deployments of SAP BI. Earlier this year, we wrote about the demand-supply gap for SAP BI-literate resources (see “Addressing the SAP Skills Crunch: Handicapping BW Consultants” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=2&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1. We discovered that IDS Scheer also has a small but highly experienced consulting staff to assist in BI/BW implementation, regardless of release level. With an average of eight years SAP experience and more than five years BW experience, this becomes another source for these valuable resources.
Business Objects gains Nsite
Business intelligence/performance management (BI/PM) vendor Business Objects has acquired software-as-a-service (SaaS) development platform vendor Nsite to boost its capacity to develop and market on-demand products in 2007. Nsite fields an on-demand platform to create transaction processing applications and related dashboards as well as some prebuilt applications designed with workflow and approval processes in mind.
Business Objects is looking to flesh out its SaaS strategy with a three-pronged approach (with some parts already in place) that capitalizes on the burgeoning demand for SaaS-based products among small and midmarket customers. Although we see little difference in demand for large-scale buyers, the company will not immediately pursue that segment. These lines include the following areas: on-demand business applications, on-demand BI, on-demand business information.
Business Objects has an opportunity to capitalize on a rapidly emerging demand for business analytics in the burgeoning SaaS applications space. Most of the SaaS application vendors are currently preoccupied with battling the notion that the multitenancy delivery model has limitations with regard to integration and customization, and therefore are leaving analytics as a future endeavor. As SaaS usage broadens, however, the need for better analytics will increase almost exponentially. More detail on this deal and what it entails can be found in “A Small Acquisition Fuels Business Objects' SaaS Strategy” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=3&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Production Innovation
IBM builds a framework
IBM PLM is expanding the breadth of its application and services in PLM, recently launching the IBM Product Development Integration Framework (PDIF). PDIF builds off the IBM SOA WebSphere framework to target the complexities of large product development companies. IBM PLM has found 20 years of success as a strategic partner delivering the Dassault Systemes applications, and the PDIF is intended to broaden support for PLM processes that span further across multiple applications and business silos. The moves come as IBM PLM gets moved into the $18B IBM Software Group. IBM PLM is now assembling all its software applications, hardware, business partners, and services to address an organization’s PLM needs.
The challenge for manufacturers has been knowing with which part of IBM to engage. Many large global manufacturing companies will welcome this one-stop shop to solve their NPI challenges. However, many manufacturers seek to delineate the software decision from the services partnership. IBM PLM will need to clarify further the packaged software portions of the PDIF to help this audience understand the packaged applications versus the implementation and business transformation services. For more on IBM’s PLM plans and PDIF, see “IBM Introduces the Product Development Integration Framework” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=8&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Retail
VCs love retail
Retailers and retail software vendors were heavily wooed by venture capital investors last year, and 2007 is shaping up to be no different. The new technologies will be aimed at helping retailers sense and respond to consumer demand and deliver a seamless cross-channel shopping experience.
In our early coverage on this topic, “Private Equity Funds Targeting Retailers and Retail Software http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=17&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 we said that if the pace of private equity activity continued, this year’s total would break the record $177.9B raised in 2000. According to Private Equity Analyst, between January and September 2006, private equity firms raised a staggering $172.2B in 253 funds (the six largest funds have raised 30% of the total). This is 72% more than the year-ago level and 6% above the $162.5B in total capital raised in 2005. Of the $172.2B, buyout funds have raised $118.5B, and venture capital firms have raised $21.8B. While the venture level year to date is considerably below the 2000 record of more than $81B, it exceeds the 2005 total. If these firms raise the $57B in 4Q06 that they have averaged in the first three quarters, then 2006 capital raising could reach close to $230B.
While going public has advantages, it also forces the company to operate in the public eye. Communicating with Wall Street and investors often diverts management time and attention. So, many retailers are going private, which allows them to concentrate on fixing problems without public scrutiny. For a detailed look at private equities activities in retail see, “Private Equity Investments in Retailers Will Continue To Be Blistering” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=18&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 and “VC Investment in Retail Software Vendors Should Remain Strong” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=14&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Market Roundup
Taking stock of the Software 60
Technology stock seems to be a pretty good bet, provided you put your money on the right company. AMR Research’s annual list of stock performance for the 60 major software companies we cover shows an arithmetic average return of 16.7% at calendar year’s end. Not a bad return when compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 16.3%, S&P 500 Index return of 13.6%, and NASDAQ growth of 9.5%. Here’s the full list ranked in order of performance.
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Research and Advice That Matter
AMR Research is the No. 1 advisory firm focused on the intersection of business processes with supply chain and enterprise technologies. Founded in 1986, AMR Research provides subscription advisory services and facilitated executive peer forums to operations and IT executives in the consumer products, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail industries. More information is available at http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=4&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Copyright 2007 AMR Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher.
First Thing Monday
Monday, January 08, 2007
First Thing Monday
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Five Predictions: From Obvious, to Out There, to Outrageous
by Bruce Richardson
The dawn of a new year brings promise and uncertainty. As we complete the first week of 2007, we have more questions than answers: How will the economy fare? What will we be talking about next year at this time? Which company will Larry Ellison buy next?
With that as a backdrop, here are five predictions for 2007.
1. Strong global economy, though still not evenly distributed
Like you, I’m always in search for clues about the economy. Last week, Werner Brandt, SAP’s CFO, said his company is expecting double-digit revenue growth in 2007, with the United States and Asia being the top two sources of growth. SAP’s optimism is a good omen for the enterprise software market.
This week, we met with the CEO of a well-known industrial automation company. He cited Asia and Latin America as two engines for continued growth. Many of the new Asian opportunities involve infrastructure projects in China and India. As for Latin America, two strong verticals include life sciences and biofuels.
As a too-frequent traveler, I also look to hotel and airfare pricing as a harbinger. Business hotel rates in India are moving up from “expensive” to “obscene.” The same is true in the United States and many parts of Europe and Asia, too. The sense is that this will be a good year for business. Even the airlines are set to report their best years since 2000.
2. SOA moves from “SOA what?” to small pilots in manufacturing and retail
I initially put this list together for an IT executive. When I asked colleagues to add their predictions, one of them warned me of a very strong “anti-SOA” (service-oriented architecture) sentiment at a recent meeting of IT executives. Here is his summary of the conversation:
“People bought ERP packages because they wanted a packaged application. SOA seems to be a step back from that. Companies don’t necessarily want more customization, and this [SOA] seems to be driven by the vendors not the end users. I only mention this because it might be worth considering moving SOA down the list a bit.”
My colleague is right, but it doesn’t matter. My interviews with the largest SAP and Oracle application customers also reveal that they are in little or no hurry to explore the wonders of web services. Nonetheless, I’ll bet that SAP creates a sales incentive program to get to the first 100 or so ESOA accounts. Knowing SAP’s tendencies, Shai Agassi will want to close 2007 with a large base of name accounts in hand in order to demonstrate his company’s SOA leadership over archrival Oracle, which is not expected to ship its Fusion SOA applications until 2008.
3. SAP and Workday fuel model-based craze
I may be the only analyst interested in the model-based approach to creating applications. Nonetheless, I predict that First Thing Monday readers will come to appreciate what the model-based development or definitional services methodology will mean to application development, modifications, upgrades, and maintenance.
When First Thing Monday readers see this or hear me talk about it, the first reaction might be: “Sounds like you’re talking about a 4GL” or fourth-generation language for application development. While space limitations (and reader attention spans) prevent me from rehashing my November column “Dave Duffield’s Workday Ushers in New Era of Apps http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=11&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 here is how two Workday executives explained the difference between model-based and 4GLs:
“Programming has evolved from coding in binary (1GL if you will), through use of Assemblers (2GL), to higher level languages like C, Java, or other “3GLs,” and then to higher level 4GLs like ABAP, PLSQL, or PeopleCode. The next logical step in reducing code was to use a definitional or model-driven approach—using templates to prompt for application definitions, which could be turned into actual processing through either interpretation or code generation.”
There is no 3GL or 4GL code in Workday’s apps. Per the developers, “all parts of the application are defined as metadata, which is interpreted by our Object Management Server (OMS) at runtime.” This led into the discourse on the “19,000 method definitions” or “19,000 pieces of metadata without code” versus tens or hundreds of millions of lines of code in the leading ERP systems. Plus, with the new approach, you’ve severed the need to map all of the application data to a relational database and you can embrace new user interface technologies (such as AJAX) in the browser.
Workday is not alone. As we wrote last month in “SAP: A Tale of Two SOAs http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=15&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 SAP is poised to launch a new set of model-based applications. Jim Shepherd bet me this morning that we could see the launch of SAP’s A1S as early as next month.
Now some of you are thinking, “Poor Bruce has fallen down the object-oriented wormhole.” Not true. This time things are different. I think we’re on the edge of having “do-it-yourself” (DIY) Web 2.0 applications that will be based on a common development framework and metadata.
Now if SOA makes CIOs nervous, DIY may induce apoplexy.
4. Oracle or IBM buy part or all of Ingres
In July 2004, I wrote “The Panic in Software Park http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=9&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 in which I mentioned that I had bet a reporter that “one of the major software vendors would offer at least one of their products in an open source version.” Here were my two scenarios:
Scenario 1: PeopleSoft—PeopleSoft has two major CRM products, its own product developed after the Vantive acquisition, and the YOUcentric software that came with the J.D. Edwards merger. What if PeopleSoft offered the YOUcentric applications for free? Any loss in revenue could be offset by the offer of an annual support contract. The only vendors that could try to respond would be the other ERP vendors. Siebel and salesforce.com couldn’t match this with their own products.
Scenario 2: IBM—What if IBM bought an ERP vendor specializing in the small and midsize business (SMB) market? Rather than cede that market to Microsoft, IBM buys Syspro and offers it as an open source product.
Two and a half years later, I’m back to thinking about open source.
If you attended Larry Ellison’s keynote at the recent Oracle OpenWorld, you wondered why Oracle chose to launch an attack on the much-smaller Red Hat. After the event, I speculated that it might have been a pre-emptive strike on Microsoft against the new Vista operating environment or an attempt to launch a stack war on SAP.
One industry luminary said he believed everything Oracle does is an attempt to hurt IBM Software Group. He argued that the acquisitions of PeopleSoft (and JD Edwards by proxy) and Seibel was an attempt to reduce the oxygen to WebSphere and DB2 by eliminating its largest software partners. All that was missing was film of the man with the umbrella on the grassy knoll.
Assuming that my friend is right, what might Oracle do? How about this: Oracle has two very large targets for database, its existing base (especially very large organizations) and OEM customers. Now, I’m not a database expert, but I’d bet that customers with a large investment in Oracle database technology have little incentive to move to DB2 or an open source database. I’m guessing that switching costs and/or retraining might make this a non-starter.
If you look at the OEM segment, archrival SAP would do nearly anything to help its customers get off of the Oracle database. Again, it’s hard to envision that they would move. First-time customers, on the other hand, might be very amenable to mySQL or other offerings.
What if Oracle were to invest in or acquire Ingres, the self-described “business open source database”? Ingres has 10,000 customers and partners. One of the newest partners is Infor, the third-largest ERP vendor. Last month, Ingres said it would be providing database technology to Infor for one of its Adage ERP product line. Infor has 70,000 customers using software the company acquired via Baan, MAPICS, Marcam, and SSA. While the relationship with Infor is with the much smaller Adage customer base, Oracle would love to lure all of Infor’s ERP infrastructure business away from IBM.
Or, IBM gets to Ingres first.
5. U.S. government outlaws use of flash memory sticks
A few months ago I met with the founder of Verdasys, a small Boston area company specializing in security software. Here’s the premise: most companies have limited appeal to prevent the unwanted dissemination or theft of confidential data or intellectual property. A disgruntled employee (or entrepreneurial supplier) may cut-and-paste sensitive data to an Excel spreadsheet, e-mail it to a Gmail account, print it, fax it, or copy it to a memory stick or disk.
Verdasys’ Digital Guardian prevents this. The software deploys a number of safeguards including employee warnings, alerts, denial of access, and unexpected encryption of the targeted data.
Am I overreacting to the potential threat? During my recent swing through India, the cover story of Outlook, a weekly news magazine with 1.5 million readers, was entitled “India’s Top Secrets Sold.” According to the article, an Indian commander allegedly copied thousands of pages of military procurement plans from the ministry of defense on eight memory sticks, and gave them to an arms dealer who provided them to foreign weapons firms.
As it turns out, some of the Indian firms we visited have sealed the USB drives on employee laptops to prevent this type of activity from occurring.
Data theft or loss is not an India phenomenon. In the last year, I have received letters from my local newspaper and my college alma mater alerting me that my personal data has been compromised. I’m not saying Verdasys or similar tools could have stopped this, but looking for software solutions seems like a smarter approach than a government ban.
Your top predictions here
I initially started the list with 10 predictions, but it was already too long. Maybe I’ll add the other five next week. A better idea may be to solicit your 2007 predictions or reactions to my list—brichardson@amrresearch.com.
http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=5&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1
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In Memoriam: Sam Starr
by Bruce Richardson
At 8:02 a.m.on January 2 I received a phone call from a friend at Sterling Commerce calling to tell us that Sam Starr, Sterling’s president and CEO, had passed away. He was 47.
I first met Sam 18 months ago at the Enterprise 2005 conference. He was a panelist on an M&A session that I was asked to moderate. My first impression of the Brooklyn-born Starr was that he was smart, funny, and focused. We became instant friends.
I last saw Sam a few months ago when he was in our office. I interrupted a briefing he was providing to our research team to make sure that he had a chance to meet Tony Friscia, our Brooklyn-born founder and CEO. They also became immediate friends.
Sam leaves his wife, Mary Ellen, and six children. Our thoughts go out to them on their loss. He will be sorely missed.
http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=12&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1
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This week’s must-read news
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ERP
Oracle posts 2Q
Oracle’s results for its second quarter ending November 30 show total GAAP revenue of $4.2B, up 26% over the same period last year. For the applications business, the closely-watched new license revenue is $340M, up 28% (25% in constant currencies). At first glance, applications license performance was very strong. However, we were caught by surprise when president and CFO Safra Catz said that if you subtract the revenue from Siebel (acquisition was completed last January), i-flex solutions (closed last December), and Portal Software (closed in July), the rest of the application suite grew only 1% over the year earlier period. Siebel software generated $59M in new license sales, while i-flex added $10M. Oracle executives attributed the slower organic growth to “sales execution” issues, particularly in the United States, where several deals failed to close as expected. Investors got at least two pieces of good news: a strong pipeline and growing success in retail and telco. For more on Oracle’s quarter, see “Oracle’s App Licenses Up 28% Though Organic Sales Nearly Flat” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=1&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1. We’ll also be talking to Oracle President Charles Phillips this month and hope to have more detail on a pending deal with Wal-Mart reportedly worth more than $10M and the outlook for 2007.
Customer Management
RightNow Plans for Later
RightNow Technologies pre-announced preliminary results for the quarter and year end. The company expects Q4 revenue of $28M (missing consensus expectations of $31M) and earnings below previous guidance of 2 cents per share to break even. However, Q4 bookings are expected to come in at $41M, which would result in about 50% growth between the full year 2005 and 2006.
CEO Greg Gianforte blamed the revenue and earnings miss on a continued shift to subscription-based recurring revenue agreements from perpetual licenses, noting one particularly large deal forecast as perpetual that came in as a subscription deal. Most other SaaS CRM vendors, such as salesforce.com, offer only the subscription model, charging customers a per-user, per-month fee.
The subscription-based model is better for RightNow in the long term, since hosting and support are continually funded by customers. The company has not stated it will completely do away with the perpetual model, but doing so would likely be good for investors as well as customers into the future. However, this demonstrates how difficult it may be for public software companies that have historically sold perpetual licenses to make the shift to the recurring revenue model of SaaS. For more on RightNow’s pre-announcement and how this shift in models may affect others, see “RightNow Bites Bullet Now for Longer Term Security” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=6&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
salesforce.com opens AppStore
salesforce.com recently unveiled its AppStore vision and monetization strategy. For the zero-touch sales model for AppExchange partners, salesforce.com will manage the marketing, selling, invoicing, delivery, and payment of partner products through the AppExchange, so integration is already assured. Today more than 430 applications from 230 partners are available. These range from a gamut of customer-facing applications—sales, marketing, service and support, partner management, and analytics—to financial services, finance and accounting, human resources, tools and utilities, and vertical solutions.
Whether these programs generate much revenue for salesforce.com is hard to say. One executive said that AppExchange has fueled a “$100M economy... and growing,” referring to the vendor sales generated by that marketplace. For a more detailed look at AppStore and what it means to the larger applications market, see “Inside salesforce.com’s New AppStore” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=10&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Application Infrastructure
Cognos shows momentum
As Cognos heads into the final lap for FY07 (ending February 2007), it put up some pretty solid numbers for 3Q07 that provide some much-needed momentum. The company posted total quarterly turnover of $248M, with license revenue of $94M, up 17% and 24% respectively from 3Q06.
The firm had been buffeted by an SEC investigation earlier this year—now cleared with no financial impact—as well as restructuring activities earlier this quarter. These were expected to affect company performance 3Q07, but didn’t seem to in the final analysis.
As we reported earlier, the company has a clear vision of what it needs to accomplish and has its collective down, executing through to the finish line. See “A Conversation With Cognos” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=13&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 for more on our opinion of the firm’s prospects.
IDS Scheer offers SAP BI answers
SAP Business Intelligence (BI) is a hot topic in the SAP customer base. Customer inquiry is high as companies plan 2007 projects, and it’s an ongoing topic of discussion in SAP Forum groups. Process modeling vendor IDS Scheer now offers a product to assist companies in documenting the transformation steps from transaction data to Business Warehouse (BW) InfoCubes.
ARIS BI Modeler extracts the data flows and structures from the SAP BI system and remodels them in a visual display that integrates with the ARIS repository for business process. Today, it is only one direction—from SAP to ARIS—but the company expects this to be bidirectional later in 2007.
Buyers consistently report that it’s extremely difficult to find trained resources to assist in deployments of SAP BI. Earlier this year, we wrote about the demand-supply gap for SAP BI-literate resources (see “Addressing the SAP Skills Crunch: Handicapping BW Consultants” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=2&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1. We discovered that IDS Scheer also has a small but highly experienced consulting staff to assist in BI/BW implementation, regardless of release level. With an average of eight years SAP experience and more than five years BW experience, this becomes another source for these valuable resources.
Business Objects gains Nsite
Business intelligence/performance management (BI/PM) vendor Business Objects has acquired software-as-a-service (SaaS) development platform vendor Nsite to boost its capacity to develop and market on-demand products in 2007. Nsite fields an on-demand platform to create transaction processing applications and related dashboards as well as some prebuilt applications designed with workflow and approval processes in mind.
Business Objects is looking to flesh out its SaaS strategy with a three-pronged approach (with some parts already in place) that capitalizes on the burgeoning demand for SaaS-based products among small and midmarket customers. Although we see little difference in demand for large-scale buyers, the company will not immediately pursue that segment. These lines include the following areas: on-demand business applications, on-demand BI, on-demand business information.
Business Objects has an opportunity to capitalize on a rapidly emerging demand for business analytics in the burgeoning SaaS applications space. Most of the SaaS application vendors are currently preoccupied with battling the notion that the multitenancy delivery model has limitations with regard to integration and customization, and therefore are leaving analytics as a future endeavor. As SaaS usage broadens, however, the need for better analytics will increase almost exponentially. More detail on this deal and what it entails can be found in “A Small Acquisition Fuels Business Objects' SaaS Strategy” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=3&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Production Innovation
IBM builds a framework
IBM PLM is expanding the breadth of its application and services in PLM, recently launching the IBM Product Development Integration Framework (PDIF). PDIF builds off the IBM SOA WebSphere framework to target the complexities of large product development companies. IBM PLM has found 20 years of success as a strategic partner delivering the Dassault Systemes applications, and the PDIF is intended to broaden support for PLM processes that span further across multiple applications and business silos. The moves come as IBM PLM gets moved into the $18B IBM Software Group. IBM PLM is now assembling all its software applications, hardware, business partners, and services to address an organization’s PLM needs.
The challenge for manufacturers has been knowing with which part of IBM to engage. Many large global manufacturing companies will welcome this one-stop shop to solve their NPI challenges. However, many manufacturers seek to delineate the software decision from the services partnership. IBM PLM will need to clarify further the packaged software portions of the PDIF to help this audience understand the packaged applications versus the implementation and business transformation services. For more on IBM’s PLM plans and PDIF, see “IBM Introduces the Product Development Integration Framework” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=8&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Retail
VCs love retail
Retailers and retail software vendors were heavily wooed by venture capital investors last year, and 2007 is shaping up to be no different. The new technologies will be aimed at helping retailers sense and respond to consumer demand and deliver a seamless cross-channel shopping experience.
In our early coverage on this topic, “Private Equity Funds Targeting Retailers and Retail Software http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=17&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 we said that if the pace of private equity activity continued, this year’s total would break the record $177.9B raised in 2000. According to Private Equity Analyst, between January and September 2006, private equity firms raised a staggering $172.2B in 253 funds (the six largest funds have raised 30% of the total). This is 72% more than the year-ago level and 6% above the $162.5B in total capital raised in 2005. Of the $172.2B, buyout funds have raised $118.5B, and venture capital firms have raised $21.8B. While the venture level year to date is considerably below the 2000 record of more than $81B, it exceeds the 2005 total. If these firms raise the $57B in 4Q06 that they have averaged in the first three quarters, then 2006 capital raising could reach close to $230B.
While going public has advantages, it also forces the company to operate in the public eye. Communicating with Wall Street and investors often diverts management time and attention. So, many retailers are going private, which allows them to concentrate on fixing problems without public scrutiny. For a detailed look at private equities activities in retail see, “Private Equity Investments in Retailers Will Continue To Be Blistering” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=18&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1 and “VC Investment in Retail Software Vendors Should Remain Strong” http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=14&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
Market Roundup
Taking stock of the Software 60
Technology stock seems to be a pretty good bet, provided you put your money on the right company. AMR Research’s annual list of stock performance for the 60 major software companies we cover shows an arithmetic average return of 16.7% at calendar year’s end. Not a bad return when compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 16.3%, S&P 500 Index return of 13.6%, and NASDAQ growth of 9.5%. Here’s the full list ranked in order of performance.
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Research and Advice That Matter
AMR Research is the No. 1 advisory firm focused on the intersection of business processes with supply chain and enterprise technologies. Founded in 1986, AMR Research provides subscription advisory services and facilitated executive peer forums to operations and IT executives in the consumer products, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail industries. More information is available at http://recp.rm05.net/ctt?kn=4&m=471271&r=MzI0MzIyNTQwOAS2&b=2&j=NzU3NjE3ODkS1&mt=1.
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