Re: Microsoft .NET Server announcement -- MIDRANGE-L

On the other hand this from iNEWSWire UK:

* MICROSOFT DIVISION AIMS AT ISERIES ERP MARKET

A Microsoft division is currently pushing its wares at the iSeries
market. Danish ERP firm Navision, which was recently gobbled up by
the Redmond giant in a deal worth USD 1.45 billion, has ported its
Attain ERP suite to the iSeries.

Now Navision's UK channel partners are raring to go at the new
market this opens up for them. The story goes back to February
when Navision and Big Blue signed a global marketing agreement to
promote Attain, already a popular choice for xSeries users, on the
iSeries. However, since that time it became apparent that Navision
was well on its way to becoming a member of what Microsoft calls
its "Business Solutions Family", leading those industry observers
that even noticed the announcement to assume that the iSeries deal
was dead in the water; no one could really foresee a time that
Microsoft would be helping Big Blue sell the iSeries.
(Intriguingly, IBM was the main distributor for Navision in
Denmark from 1987 until 1994 and, at that time, it made its own
bid for the company which was rejected.)

But amidst the buyout news, Navision had pressed ahead anyway and,
in fact, quietly announced that it had bought Attain to the
iSeries on schedule on July 3. At the time, Niels Bo Theilgaard,
Executive Vice President, Product Organisation for Navision,
commented: "Making Navision Attain available on IBM eServer
iSeries shows the commitment of Navision to helping mid-sized
companies to grow."

Although there wasn't much of a fanfare surrounding the port,
Navision in the UK subsequently held a meeting for its "Solution
Centre" channel partners in the UK at its Borehamwood headquarters
in Hertfordshire, with input from IBM and major iSeries
distributor Magirus.

Simon Bishop, managing director of Navision partner ProAccess Ltd
was suitably impressed and went for the concept "immediately". He
says: "An AS/400 platform for us has been typically a Mapics or
BPCS-type platform and so, from our perspective, Navision is a
very suitable replacement for those products now. And so customers
out there who are used to spending big bucks can go and get a
superb midrange product that's very well featured for not a lot of
money, in my opinion. I think that kicks good life into the
iSeries so people will say: 'Let's not go off and get an NT box';
they'll say: 'Let's put it on a leading midrange platform'."

Bishop describes Attain as having excellent financials and order
processing and distribution capabilities, "But you also have a
superb CRM sales product and a superb CRM service as well." His
company, ProAccess, which has been established for ten years,
spent some time weighing up ERP packages to resell a couple of
years ago and, at the time, the other contender that met the
company's criteria was Great Plains, another company that
subsequently sold out to Microsoft.

The acquisition of both Navision and Great Plains is seen by most
analysts as Microsoft's big push into the big boys' enterprise
software league and one that will enable it to take on everyone
>from SSA and J.D. Edwards to SAP and Baan. Ninety five per cent of
Great Plains' revenue comes from the States, where it is seemingly
ubiquitous, and 95 per cent of Navision's comes from Europe. There
are rumours that an ERP firm with a specialty in the non-
Romanesque language requirements of the middle and far east are
next within Redmond's sights.

So, now that Microsoft is in the iSeries ERP space, should the
other established  iSeries vendors (many of whom have had fairly
rocky "cross platform" strategies in recent times) be worried?
Bishop answers: "Yes, I think everyone should be, but it's
stirring up complacency, really. There's a lot of ERP vendors out
there that are complacent and I think Microsoft's R&D is going to
make the product better. I mean we've got visibility on the new
versions of Attain and there are some superb integration
facilities with Microsoft products, so yes, I think everyone
should stand up and take note."