Re: "interBiz" acquisition by SSAGT -- BPCS-L

Sounds like another "spur of the moment" aquisition by
SSA GT, just like the MAX product was a year ago.
That product added nothing to the SSA GT product line,
in fact it probably took away customers from the SSA
GT NT BPCS offering. The only thing that the BPCS &
PRMS products have in common iis they were both
written by Roger Covey.  Everyone knows that BPCS is a
very close knock-off of PRMS from Covey's days at
Pansophic.  I believe the real reason that the
acquisition occured is to get SSA GT the installed
base to pump up the maintenance fee revenue stream,
much like CA used to do.  Nobody is really buying new
seats of BPCS anymore, except for existing users or
perhaps in Asia Pacific where the market is still
immature and very price conscience.  SSA GT has all
they can do to win back the BPCS crowd and get new
users, let alone buy more products, some of which are
even older than BPCS. Integration has always been a
problem at SSA GT and no reason to suspect  that the
new products from Interbiz and BPCS will be
integrated. For those of you long time BPCS users
remember that SSA, and now SSA GT are marketing
companies and say what we want to hear.  I can't tell
you how many times I've attended SSA GT events and
Martin Ambrose and different CEO's told a very good
"powerpoint" story and then never delivered. Mike
Geeenough is no different than his predasessors, he
has himself and the investor groups best interests in
mind and not those of the users.  Time will only tell
but see in 6 months how much of what they say comes to
fruition.  My bet is not much, except for more
maintenance revenus which will help their bottom line.
 R & D will be diluted for BPCS and we'll all lose.
Keep in mind, the recovery that Mike Geeenough speaks
of at SSA GT is the result of a bad economy.  Most
users have postponed their exit stratagies due to the
poor economy and have opted to continue to pay
maintenance a little longer.  Once the economy picks
up and IT spending increases again, expect SSA GT
revenues to drop. This economy has been "very very
good" to SSA GT.  With very little in new SW revenue
coming in service revenues will drop as well.  It may
look pretty now but wait it's going to get ugly. BPCS
is still BPCS, it's old, written in AS/SET and not
collaberative.  It's too expensive to rewrite, plus
with the lose of many good people over the last
several years, they don't have the talent needed to
really put out a market competitve product.  Talk is
cheap - can they deliver?
--- "Tom Jedrzejewicz @ San Pedro"
<TJedrzejewicz@contessa.com> wrote:
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> Reduced development is very likely for the next few
> years.  But is that
> really that bad a thing right now?  I don't what
> fraction of the BPCS
> base are way behind on versions, but I suspect it is
> large.  Were we on
> maintenance, I would be more concerned about reduced
> support!
>
> When CA acquired PRMS 10 (?) years ago, PRMS
> development essentially
> stopped as CA tried unsuccessfully to get the PRMS
> (AS400) customers off
> of PRMS and onto one of the other ERP platforms.
> Then they caved, spun
> off interBiz, and restarted PRMS development, but
> the damage was done.
> I suspect that SSA GT will have much greater success
> getting the PRMS
> customers onto BPCS, especially those on older
> versions.
>
> What I think will happen is that SSA GT will slow
> down BPCS
> "development" per se, and focus more effort on
> getting the wayward BPCS
> customers and the PRMS customers onto the current
> BPCS.  If they are
> successful over the next 18-24 months, then BPCS
> development will ramp
> back up.
>
> The dynamics of the SSA GT customer base have
> changed dramatically.
> There is a substantial group of non-AS400 interBiz
> customers who I
> suspect will give SSA GT fits!
>
>
>
> >>> jhandoo@hotmail.com 04/11/02 11:56PM >>>
> One implication can be that SSA GT will concentrate
> less on BPCS R&D!!
> Not
> sure but I think its quite possible. Looking at the
> shift in focus of
> SSA GT
> and especially after reading the interview of GT's
> top man, the above
> statment seems quite probable. I think SSA GT now
> has too many babies
> to
> look after!
>
>
>
>
> >From: MacWheel99@aol.com
> >Reply-To: bpcs-l@midrange.com
> >To: bpcs-l@midrange.com
> >Subject: Re: "interBiz" acquisition by SSAGT
> >Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:49:49 EDT
> >
> >THANKS for this HUGE news, I am not sure this is
> the right forum to
> discuss
> >the implications, but I do not know what forum that
> should be.
> >
> > > http://www.interbiz.com/Press/Releases.asp?361
> >
> >My initial thoughts on this include:
> >
> >CA & SSAX have been strong competitors in which I
> always had thought
> that
> >CA
> >was the larger conglomerate.  I never had a good
> feel for the relative
> size
> >of GT.
> >
> >Does this mean that SSAGT now owns CA-PRMS?
> >Will SSAGT continue or improve support for CA-PRMS?
> >Did the US Justice Department approve this
> consolidation in the ERP
> >industry?
> >
> >Possible starting points where to go to review the
> relative sizes of
> the
> >market shares of the different ERP mentioned by
> this news release, as
> >opposed
> >to the rest of the ERP market in midsized
> manufacturing.
> >http://www.MidrangeEnterprise.com
> >http://www.apics.org
> >http://www.Enterprise.CNET.COM
> >
> >I had thought MANMAN was ERP for Unix including HP
> e3000 which HP is
> in
> >process of dumping. HP 3000 customers love that
> system as much as
> AS/400 is
> >loved, and now have an Open OS effort
> http://www.openMPE.org  to
> salvage
> >what
> >HP is throwing away.  Is there room for traditional
> commercial
> software
> >vendors to participate & compete in the Open Source
> universe?
> >
> >SSAX enters into a lot of partnerships with outfits
> that will value
> added
> >hand shake with BPCS but this is the first time
> since long before the
> >bankrupsy that I have been aware of such an
> aquisition.  Some of the
> past
> >partnerships have been e-commerce & collaboration
> supply chain linked
> to
> >BPCS, which I think have great potential for future
> profits that
> perhaps
> >SSAX
> >wants to get more centrally involved in grabbing.
> >
> >I am not up on the latest BPCS versions but overall
> it seems to me
> that
> >SSAX
> >is extremely powerful in the area of core
> manufacturing, and a bit
> weak in
> >several industry nitches such as those that need
> serious
> re-engineering,
> >and
> >weak in several application areas that connect to
> core manufacturing,
> such
> >as
> >payroll, HR, financials.  This aquisition is aimed
> squarely at
> repairing
> >weaknesses that SSAX is aware of.
> >
> >MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
> >_______________________________________________
> >This is the SSA's BPCS ERP System (BPCS-L) mailing
> list
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> >
>
>
>
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