Re: SSA Global acquired by Infor

On 5/16/06, Al Mac <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

   * For a variety of reasons the Anti-Trust Division of US Justice Dept
   seems to have abandoned the notion that consolidation of an industry means
   that in the long run there is less competition, more monopoly, less
   innovation, and that it is their job to do something about that.

There job isn't to maximize competition, it is to insure that
monopolies do not develop.  With the number and variety of ERP and
similar solutions out there and a cutthroat market, there is no danger
of that happening in the foreseeable future.

There has been a lot of high profile consolidation in the market, but
it is kind of at the margins as far as market share.  It appears that
#4 is swallowing #3, but is staying #3.

   * When two or more ERP competing in market place, and one buys out the
   other, there is a risk that one of the two ERP will be trashed because the
   buyer thinks can get more income by moving its customers to the other ERP
   than milking the software contracts.  We have seen this in other types of
   hardware and software.

I am sure that product consolidation has to VERY high on the to do
list, so that it can put innovation into fewer products and leverage
maintenance/support $ better.  If there intent is to grow, it does not
seem sensible to keep BPCS, PRMS, MAPICS (and so on) all going as
independant packages.

More important for me is how open they are about those plans, and
whether the leveraged maint/support $ go into additional development.

   * When a company is supporting a wide range of similar products, it can
   decide to abandon the least profitable one.  We saw this when HP got out
   of the midrange market, abandoning tens of thousands of Universities.

Selling a computer or a software system doesn't create any long-term
obligations other than those spelled out legally.  If the business
wasn't making HP money or didn't bring them other value, they should
get out of it, if for no other reason than to make room for someone
who can do it profitably.

   * There is a lot of money to be made from companies that have bought into
   ERP with the notion that over time the ERP will be improved, but to make
   that income, it does not need to be improved.  Needed improvements: better
   integrate with applications that came along after ERP was invented by
   APICS in the 1950's, especially Supply Chain and state-of-art engineering
   design; help with corporate governance, such as security and change
   management (both hardware and software), and I can mention others.
   Consider impact of off-shoring on what an enterprise needs, improved
   employee conferencing in a telecommuting world, especially as pandemic
   threats increase.

This is kind of random .. was there a point?

   * When 2 companies of approx equal size attempt to merge operations
   (remember HP and Compaq?) the process can be extremely disruptive,
   especially if corporate culture dissimilar.

This is certainly accurate; the track record of these kinds of mergers
is pretty poor.

   * Will all the different ERP that are now under one vendor roof be
   supported by the new owners in the style to which the ERP users have come
   to expect?

I speak only for myself, but the expectations are pretty low.  If
memory serves, your company doesn't have OGS, nor does mine, and we
are OK.  One would hope that the new owners try and build a value
proposition and get us back into the fold.