Re: SSA Global acquired by Infor

   Oops I meant to write

       In addition to this BPCS-L thread, which started at

   http://archive.midrange.com/bpcs-l/200605/msg00036.html

       a parallel thread is now in MIDRANGE-L which you can follow from its
     starting point
        http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200605/msg00878.html

   I am thankful that the ERP industry is still owned by companies involved
   with traditional software quality, as opposed to being bought out by a
   government controlled company in a nation without similar traditions, such
   as China.  I expect that there will be further consolidation, with some
   day SAP ORACLE INFOR being one company, then bought out by MICROSOFT.  It
   will be a few years until this all plays out.  Will INTEL buy out AMD?

   I am also happy to see that alternatives to the commercial software model
   are pretty strong.  There are SEVERAL different Open Source ERPs out
   there, for different hardware platforms.

   Tom asked if I was trying to make a point with respect to my random list
   of potential improvements to ERP.  Well opportunities exist to make a
   better mousetrap.  Some of them have existed for many years, and because
   the ERP vendors not seem to be addressing them, it fuels a healthy 3rd
   party market for ERP add-ons.  I expect that the software houses
   responsible for some of the better ones, that can interface with a variety
   of different ERP packages, those companies are at risk of being bought
   out, so the big ERP vendors can control which packages get the add ons.

   -
   Al Macintyre
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlMac
   http://www.ryze.com/go/Al9Mac
   BPCS/400 Computer Janitor ... see
   http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html