Re: SSA Global acquired by Infor

On 5/17/06, Frederick C Davy <fcdavy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tom Jedrzejewicz (an alias, no doubt), I am not familiar with past
postings authored on this forum. Can it be you represent an interest very
close to Infor?

So you think that I am an Infor sock puppet, who joined this little
list to shout the praises of the merger from the rooftops.  Are you
kidding me?  Do you watch for the silent black helicopters too?

For the love of Mike -- did you even check before you sullied my
(rather uncommon) name?  I did a search of the archives for my last
name and got 1764 matches.

At any rate, l want to respond to your counter points (which I might point
out are extremely "company" centered).

I don't like intrusive government, and I don't like activist
government.  The alternative to "company centered" is
government-directed, which is usually far worse.

You think my comments are "company centered"; I think yours are
socialist.  Which philosophy has proven better for humanity in the
last 100 years?

1. You say that acquisition (if done right) equates to improving your
product?? A product does not become "improved" because you eliminate the
competition.

Done properly an acquisition can improve the product line, and can
bring features and functions that are better.  That is almost
certainly the case here, because of the variety of similar packages
coming under common ownership.  Some PRMS functions are better than
the BPCS alternative, and vice versa.  PRMS has things BPCS doesn't,
and vice versa.  Together, a better product can be made.

2. What would you suggest would represent a compelling reason for
anti-trust enforcement?

About the only compelling reason I can think of is when there is so
little competition for a necessary product or service that supply and
demand no longer applies.  I think there is a good case that
Microsoft's Windows desktop OS is a monopoly.

Which kind of makes my point.  If government can't get that right, why
would we think that it would get the highly complex ERP market?

Wait until several thousand customers suffer
extreme business disruption to the point they go out of business.

Why is it the responsibility of government to keep businesses from
failing?  If a company fails because Infor raises maintenance and
doesn't deliver, the fault is the management of the company, not Infor
and not the government.

The EU
and our government has spent a lot of time analyzing Microsoft, but no one
(especially the EU) is worried about SAP? When does it become compelling
enough and how long will the recovery need to be, before it means
something.

The idea that there are anti-trust issues in the ERP market is
nonsense in my view.  No one has more than 50% of the market, and
there are lots of small players doing well and making money.

The Oracle shareholder are free to sell? That's not very
reassuring to the thousands of PeopleSoft customers, but then I forgot, we
don't care about the customers, do we. I wonder who lined the pockets of
the company (like SSA) for many years.

Every time a customer purchases or renews, they make a choice, and
there is an exchange of value.  These exchanges are not done at the
point of a gun, but rather entered into willingly.  There are always
been alternatives, although they may not be easy or as inexpensive.

Infor is probably going to draft a path to get all of it's iSeries
customers onto a small number of platforms.  Part of that path will
likely be pricing incentives that make staying on old versions
unpalatable.  And the customers get to choose; upgrade, stay and
renew, or stay and don't renew.

You say we shouldn't expect SSA to
be "forced" to stay in a business they no longer care about. SSA expects
and get contractual agreements with their customers to make sure we pay
our share. Do we not have a reasonable expectation that they in turn  will
ensure that our investments in their products is safe? What a concept!

These transactions have terms; all parties should live up to those
terms.  Certainly, Infor will be required to live up to the terms in
agreements SSA entered into with customers.  Beyond that, they owe
their customers nothing.  There is no implied promise to stick around
as long as the customer thinks they are needed.