Re: SSA Global acquired by Infor

   AMR says this is risky because there has not been a successful
   consolidator in the software business, pointing for example at Geac and CA
   (see url links below).

   Chairman and CEO of Infor is quoted in INFOWORLD.COM May 22, 2006 Issue 21
   Tech Watch section under Enterprise Software (and other computer news
   media (see urls below)) as saying
   * the company is in the application business, not the infrastructure
   business
   * Infor's portfolio has been in manufacturing distribution
   asset-management and cross-industry software
   * SSA will expand them into warehouse management, transportation, 
   logistics and service-oriented architecture (SOA).
   * Infor and SSA serve different nitches in same marketplace, with minimal
   overlap
   * Larger enterprises like to have less vendors to have to deal with
   * There will be no forced migration for ERP users
   * There are no plans to kill off any products.
   * They do not yet have a road map to share with the news media.

   The article quotes the President of Wohl Associates that the merger will
   help against Oracle and SAP eroding Infor's customer base of
   manufacturing.

   The author of the piece seems to think that a successful ERP needs an open
   SOA platform. (service-oriented architecture). 

     Jim Schaper, Infor chairman and CEO places a high priority on the
     iSeries customer base, which continues to attract new customers  even
     though Schaper calls Java and .NET the "growth" platforms.-

   Both Infor and SSA have been on a buying spree, snapping up ERPs in the
   iSeries and other platform markets.

     Our [combined] business in Germany alone will be close to $500 million.
     The supply chain business will be close to $400 million

     Pending regulatory and shareholder approval, the deal is expected to
     close in the third quarter.

   http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/15/78322_HNinforssa_1.html
   http://findory.com/source?source=InfoWorld&ib=

   
http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/content/f3/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.viewArticle&webID=1001&newsID=5021&issueID=5776&articleID=52596

   
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9000623&source=rss_topic121

   http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1435847637;fp;4;fpid;1398720840

   Al Macintyre
   veteran of over 20 years working in ERP
   veteran of over 40 years of working at IBM Customer sites
   Programmer, Operations, Security
   jack of all trades, master of some