tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363181412011-09-25T09:39:40.405-07:00Random thoughts and observations... often pertaining to the business software world (Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, SAP, Salesforce.com, et al), but sometimes not.AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-44523652342621746802009-06-28T22:48:00.001-07:002009-06-28T22:48:39.678-07:00

In its typical boastful style Oracle took shots at the competition during its latest earnings announcement, claiming to be taking share from SAP. I find myself in the unique position of having to agree with Oracle on this one. They did just have a better license revenue quarter than SAP, but it follows a bunch of gains by SAP. And at the end of the day, when both numbers are double digit

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-64216889403885818912009-04-29T13:54:00.001-07:002009-04-29T14:25:50.938-07:00

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AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-2496446076990284662009-01-14T13:22:00.001-08:002009-02-05T22:03:03.825-08:00

An article last week on CFO.com got me thinking about open source ERP again. The article highlighted another open source ERP project called Openbravo. Apparently a couple of months ago the number of downloads of Openbravo passed the 1,000,000 mark. That's how the success of these products is typically noted, but it is pretty much a meaningless statistic.Compiere was the first of these projects

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-15244465790909616682009-01-08T07:42:00.001-08:002009-01-08T07:44:11.791-08:00

Here's an intriguing and clever (on SAP's part) twist to the ongoing lawsuit between Oracle and SAP. Oracle is claiming its business has been badly damaged by SAP's actions. In asking Oracle to prove it, SAP says show me the money, and is trying to cause Oracle some pain before this all gets resolved. If SAP succeeds with its current action it will give competitors like Dynamics some ammo to use

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-92060292336965777882008-12-16T22:48:00.001-08:002008-12-16T22:52:30.285-08:00

When the Dynamics business went from 22% growth in "customer billings" in calendar Q2 down to 10% in calendar Q3 it seemed some analysts were questioning what was going wrong with the business. The simple answer is, it's the economy stupid. At 22% Dynamics outgrew its major competitors (excluding the Saas types like Salesforce.com and NetSuite). It turns out at 10% growth Dynamics is still

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-24701196277299830252008-05-16T22:27:00.001-07:002008-05-18T22:21:16.476-07:00

What's wrong with the Sage CRM business?There seemed to be some good news about Sage's CRM proudcts at the company's recent Insight's conference, and some nice write-ups from the gurus like Denis Pombriant and Paul Greenberg. So how come nobody is buying the products?Take a look at this: Now, what are you looking at?This is total annual revenue for Sage's CRM business, both before and after

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-25674002135054114062008-02-15T11:30:00.001-08:002008-02-15T12:31:32.381-08:00

Nice quarter announced yesterday by NetSuite.  Fourth quarter revenues increased by 57%, with full year revenues up 62%. It all looked great until I read the customer number. Over the last 5 years this company has lost more customers than it has been able to add. This is one of those things that just failed to register the first time I saw it. In scanning the company's S-1 filing with the SEC

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-60429624881875569462008-02-11T09:08:00.001-08:002008-02-11T09:08:21.198-08:00

Vinnie Mirchandani asks the burning question, "How does software M&A help buyers, not just investors". He cites the fact that "between CA and IBM and Oracle and HP and Microsoft and Infor and Sage we now have a database of over 200 software industry acquisitions over the last 15 years." Is there any evidence that this M&A has been good for the customer? It depends on the vendor doing the buying.

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-22041072615670659662008-01-30T09:07:00.001-08:002008-01-30T09:11:58.425-08:00

Last night I caught the news that Johann Santana will be (pending a few negotiations) traded to the New York Mets. Being the fan of a smaller market team in a sport that desperately needs a salary cap is not easy. The Twins just cannot pay the big money that teams from New York, Boston, or Los Angeles can. So the best pitcher on the planet is no longer a Minnesota Twin. What do the Twins get out

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-87662483974626743632008-01-24T13:38:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:14:27.456-08:00

I got an email yesterday reminding me that the latest CPA Technology Advisor review is out. For anyone with a short attention span, I'll give you my two quick conclusions right up front. One - it's useless crap. Two - it at least appears to be unbiased useless crap. This is the the High-End Accounting Systems review that CPA Technology Advisor puts out each December. Last year this review was

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-85425926422630857772007-07-30T22:24:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:15:14.122-08:00

With the sale earlier this month of Eclipse to Activant Solutions, only one piece remains of what looks like a completely failed strategy. The Eclipse product never seemed to fit into the Intuit portfolio. It's a wholesale distribution package aimed more in the Microsoft Dynamics level market, with software prices typically in excess of $50,000. Activant, which will pay $100 million in cash

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-79666605139527417372007-06-27T00:37:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:16:24.367-08:00

Oracle announced Q4 earnings today and had by my estimation a modest quarter in the applications business. That didn't stop company leadership from doing some trash talking about the competition and set out some very bold guidance for next quarter. You can get at Oracle's full earnings release here. If you're deeply interested in how they are doing on the database and middleware front, follow

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-56429452491346166432007-06-21T07:28:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:17:01.819-08:00

Denis Pombriant tells a tale about finding somebody's lost Amex card and the experience of trying to call Amex and to let them know he had found it. This proved to be quite a struggle, as Amex's sophisticated call center system aimed at improving efficiency (and to the extent that it's possible, removing all human interaction from the equation) wasn't equipped to handle such a call. He suggests

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-90038672211775293282007-06-19T13:28:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:18:45.936-08:00

I've registered for WPC next month in Denver and finally responded to the email prompts to get myself profiled on WPC Connect. This is much, much better than RIO (the networking tool offer up at past events). Now if people would only use it. If you have attended past Microsfot events and are anything like me, you might have just skipped the use of RIO and just gone for a different approach..

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-79893587585730481752007-06-04T11:11:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:19:45.610-08:00

There is an interesting discussion going on about the influence (some say declining influence) of the leading analyst firms. Is Gartner Group becoming irrelevant? How about Forrester, AMR Research, Aberdeen? I remember my time working at MBS...waiting for the next Magic Quadrant to come out and watching the press releases from us and from the competition, each company making sure everyone knew

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-13070689423005327682007-05-28T21:31:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:20:34.696-08:00

It's not terribly surprising that Infor acquired Hansen. A public company since it's founding nearly 25 years ago, Hansen had been sold to private equity firm Golden Gate Capital last year. That same firm also owns Infor, so this is a consolidation of assets as much as it is an acquisition. Hansen has about 350 employees and did a little under $50 million in revenue last year. The government

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-28088468151989641002007-05-24T05:43:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:21:24.179-08:00

Aberdeen Group recently published a report on SAP's business in the SME segment of the market. It's a nice summary of SAP's offerings and their current customer/partner figures for Business One and All-in-One. I'd heard SAP shared those figures at their recent SAPPHIRE conference, and had the details on a few blogs, but it's still good to have it validated by a big name analyst. Once you take a

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-83522703288316828132007-03-16T22:16:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:22:18.721-08:00

Nick Carr wrote a piece yesterday suggesting that Google should go out and acquire Intuit. He makes a good argument, though he misses a few points (like QuickBase). I'll suggest another reason (from Intuit's perspective) the deal should happen. The QuickBooks business may be headed for some trouble. Not QuickBooks Enterprise, which at this point looks to be a phenomenal success, but the entry

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1170138495579700732007-01-29T22:23:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:24:22.979-08:00

Yes, you read that correctly. Rumors have come out that Oracle might make a takeover bid for SAP. They appeared in an AFX News story out of the UK. In the part of the world where I live (a snowball’s throw from Fargo) if I heard someone suggest this kind of craziness I’d conclude that the cold has affected their thinking (wind chill is -20° as I type this, actual temperature will be that low by

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1168011705017965992007-01-05T07:32:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:26:09.626-08:00

Here's an interesting opinion piece that appeared on eWeek.com last week. If you are blogging, it's worth a few minutes to think implications of things like the recent California ruling allowing bloggers a first amendment right to protect their sources. If you read a lot of blogs, it's good food for thought regarding the objectivity (or potential lack thereof) of the sites you read. But

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1167755413242577932007-01-02T08:02:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:27:04.679-08:00

CPA Technology Advisor's 2006 review of high-end accounting systems was published late last month. The review includes analysis of Intacct, Sage – Accpac, Dynamics GP, Sage – MAS500, and SouthWare. The solutions were evaluated across these categories: Modules/Scalability Usability/User Experience & Security Extensibility Integration/Customization Reporting Support, Training & HelpOverall

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1167255849406475932006-12-27T13:24:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:28:24.821-08:00

I'm not sure that I really have any business creating a "Best of 2006" post. I've been at this blog thing for just a couple of months and have a grand total of 5 posts. People that I read like Dennis Howlett generate more content than that before breakfast on a typical day. So I can't reference the best of my work, but will point to a couple of my absolute favorite lines from other blogs that I

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1164779148568313662006-11-28T21:31:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:29:50.055-08:00

I just read a fantastic post on PCGreenBlog regarding the recent announcement between Reardon Commerce and American Express. This is the way to deliver a set of loosely coupled services is a unified way, and it reminds me of what we are doing at The Partner Channel. This is a collection of individuals and companies that know how to provide a wide array of services to Microsoft Dynamics resellers

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1162493397277299472006-11-02T10:41:00.000-08:002008-01-30T09:30:27.794-08:00

Salesforce.com is providing prospects a study from CSO Insights titled “On-Demand Versus On-Premise CRM: Are There Performance Differences?” The study purports to compare these two types of systems across a number of factors including: performance improvement, implementation timeframe, cost relative to budget, and whether the company would recommend the same solution to others. Is it any surprise

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1161407487413655082006-10-20T21:42:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:31:20.144-08:00

In scouring the ERP-Select discussion board today I came across someone in inquiring about roadmaps from Infor. They were to have provided a post acquisition (and by this they meant after SSA was absorbed) statement of direction in the September/October timeframe. I've not seen anything yet. I can't blame them. I spent some time at Microsoft when the Dynamics people were working out the roadmap

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36318141.post-1161292943459994702006-10-19T14:10:00.000-07:002008-01-30T09:31:54.936-08:00

It's one of 70 million of them. I chose Blogger for no other reason than I've heard of it, and it's free. Sorry TypePad. In the realm of social software (blogs, wikis, whatever you call sites like yedda) there are a lot of options, and I frankly do not have the time right now to research and compare them. Blogger/Blogspot seems to work for Mark Crofton at The Village View, Frank Scavo at The

AbridgedMindhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16522913703532294370noreply@blogger.com4