News and Analysis

News and Analysis (15669)

INFOR ADOPTS MICROSOFT STANDARD

Infor's announcement that it is adopting Microsoft as its preferred technology and tools provider signals another step in the giant software company's work to bring its menagerie of acquired products onto a common platform. Read more...

QUEUE GETS DYNAMICS SL TOP HONOR

New York’s Queue Associates was named Dynamics SL Partner of the Year for 2010 as Microsoft listed winners and finalists in more than 60 categories whose awards will be handed out at the Worldwide Partner Conference this month. Synergy Business Solutions, based in Portland, Ore., was a finalist in the same category. Read more...

SAP PLEDGES LOYALTY TO CHANNEL

SAP plans to do business through resellers in the long term and its work to build its U.S. channel to push the SaaS-based Business By Design sound a lot like some other vendors who want fewer, larger VARs.  “We are certainly in an expansion of the channel. We are working with our installed base of VARs to build out mega VARs,” says Kevin Gilroy, the executive leading the SAP effort in the SME space. Read more...

EXACT CEO LEAVING

Raj Patel, who has served as CEO of Exact Holding since July 1, 2005, is leaving the company on July 31. Patel will be succeeded on an interim basis by Martijn J.C. Janmaat, who was served on the Exact supervisory board since April 23, 2009. An official statement says Exact will consider Janmaat’s long-term role over the next few months. Read more...

MICROSOFT TACKLES BRANDING ISSUE

A lot of folks of a certain age think of Bob Vila when it comes to This Old House which is funny since after he left Steve Thomas was the host for 12 years and current host Kevin O’Connor’s first season was 2001.  It’s a bit like the problem Microsoft faces with its Dynamics line and a recent post under the Executive Insight blog by Kara Ellefson on the Dynamics Finance Community site suggests that the original names of Microsoft’s accounting products have survived better than Vila’s name recognition. Read more...

VERSATA FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST SAP

Versata Software says SAP is acting like Microsoft, and that’s not a compliment as it complained to the European Commission that SAP A.G. illegally excluded it from selling to three fourths of the largest companies that use SAP’s enterprise software. Versata alleges SAP changed its interface and then withheld information necessary to let the systems interoperate and cloned Versata’s pricing Software, known as Pricer. The complaint continued that SAP bundled with cloned pricing software with its ERP product and that these actions violate Article 102 of the European Union treaty. Versata, based in Austin, Texas, asked the commission at a minimum to require SAP to provide interoperability information and unbundle its pricing configuration software and impose an appropriate fine. Versata’s filing cited a Microsoft case in which that company paid a fine of 1.6 billion euros and was forced to change its business practices by the commission. Last year, Versata, formerly known as Trilogy, was awarded $139 million by a U.S. District Court jury in Texas which found SAP had infringed on Versata patents when SAP built a clone of Versata’s software. Read more...

INFOR BUYS VAR OPS, BUT …

Infor said despite its acquisition of the ERP LN operations of Qurius, once a top Microsoft reseller in Europe, it remains committed to the channel. Qurius has been an Infor implementation partner, but under the deal Infor picks up the business and 60 staffers who will serve Infor’s ERP LN customers in Italy, Germany and Spain, all for around $5 million. Qurius, based in Belgium, continues as a Microsoft Dynamics VAR. Infor VP Dennis Michaelis said in a prepared statement that this move does not represent a strategic shift away from the use of channel partners. Read more...

SKYYTEK OPENS PARTNER PROGRAMS

Skyytek, which had a partner program when it was NetSuite’s largest reseller, has relaunched the program now that it has signed up for SAP’s Business By Design. An affiliate program is also being offered for a sister company, SalesOrder.com. The BBD program signs up companies as Solution Providers, who get 50 percent of gross margins if they sell products or if Skyytek sells them within a geographical or vertical territory. Read more...

ACUMATICA GETS QUEBECOIS VERSION

Acumatica, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that markets Internet-based applications, has developed a French language pack and system configurations for its ERP software in cooperation with SIPD Services. SIPD is a distributor that has exclusive rights to distribute Acumatica in Quebec. Acumatica has said that it has now signed 50 resellers and noted the closing of two ERP deals by TimAc Solutions, a Southern California reseller that completed the first two sales of the Acumatica Distribution suite. Acumatica offers both SaaS and on-premise based versions of its software. Read more...

COLUMBUS IT COOL TO TAKEOVER

Columbus IT Partner has declined to consider a proposed acquisition of the company, a Microsoft Dynamics reseller based in Denmark, by EG Holding. The offer was made on the condition that shareholders holding at least 90 percent of the stock in Columbus IT accept the offer. However, Consolidated Holdings, which controls about 34 percent of the Columbus IT shares, has informed the company that it is not willing to sell its shares under the terms offered. Those terms have not been made public. As a result, the Columbus IT board issued a statement that it saw no reason to pursue the matter. Read more...

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