Managing Automation- July 2008

roots in the era preceding global services delivery — before the rise of low-cost IT services locales such as India. And despite significant investments both onshore and off, both companies are still adjusting to the global climate, said AMR analyst Phil Fersht. Coordinating their efforts will be all the more difficult at twice the scale. It will also fall to the new company to make smart and nimble decisions with regard to areas of overlap. “It’s going to require some strong self-analysis,” Fersht said, as the combined company decides how best to leverage its newfound power to compete head-to-head with the likes of Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, and other multinational, multi-function business process outsourcing (BPO) providers. For example, Fersht said, there will be opportunities to consolidate and invest in certain delivery centers, while divesting others where it makes sense. The companies also will have to decide which service management methodologies to adopt, Anderson said. “My guess is EDS’,” he added, noting that EDS has made significant investments in the past few years in its services development. But either way, he said, “They’ll have to look at the existing client bases and standardize their approach.” “HP bought a strong brand with EDS,” Fersht said. “Despite several acquisition options, they went for a higher-priced and bigger company like EDS because they want to go after IBM, and this is how they’re going to do it.” But when it comes to competition, concerns remain about marketplace bids against IBM, Accenture, and others that already have established relationships at the coveted “C” level. Much of what will make HP/EDS the number two services provider will be based on the combined companies’ strengths in infrastructure and management outsourcing, Anderson said, but the new entity will still face plenty of competition for pure consulting and systems integration engagements. AMR’s Fersht agreed, adding that despite EDS’ strengths in call center and HR services, and HP’s well-established finance and accounting BPO portfolio, the combined company still lacks in business-facing consulting and application integration capabilities. Despite the challenges ahead, however, market conditions appear to be on the new HP/EDS’ side. Though the current economic climate has negatively affected other technology segments, including enterprise software, all indications are that the market remains healthy for IT services providers. The question is: How quickly can the combined company optimize its marriage? “Anytime you try to integrate a $22 billion company into a $100+ billion company, it’s going to be a challenge,” Gartner’s Anderson said. “It boils down to how much fear, doubt, and uncertainty will remain about the combined entity’s real capabilities, and how quickly they can get back to winning deals.” Both HP and EDS declined to be interviewed for this article. Scan M Back MA JULY 2007 inMA RIMINI PLANS TO WOO SAP SUPPORT USERS any customers of SAP enterprise applications can be expected at least to evaluate the notion of third-party support, experts said, following recent news that Rimini Street Inc. is extending its offerings to SAP users. “This is something that many people in the SAP base have been waiting for, especially those running older versions that are being moved to individual maintenance contracts,” said Ray Wang, an analyst at Forrester Research. Rimini Street, a 3-year-old provider of thirdparty support services to enterprise software users, said it would extend its offerings to users of SAP’s R/3 applications beginning in January 2009. Until now, Rimini Street has offered support services to users of Oracle’s PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel products. Currently, it has 175 users of those products under contract. According to Rimini Street President and CEO Seth Ravin, the company will offer the same set of services to SAP R/3 customers that it offers to Oracle customers, and at similar prices. Those services include named, local support engineers; 24-hour, seven-day-perweek support; 30minute response times; application fixes; tax and regulatory updates; and support for client customizations. Rimini Street offers those supSeth Ravin port services at prices that are about 50% below what software vendors typically charge for standard maintenance contracts, Ravin said. Rimini Street will initially offer its services to SAP customers in the United States during a sixmonth rollout beginning in January, said Ravin, who founded third-party maintenance provider TomorrowNow before selling it to SAP in 2005. Rimini Street’s entry into the SAP market follows the expiration of a non-compete contract Ravin signed at the time of the TomorrowNow sale. The anticipated interest in third-party mainte- M A explored how five hot-button technology and business areas — business intelligence, services-oriented architecture, lean, e-commerce, and enterprise integration — were influencing the growth equation for manufacturers. The link between technology and business performance would be the key to accelerating growth, but companies would have to close the gap between what increasingly sophisticated information systems were capable of doing functionally for manufacturers and what manufacturers were prepared to do with the systems. MA JULY 2003 ensors were poised to enter a new era, propelled by advances in microelectromechanical systems technology and nanotechnology that enabled smaller and smarter products. In addition, machine-to-machine information sharing was a new technology that allowed devices to communicate over cellular networks. These forces were about to converge to spur new applications for sensors that would revolutionize the manufacturing industry. S M A J U LY 19 9 8 I n a rare show of industry cooperation, senior managers at Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler banded together to address one of the toughest year-2000 computer date changeover problems: supplier compliance. With the assistance of the Automotive Industry Action Group, the big carmakers set out to help their suppliers solve their own Y2K problems with databases of best practices and compliance information. M A J U LY 19 9 3 N ew software, standards, and alliances held the promise of extending process control into every element of a manufacturer’s operations, from field devices to foreign transactions. Manufacturing execution systems, an emerging technology, were coming into use as a bridge between process control systems and corporate planning and information systems. Meanwhile, the standards needed for seamless integration were still in the making, with work under way on SP88 and fieldbus. July 2008 9

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation- July 2008

Managing Automation- July 2008 Contents Take 1 HP's Acquisition of EDS May Face Integration, Global Delivery Challenges Rimini Plans to Woo SAP Support Users Rockwell Steps Up Its Activities in Software Microsoft Targets the Process of Innovation Supply Chain Standouts Honored by AMR Notes Who Are Today's Influential Thinkers? The Robot Revolution Is the Price Right? Without a Trace Harvesting the Suggestion Box Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

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