Managing Automation - August 2008 - (Page 9)

Not that third-party maintenance providers escape questions from customers and potential customers about whether they, too, could be subject to a lawsuit similar to the one that Oracle has filed against SAP. Rimini Street’s customers scrutinize its contracts closely and want details on the management controls the company has in place to protect the intellectual property of enterprise software vendors such as SAP and Oracle, Ravin said. “We tell them every customer has his own license and systems, and all of the information related to those is kept separate,” Ravin said. “The difference is that TomorrowNow lacked management control. We run a careful shop.” Oracle’s original lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, charged that SAP and its TomorrowNow third-party maintenance subsidiary, beginning in late 2006, engaged in “corporate theft on a grand scale” by illegally downloading support material from Oracle’s Customer Connect Web site on behalf of SAP’s customers. The suit contends that the allegedly illegal downloads unfairly enable SAP “to offer cut-rate support services to customers who use Oracle software, and to attempt to lure them to SAP’s applications software platform and away from Oracle’s.” Oracle has said it intends to show that SAP’s TomorrowNow unit placed downloaded Oracle support materials and applications into what it called a “sandbox” from which it made those materials available to other SAP customers. While Oracle has vowed to file an amended complaint containing these charges, by press time it had not yet done so. In recent filings, Oracle also estimated that it would seek upwards of $1 billion in damages from SAP. The suit is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 8, 2010. While Oracle has attempted to portray SAP’s actions as a massive corporate theft, SAP has insisted they amount to nothing more than isolated mistakes by a subsidiary — mistakes that have been corrected. The suit, however, has brought one significant change to the market: It has helped to persuade SAP to exit the third-party maintenance business by attempting to sell its TomorrowNow subsidiary. “We want to exit this business,” said Chris Liedtke, head of media relations for SAP. “Third-party maintenance was never a core business of SAP.” Having apparently failed to find a buyer for TomorrowNow, SAP at press time announced plans to “wind down” operations of the subsidiary by Oct. 31. SAP said it will assist Tomor- rowNow customers in finding new support providers, either Oracle or “other options.” Other than that, Leidtke said, “Our regular business has not been affected by the TomorrowNow lawsuit so far.” If and when the suit is settled — in or outside of court — the settlement may provide a boost to the third-party maintenance market. Even if Oracle wins, “it won’t kill the market,” Wang said. “If that was the intent, the reverse will occur. Providers will have clear guidelines on how to provide third-party maintenance services as a matter of law.” Scan M Back inMA MA AUGUST 2007 A’s 2008 Tech Planner was designed to assist manufacturers embarking on the confusing search to find the best technology products for their companies. Best-of-breed software was getting a boost from servicesoriented architecture’s promise of flexible integration. And manufacturers were learning that keeping a lid on software costs wasn’t only about low license fees. A comprehensive guide detailed vendors and their products in a variety of technology categories. AT 100, FOXBORO REINVENTS AROUND ITS CUSTOMERS n 1908, E.H. and B.B. Bristol opened up a small instrument company in Foxboro, MA, helping Ford Motor Co. produce the Model T on an assembly line — a major innovation at that time. One hundred years later, that tiny Bristol brothers start-up is still very much alive, operating as a business unit of Invensys Process Systems that provides field devices and control system architectures for oil refineries, pulp and paper mills, and even pharmaceutical companies. “Since the Bristol brothers opened the factory door in 1908, we continue to invent, refine, and advance production in the industrial world,” said Paulett Eberhart, IPS president and CEO, during a centennial birthday celebration that took place at the company’s original Foxboro facility in June. In addition to reflecting on the past, Eberhart provided the 1,000 or so employees in attendance with a glimpse into the future. “As we evolve, we have to continually consider new and better ways to bring tools to the market,” she said. That means reconPaulett Eberhart sidering the way business is conducted and changing the way technology solutions are delivered. Eighteen months after joining IPS as president and CEO, Eberhart has become a change agent. Tapping into her 25 years of experience at EDS, she has set the foundation for a new business model that stresses services and solutions more than any particular product. I MA AUGUST 2003 chieving operational efficiency meant better planning, improved production scheduling, and lower inventories. The key to achieving that goal was to find the right balance between statistical forecasts and other demand signals — both historical and real-time — from across the supply chain. Demand planning was a logical place to start for manufacturers looking to expand their ERP footprint and improve supply chain planning functions. A M A AU G U ST 19 9 8 s the mid-range market for ERP systems was becoming overpopulated, manufacturers were finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish among products by features and functions. Instead, manufacturers were basing their vendor selections on new, so-called “soft” criteria. To be smart, they started simply, zooming in on vendors’ cultural style and partnership qualities within the context of the manufacturers’ own needs. A M A AU G U ST 19 9 3 O n the global stage, manufacturers no longer had the luxury of designing products and manufacturing processes in sequence. For many companies, the solution was to use concurrent engineering techniques as a disciplined business practice. Manufacturers began to combine early vendor selection with their product design strategies. The resulting shortened development process cut costs and accelerated time to market. 9 August 2008

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Managing Automation - August 2008 Contents Take 1 After 18 Months, the Oracle/SAP Suit Has Little Effect on Maintenance Sales At 100, Foxboro Reinvents Around Its Customers New Private Equity Firm Eyes Software A Software Suite Just for Manufacturers i2 Chief Focuses on Services Plan Notes It's Time for Action Examining U.S. Competitveness Leveling the Field An Unhealthy Situation Exploring Alternatives Math and Science: Key to the Future Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - August 2008

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