Managing Automation - October 2007 - (Page 18)

managingautomation FREE E-NEWSLETTERS Sign up Today! news managingautomation.com maonline Go online for daily news updates in perspective having to buy the ‘same’ product,” says Pramod Mathur, Lawson’s technology programs director. This strategy is possible because of Lawson’s System Foundation, an SOA-based framework that works with IBM’s WebSphere middleware and allows the existing Lawson software to coexist with new modules in a plug-and-play fashion, Mathur says. Mathur reports that Lawson’s customers want to move beyond the hype surrounding SOA and find practical applications for the technology, especially in the mid-market. They’re looking for automated patches, seamless ongoing updates, reduced downtime, higher performance, and, particularly, scalability. “Our mid-market customers are really moving fast and growing, so scalability is key,” he says. Jim Shepherd, senior vice president at AMR Research, says that providing incremental software releases rather than major upgrades is a growing trend. “Traditionally, you had a situation where upgrades were released by vendors and implemented by customers as a ‘big bang,’ across-theboard experience because of interdependency,” he says. In essence, because the system was interconnected, it wasn’t possible to readily change one piece without affecting others. With lower-impact installs, customers can avoid disruptive and expensive upgrades while adding functionality without waiting for the next major release. But what about license revenue? As long as the incremental upgrades are included in customers’ maintenance contracts, Shepherd says, vendors aren’t losing license revenue in that sense. Those that do stand to lose, however, are systems integrators, which “used to make nice livings helping customers with significant software installs,” Shepherd says. As vendors begin to break up functionality into loosely coupled components, Shepherd says, they are able to offer smaller, more frequent upgrades because some of the inherent interdependencies are eliminated. While SOA plays a big part, the shift requires a change in mind-set for vendors. They must be willing to abandon traditional, “monolithic architectures” and adopt internal processes for designing, testing, and packaging software on a smaller scale. Says Shepherd: “The holy grail for vendors and users is a zero-downtime upgrade, where enhancements slide in with no impact. Nobody’s there — nobody’s even close — but this certainly is a step in the right direction.” — Diane Himes Alliances, Executive Appointments, Mergers & Acquisitions, Products most recently served as president of the AirConditioning and Refrigeration Institute, representing more than 90% of North American-produced central air conditioning and commercial refrigeration equipment. He was also an officer of NAM’s Council of Manufacturing Associations, which plays a role in policy development and legislative advocacy. According to NAM’s Cox, Sutton will serve the manufacturing community well. “We think very highly of him and we see this job as a bully pulpit for teaching people that manufacturing is still a critical part of our makeup,” Cox said. — S.N. LAWSON EMBRACES THE TREND OF FEWER UPGRADES hen it comes to enterprise software upgrades, what do users really want? Apart from such considerations as establishing a business case, minimizing downtime, and reducing testing, most users these days simply want fewer upgrades. It’s a trend that software vendors are beginning to embrace, particularly at the dawn of the services-oriented architecture (SOA) era. Lawson Software, for example, which recently celebrated the first anniversary of its acquisition of mid-market ERP provider Intentia, plans to forgo frequent, major upgrades in its two major software lines — M3 and S3 — and focus instead on providing incremental, plug-in type modules based on an SOA infrastructure. In an interview with Managing Automation, Dean Hager, Lawson’s Dean Hager senior vice president of product management, said that after transitioning the majority of customers to the latest versions (M3 7.1 for manufacturing industries and S3 9.0 for service industries), Lawson, which reported revenue of $212.9 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended May 31, a 69% gain from the year-earlier quarter, will roll out new functionality for the product lines without requiring major upgrades. “We are promising customers that they can take delivery [of new functionality] without Newsletters Include: MA Daily News Alert Hot off the press news exclusives written by MA Editorial W MA Membership Alert The latest industry research, products, news and web events Progressive Manufacturer Compete in the new global economy for years to come Viewpoint Provocative and inspirational, features the opinion columns in print with exclusives online www.managingautomation.com/ newsletters Subscribe Today! ® http://www.managingautomation.com http://www.managingautomation.com/newsletters http://www.managingautomation.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - October 2007

Contents Take 1 Mailbox New Selling and Fulfillment Product Leads Plan to Transform Sterling Commerce Comtrol Closes Bizarre Chapter Involving Founder New Omron COO Outlines Four-Part Growth Agenda New Mfg. ‘Czar’ Will Have a Full Plate of Issues Lawson Embraces The Trend of Fewer Upgrades Notes Wanted: A Unified Infrastructure Needed: Greater Reliability Special Report: Innovation: Why Are So Many Coming Up Short? Transforamation: Beating the Odds in Global Supply Industries: Metals: Tracking Carbon Footprints Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - October 2007

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