Infor labels forced migrations a stupid strategy

Infor Pacific region managing director, James Brackenrig, last week took a swipe at competitors who have adopted the "stupid strategy" of killing software products through acquisition.

Brackenrig said time and time again customers complain about forced migrations, a trend that is repeatedly adopted by other players in the market.

"We won't make customers do the forced march, we will not dictate to customers," he said.

Brackenrig admits it is a bold claim as the ERP vendor has completed 23 acquisitions in five years without dropping a single product.

Despite all of this activity, he said Infor has protected product investments made by its customers and the company is actually extending its product lines.

"Customers don't want any costly migrations after investing in a product suite," he added.

Well known software brands Infor has acquired include Extensity, GEAC, Systems Union, and its $US1.4 billion purchase of SSA Global.

Prior to the Infor buy, SSA had acquired Baan, Epiphany and Provia Software.

Boasting $US2.1 billion in annual revenues and about 70,000 customers, Brackenrig said Infor is the third largest business application company in the world behind SAP and Oracle.

"We plan to grow to a $US4 billion company in the next two to three years; we picked up 500 customers globally in the last quarter and 128 of those were from the APAC region," he said.

"The huge growth in this region is due to our pricing and our implementation costs are a lot lower than our competitors.

"The fundamental difference is that other vendors will have one solution that is customized for each vertical, we have multiple solutions for different verticals."

The company's CTO, Bruce Gordon, was recently in Australia meeting customers to cover off on Infor's product roadmap and to outline its new SOA strategy.

Local Infor customers include food processing company SPC Ardmona and Australian retailer Woolworths.

Infor has been closely involved in the development of a three year, multimillion dollar national distribution network project at Woolworths.

To be completed next year, Woolworths claims it is the largest and most complex retail distribution network in the southern hemisphere.

The retailer is utilising Infor's warehouse management system which will allow Woolworths to increase its supply chain capabilities across distribution centres in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and regional NSW.

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