Thought-Provoking Commentary for the Lawson Software Community
Yesterday, Lawson released their fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2008. To just read Lawson’s press release (http://www.lawson.com/wcw.nsf/pub/new_3CABF3), you can see that (according to Lawson, at least) everything’s rosy:
For several years now, I’ve been telling Lawson (and anyone else who’s been listening…) that Microsoft–not SAP and not Oracle–is the competitor that Lawson needs to watch out for:
According to this recent article (http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207403609), it seems that SAP’s ambitious plan for offering software-as-a-service (SaaS) to the mid-market was just a wee bit too ambitious:
An interesting article in CIO Magazine (http://www.cio.com/article/177300/Why_ERP_Systems_Are_More_Important_Than_Ever).
“More than 85 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their ERP systems were essential to the core of their businesses, and that they ‘could not live without them.'”
But what jumped out at me were the numbers related to ERP market share. Besides the obvious fact that Oracle’s acquisition streak has bought it a huge market share, I’m still surprised that, according to this article, Lawson only has 6% of the market:
SAP announced today that Wal-Mart has selected SAP for Financials: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071018/sap_contract.html
I honestly don’t think Lawson competes on the same level as SAP on Financials products. But the SAP win at Wal-Mart is interesting, given Wal-Mart’s previous selection of Lawson for HR/Payroll, and Lawson’s assertions about how “Wal-Mart Loves Lawson” Read more of this post
First Hyperion gets acquired by Oracle (see http://www.oracle.com/hyperion/index.html).
Now more big news this week: http://www.businessobjects.com/news/press_release.asp?id=20071007_005046. The question I’m getting from a lot of you in the Lawson community is: “Where does this leave Lawson?”. And, of course, the answer is, “well, of course, I don’t know”. But I have my opinions/ideas. Read more of this post
Despite the upbeat quarterly report, I’m hearing a lot of grumbling from the troops. In particular that the company is being decimated in the name of cost-cutting, and that the focus has shifted away from long-term R&D to short-term billable/maintenance revenue. Also that all intellectual properties, etc. (e.g. Architects) are now being offshored and that St. Paul will be only a shell, if it even survives as the HQ. Lastly, that Landmark apps are on the back burner.
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