Industry leaders use business process management (BPM) to deliver rapid and sustainable business value to their operations. BPM is the understanding, visibility and continuous performance improvement of an organization’s business processes, which define at an operational level, how work gets done.

BPM can help organizations efficiently and effectively improve business processes in four key areas.

Four Key Areas of Business Process Management (BPM)

• Direction Setting - Stakeholders must identify strategic business goals that will set tactical direction. BPM can help build the burning platform for change by defining and giving visibility to a strategically linked, tactile direction that is compelling to all levels of the company.
• Roadmaps - An end-to-end view of current state operational areas is critical to identifying process gaps and non-value added work. BPM can provide visual process maps that clearly define those areas that need to change. The process maps should be intuitive, comprehensive, and understandable at all levels within the company.
• Analysis - The design goal is to achieve breakthrough performance improvement through process innovation – the invention and deployment of new ways of performing work, driving out non-value adding work and with it errors, cost, and time. BPM can help develop a future state that incorporates best business practices and fits into the overall business strategy.
• Execution - Execution must be planned in terms of what the organization is willing and able to digest. All too often, the scope of implementation projects is based upon the problem to be solved with little regard for the organization’s readiness and ability to change. BPM can help you plan and pace your project around your organization’s ability to a absorb change.

Strong companies not only know business process management, they practice it and use it to drive success that is both achievable and sustainable. Panorama understands the true value of strong BPM and ensures BPM is a strong influence within organizational change management projects.

Blog entry written by Terry Delaney, Senior ERP Project Manager at Panorama Consulting Group.

An important milestone has been the opening of a new development center located in Chennai, India in January 2009. After more than 12 months of operation, the local staff now functions as peers to the existing center in Spain, and focuses on product development tasks such as new features advancement, quality assurance and release management. The decision to open a center in India was made in response to the interest that Openbravo generates in India and reflects its commitment towards the Indian market.

The number of Openbravo deployments continues to increase as Indian companies realize the benefits of Openbravo ERP’s broad functionality, plus its ability to drive business performance and to scale from a single instance to multiple tenants across departments, organizations and geographies.

Manel Sarasa, CEO of Openbravo, said: “The Indian market is ideal for Openbravo because there is tremendous need for technology to help an increasing volume and breadth of growing industries manage their businesses more effectively. We have seen a huge demand for Openbravo software, and we are committed to this exciting and growing market. Our development center is available for the many talented IT experts in the country, and we look forward to further demonstrating the benefits of open source ERP with our new and fast-growing Indian community.”

One important new customer in the region is Tuff Tubes, a plastics and rubber manufacturer based in Kolkata, West Bengal. Dibakar Chakraborty, VP of Tuff Tubes said: “We evaluated Microsoft Dynamics and SAP, but then selected Openbravo ERP Professional Subscription solution because of its flexibility and user friendliness. With a true-web-based open architecture, it will ensure a consistent and productive end user experience across our organization. Openbravo partner Starlite worked closely with us as valued and knowledgeable consultants, and we look forward to gaining the business performance benefits of Openbravo ERP.”

Openbravo’s rich functional footprint puts businesses in control of back-end processes with integrated accounting, production, inventory, procurement and sales. With the recent launch of Openbravo Exchange, its global online marketplace for commercial open source ERP solutions and extensions, Openbravo continues to improve the adaptability of its solution to meet the requirements of individual businesses. Openbravo Exchange strengthens Openbravo’s community by ensuring continual innovation and an ever-growing range of third-party modules for industry verticals with best-fit implementation.

As a result of the increased profile and interest Openbravo has attracted with users and partners in India, it conducted three successful training conventions in 2009. Along with highlighting business applications, Openbravo introduced its products to the Indian government through a session designed to showcase Openbravo’s application in e-governance projects, such as for managing complex budget decisions and keeping track of inventory.

But first, how do we define implementation failure? People talk about failures all the time, whether it’s related to companies filing lawsuits against software vendors, pulling the plug on troubled implementations, or in some extreme cases, filing for bankruptcy due to their failed implementation (think Shane Co. in early 2009).

Aside from extreme cases such as these, there is a spectrum of implementation challenges that can result in varying degrees of failure. In short, we consider an ERP implementation to be a failure if one or more of the following occurs:

1. Takes longer to implement than expected
2. Costs more than expected
3. Fails to deliver at least half of the expected business benefits

In our most recent study, which is technology-agnostic and one of the most thorough studies conducted in the ERP space, we found that there is a 72% likelihood that one or more of these three things will happen. There is a 31% chance that two or more of these things will occur.

If we assume that these are three valid failure points, then there are a number of things companies can do to avoid one of these three outcomes, most of which are outlined in our report. Perhaps the quickest and most direct way to ensure these things don’t happen is to have realistic expectations to begin with. A realistic view of what an ERP implementation will cost and the business benefits that can be realized will go a long way toward avoiding these failure points. It is important to augment software vendor sales hype with a realistic view from independent and objective sources that fully understand ERP and your business.

Want to learn more about our 2010 ERP Report? View the brief video presentation below, which provides an overview of these and other findings from our study.

The DEACOM ERP Manufacturing Software is designed to simply manage all areas of a building component, modular building, pharmaceutical, specialty chemical, adhesive and sealant, cosmetic, food and beverage, and paint and coatings manufacturer in one software system. The enterprise software solution is configured to handle complex business processes, such as production, inventory control, accounting, sales order entry, purchasing, labor tracking, and retail Point-of-Sale (POS), without costly customization.

Selected from a global industry analysis of information technology vendors, which included established large companies, mid-sized, and new start-ups around the world, Deacom has advanced to the finalists stage based on the “4Ps” selection criteria, namely Products, People, Performance, and Potential. The coveted 2010 Hot Companies analysis encompasses companies in all areas of information technologies, including security, wireless, storage, networking, software, and communications.

The Network Products Guide Hot Companies evaluation process also assessed candidates for entrepreneurial spirit, relevant experience, a clear understanding of the segment of the IT market in which they are active, a well-developed revenue-growth model, and clearly planned expansion strategies.

The 2010 Hot Companies winners will be announced and honored at the Technosium 2010 Presentations and Dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on March 18, 2010, where finalists will be presenting their 4Ps criteria to an audience of end-users, leading entrepreneurs, IT companies, venture capitalists, corporate strategists, and industry associations.

A complete list of the 2010 Hot Companies finalists is available at www.technosium.com.

To learn more about the DEACOM Integrated Accounting and ERP Software System or to schedule an online demonstration, call 610-971-2278 ext. 15 or visit www.deacom.net.

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About Deacom, Inc.

Headquartered in Wayne, PA, Deacom, Inc. is the producer of DEACOM, a complete accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for building component and process manufacturers with difficult-to-handle requirements. The DEACOM System seamlessly links all departments within a manufacturing company, providing a comprehensive view of the entire operation. By making complex issues simple, Deacom helps streamline manufacturing business processes to maximize productivity and profitability.

About Network Products Guide Awards

As industry’s leading technology research and advisory publication, Network Products Guide plays a vital role in keeping decision makers and end-users informed of the choices they can make in all areas of information technology. The guide follows conscientious research methodologies developed and enhanced by industry experts. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com.

The largest project of its kind carried out by a local government in the U.K., the overhaul required SAP applications to replace a significant number of systems. Implementation also included a change to a shared-service delivery model and a new integrated application suite model based on the SAP software suite to support the council’s financial, procurement and operational performance management process.

The capabilities offered by the full suite of SAP applications – including the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform, SAP® Business Suite software and other independent applications from SAP partners – support standardized management and business processes along with a range of standardized reporting and integration processes.

The City Council said it considers the corporate services transformation a successful program that provides a solid foundation for the future of Birmingham.

The complete executive brief, titled “Executive Brief: Birmingham City Council, Corporate Services Transformation – A Success Story” (IDC Government Insights, December 2009), is available on request.

“Sales 2.0 is a great forum for sales and marketing leaders to learn how to leverage SaaS solutions to drive sales growth. We are extremely excited to be sponsoring this industry-leading event,” said Lorna Heynike, senior vice president of marketing at Callidus Software. “Our sales performance management solutions are mission critical to effectively increase sales growth. Sales incentives are the most direct means to driving sales execution to consistently deliver on results. Incentives drive growth today and they drive strategic initiatives that position the business to capitalize on accelerated growth long-term.”

At its booth, Callidus Software will demo its Sales Performance Management suite including its Monaco release. Attendees can learn about the newest developments in sales performance automation and gain in-depth knowledge on how to deploy solutions that will help drive superior selling effectiveness across their sales force and partner channels.

Callidus Software’s award-winning solutions manage the entire sales life-cycle from on-boarding, deployment and payment, to talent development, while providing visibility into sales operations and financial performance. This gives customers the ability to align their sales force and channels with their business objectives and consistently and reliably execute to improve sales results. The software is used by leading companies in a broad range of verticals including high-tech, telecommunications, banking, insurance and pharmaceuticals. Since its inception nearly 15 years ago, the company has evolved into the most experienced, proven, and reliable SPM vendor in the marketplace. Callidus Software manages over $50 billion in incentives and compensation for more than 2 million payees in over 140 countries.

For more news on sales performance management, follow Callidus on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

About Callidus Software®
Callidus Software (www.callidussoftware.com) (NASDAQ:CALD – News) is the market and technology leader in Sales Performance Management (SPM). Callidus’ customers gain a competitive advantage by maximizing sales cost efficiencies and driving improvements in sales execution. Our award-winning Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications set the standard for performance management across the sales force. Over 2 million employees and channel partners have their performance managed by Callidus Software.

© 1998-2010 Callidus Software Inc. All rights reserved. Callidus Software, the Callidus Software logo, and TrueComp Manager are trademarks, service marks, or registered trademarks of Callidus Software Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brand, service or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or owners.

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Seven Tips for Conducting ERP Implementation Meetings

1. Ask why I am here? Be sure to keep in mind what your role is and why you’re here. Remember, you’re working for the client and you are there to help them. Your sole responsibility is to help them accomplish their goal(s) and nothing else. Always remember that the clients are most likely unfamiliar with you and any methodologies you bring to the project.
2. Maintain the proper presence. As I mentioned above, remember what your true role is for this particular project. You’re not here to physically configure the new ERP; your role is to help guide and facilitate the process. You role is to help guarantee the client realizes the benefits the project is intended to obtain.
3. Do your homework. Before arrival, learn as much as you can about the client, their industry, and any current issues that the client might be facing (i.e. current legislation, etc). Be as familiar with the ERP software package you’re helping implement. If it has been little a while since you’ve worked with this specific ERP system, refresh yourself on the package and make sure you review any upgrades that might have taken place since that last implementation you performed. Doing your homework will drive significant benefits for the client (and you) as you help the client configure the ERP application around their business operations.
4. Pay Attention. If you watch closely, you’ll notice a transition as the ERP implementation progresses. The stakeholders will begin to see the future and the positive impact the new ERP software will have on the business and its processes. They will immediately begin rethinking their normal workday and want you to be aware of it. As a consultant, it is key for you to be ready and able to document anything and everything that might be spoken or diagrammed.
5. Take lots and lots of notes. You never know what might be said, either directly or indirectly, by your project stakeholders. It might be an off-handed comment about a process they wish they could complete, or maybe a pain point that needs to be addressed. It is vitally important to make sure everything is captured for future use and documentation. As far as your note methodology, that is totally up to you. I usually type copious notes, but I have also used an audio recording application on my Smartphone. Okay in all honesty, I’ve even used a cassette tape recorder. Whatever process or device you are most comfortable with will work.
6. Ask lots and lots of questions. At times your role as a consultant almost needs be one of a Devil’s advocate. While you won’t know everything about your client’s business, you probably have a good idea how it works. To that point, your role is to thoroughly empathize with your stakeholder’s needs and attempt to expose any gaps or processes that need correcting.
7. Keep the project team focused. In many cases your stakeholders are so excited about their newly purchased ERP software, they just can’t wait to start using it. Given that fact, it is important to keep the project team involved and focused on the task at hand. Be sure everyone has juggled their schedules accordingly, and that you have a true captive audience to effectively complete the day’s tasks and topics.

While this may not be an exhaustive list, it is an important one. If everyone is working together and you’re on top of your game, effective planning and configuration meetings can pay long-term dividends for your ERP implementation.

Blog post written by John Hutchison, Senior Consultant, at Panorama Consulting Group.

To achieve timely Windows 7 support for its solutions, Exact participated in Front Runner, the early adopter program for Microsoft solution partners. A long-time Microsoft Corp. partner, and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner since 2006, Exact develops all of its solutions to operate on Microsoft platforms. In addition to ensuring its solutions offer support for the latest Windows operating system, Exact’s award-winning portfolio also utilizes Microsoft’s .Net development platform as well as the SQL 2008 database server.

“Our customers depend on our software to run their business,” said Jack Dempsey, VP of Research and Development for Exact Americas. “By ensuring that our solutions support Windows 7, our customers are able to safely upgrade their infrastructure and leverage the enhanced productivity, security, and performance that comes with Windows 7.”

Improved Security and Productivity

With Windows 7, Exact customers will be able to leverage the latest in Microsoft innovation. With new features designed to streamline access to important files and protect critically important information, Windows 7 offers Exact customers a superior total user experience.

Exact and Windows 7 at Engage 2010

Exact will feature its latest solutions supporting Windows 7 at Engage 2010, the company’s annual user conference. Held in Orlando, FL, April 11-14, Engage offers a truly unique opportunity for the entire Exact community to join forces for three days of networking, education, and insight. Visit www.exact.com/engage-us for additional details.

Exact. And it all comes together.

We started serving the entrepreneurial world with information technology in 1984. We have grown from a student start-up to a global solution provider and our entrepreneurial roots constantly remind us that adding value for our customers is what we are here for. With approximately 2,200 employees in 40 countries, we serve over 100,000 local and international companies in more than 125 countries and provide our business software solutions in more than 40 languages. We have been listed on the NYSE Euronext Amsterdam since June 1999 and our revenues amounted to EUR232.5 million in 2009.

Serving entrepreneurial businesses is at the heart of what we do. We understand their mindsets, how they collaborate within their business community and the structure they need to achieve results. With this knowledge we provide software solutions that support every business activity and give real-time insight into the entire business. This gives our customers the freedom to successfully address challenges and opportunities, creating value for their customers and ultimately for themselves.

For further information about Exact visit www.exact.com.

All product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CRM evaluations should include elements inherent in effective ERP software selection processes. For example, a CRM software selection process should include the following steps:

• Clearly define business requirements
• Evaluate the technical fit of potential options
• Assess vendor viability
• Evaluate functional fit via a scripted demo process
• Develop a business case
• Negotiate with vendors
• Create a realistic implementation plan

In addition to the above, there are five factors that are somewhat unique to CRM software evaluation processes:

1. Evaluate how you might extend CRM to ERP. It’s short-sighted to choose a CRM system without defining a plan for integrating with other key functions such as order entry, product configuration, inventory management, and financials. If your longer-term plan is to implement other enterprise software modules, it is important to have a sense of which will be the right fit beyond CRM so you don’t back yourself into a corner later on.
2. Clearly understand your business and technical integration needs. CRM can be powerful software with tangible benefits, but some of these benefits may be undermined if processes and data are not integrated with other enterprise modules. For example, sales reps need to see inventory levels and order status and to determine available-to-promise dates based on available capacity and production plans. Another example is the finance department, which may want to see how product costs compare with sales pricing models. Needs such as these may be met via integration with additional enterprise software modules or business intelligence and reporting solutions.
3. Don’t forget that it’s about the people, not the technology. The beauty (and the curse) of CRM is that there are plenty of viable options with sophisticated functionality in the marketplace. Whether it’s software as a service (SaaS) deployment models, cool bells and whistles, or other sexy functionality, it can be easy to get caught up in the technology. However, it’s important to remember that as with any enterprise solution, CRM is more about people and processes than the technology itself. It is key to find and implement a CRM solution that is a good fit for your business, processes, and organization.
4. Understand the tradeoffs of SaaS vs. on premise CRM delivery models. Before jumping straight on the SaaS bandwagon, it is important to carefully consider the pros, cons, and tradeoffs of different deployment models. As we outlined in our 2010 ERP Report, SaaS implementations are typically implemented in less time and at a lower initial cost, but average business benefits realized and likelihood of going over budget are also higher. It is important to determine which CRM delivery option is best for your business.
5. Set realistic expectations for implementation cost and duration. One of the most common reasons for CRM failure is not allocating sufficient time and resources to the implementation. Whether you are implementing CRM to 1 or 100 users, there are key project activities that need to be factored into your implementation plan. Business process design, training, and conference room pilots are just a few examples of key implementation activities that need to be included when budgeting the time and resources required.

These key steps will ensure you begin on the right path toward a successful CRM evaluation and selection. Read more about actual CRM and other enterprise software results from over 1,600 organizations in our 2010 ERP Report.

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) announced a new release of the SAP® Business One application that accelerates time-to-value, facilitates business adaptability and increases ease-of-use and affordability based on strong co-innovation with SAP partners for small and midsize companies. With thousands of customers in over 80 countries, SAP Business One is designed to enable small business owners to effectively manage their entire business and future growth. The new 8.8 release of SAP Business One includes new innovations and advancements in the areas of functionality, performance and user experience that will improve customers’ usability and productivity. For example, with embedded analytics from the SAP® Business Objects™ portfolio, customers can increase transparency of business operations and improve decision-making. The new release also offers enhanced business network connectivity that enables customers’ to quickly and affordably integrate their business partners in the ecosystems, local subsidiaries or branch offices with headquarters running the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP® ERP. The announcement was made at the CeBIT trade fair, being held in Hannover, Germany, March 2-6.

SAP Business One 8.8 has been in ramp-up since August 2009 and is planned to be generally available at the end of April 2010. Already, more than 150 customers are experiencing the benefits of the new release, including C&T Network Systems (Germany), Crayola (Costa Rica), Lifepark (Germany), Glowmac Lighting Pvt. Ltd (India), Interadapt Sistemas (Brazil), Orga-Buro (France), Reynolds Logistics (UK), Schulp Vruchtensappen (Netherlands), Skytek Telecomunicazioni Srl (Italy), Solis Import (Panama), SPM Instruments (USA) and Vet’s Sheet Metal Ltd (Canada).

“We produce optically unusual and very individual bikes, which we sell mainly through 19 online shops with integration to SAP Business One and a network of resellers throughout Europe; a delivery time of 12 days from order to delivery is very important,” said Manuel Ostner, managing director, PG Trade & Sales GmbH. “SAP Business One was known to us as one of the best products for these requirements. Since its introduction, we have all orders and inventory in one single system, so we are informed in time about missing parts and have no loss of production anymore. SAP Business One includes everything we need. We can also process new ideas right away.”

The new SAP Business One release accommodates the continuous demands of the changing market by including an upgrade wizard that is simple and straightforward, reducing customer’s downtime to a minimum. In addition, the new release integrates to partner applications and business services. Based on the flexible business platform of SAP Business One, small businesses can quickly start with core business management applications and add additional capabilities over time with easy-to-consume business applications from SAP partners. In the future, customers will be able to more easily extend their solutions with cloud-based applications, mash-ups and mobile integration.

“Innovative solutions whet the appetite, especially if you get benefits at the same time,” said German Mayr, managing director, Part Business Solutions GmbH. “During a presentation of SAP Business One we already saw the iPhone integration with SAP Business One. This was ultimately the impetus for the switch to the new version. While others may have taken the last days of last year as leisure time, PART used the time to migrate our operations to SAP Business One 8.8. The upgrade went smoothly in a very short time. Meanwhile, not only are our ERP processes running on the new platform, but we have also integrated the archive system. It saves time and money when your software helps drive business decisions — and on top of that, is easy to use.”

Additional enhancements in the latest release of SAP Business One include:

• Universal code base for 40 countries, supporting different time zones and helping to ensure compliance with standard legal requirements;
• Data archiving to reduce operational cost in growing businesses;
• A remote support platform for SAP Business One, with embedded product life-cycle support that assists customers and partners in proactive issue diagnostics and resolution and system reliability;
• DATEV interface for payroll accounting in Germany;
• Integration to on-demand Web services such as eShops, based on country availability, to reach out to new market segments.

SAP partners are finding that the new release of SAP Business One is making it easier to service their vast array of clients and allowing solution partners to rapidly extend the core solution to meet unique, industry-specific processes and changing needs. SAP Business One 8.8 is able to accommodate customers’ unique needs, whether for brick and mortar, online operations or hybrid business models that need powerful e-commerce connectivity as well as more traditional business management proficiency. In addition, the solution can be quickly implemented. Among partners participating in the ramp-up were Asecom, Vision33, SAND Technologies Limited, and Navigator Business Solutions. SAP and its partners intend to deliver additional innovations for SAP Business One throughout 2010, such as integrated Web 2.0 capabilities and social networking, mobile integration, extended collaboration and integration of cloud-based applications.

“As a SAP Business One solution partner we drive strong co-innovation with SAP to accelerate product innovation for the benefit of customers,” said Manuel Grenacher, CEO, coresystems ag. “SAP has an extremely flexible, sustainable development platform and quality standards to deliver added-value applications for customers. This is a fantastic opportunity to grow our own business in a volume market.”

“The innovations to SAP Business One stand to revolutionize the way small businesses owners manage their businesses,” said Robert Viehmann, head of SAP Business One development worldwide. “With SAP Business One 8.8, we enter into a new era of business software for small enterprises. Small businesses must become empowered to adapt their business models rapidly with a flexible IT platform that adapts to business changes instantaneously. Today, business software allows company owners and managers to accelerate decision making based on true real time insight. Additionally, business software should be more consumable to provide ease of use for users living in today’s web world.”

Viehmann, speaks about the new features within the SAP Business One 8.8 application in the video accessible here. To read how the new release of SAP Business One is making it easier for SAP partners to service their vast array of clients, please see “Addendum: SAP® Business One 8.8 Beckons New Era of Software for Small Businesses.” To see the innovations to SAP Business One 8.8 at CeBIT, visit the SAP SME booth A4 in hall 5; the SAP World Tour in halls 19 and 20; and the OS XP Pavilion. SAP partners at CeBIT will also be exhibiting the new release.

Next Major Event: SAPPHIRE® 2010
SAPPHIRE® 2010, SAP’s premier customer conference and networking event, will be held simultaneously in Orlando, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany, May 17-19, 2010. This year, SAP will utilize several new, unique, and compelling experiences online and at the events to share SAP insights and innovations, and connect customers and partners around the world. As in past years, SAPPHIRE offers the opportunity to meet top SAP customers, partners and executives for in depth discussions, and to experience the latest solutions being offered for today’s business needs. For more information about the Orlando show, visit www.sapandasug.com; for the Frankfurt event, visit www.sap.com/sapphire/emea.

About SAP® Business One
SAP® Business One is a single solution that integrates the entire business across financials, sales, customer relationships, inventory and operations. It is best-fit for small businesses that have outgrown their accounting-only systems and are looking to streamline business operations with an integrated, on-premise solution. With SAP Business One, small businesses can streamline end-to-end operations, get instant and complete information and accelerate profitable growth. SAP Business One offers over 550 add-on solutions, many industry-specific, that can extend the core functionalities of SAP Business One to meet specific business processes and fast-changing needs. Since 2007 SAP has doubled its SAP Business One customer base. Available in over 80 countries and in 26 different languages, SAP Business One is sold and supported through the extensive network of authorized SAP channel partners, and is trusted by thousands of customers worldwide. Additional information is available at www.sap.com/smallbusiness.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 95,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Scott Small, Director of Supply Chain Management at Liberty stated, “We are extremely excited about the potential that the TECSYS Warehouse Management Software solution brings to Liberty University. Supply chain management of this detail will be revolutionary for the entire university, from student to staff.”

Founded in 1971 by Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr., Liberty University is the world’s largest Christian university. It has some 12,000 residential and 42,000 distance education students, with over 3.2 million square feet of facilities and a campus that stretches more than 5,000 acres. During the past five years, Liberty has experienced significant growth; the number of its residential students grew by 33% while its online students grew by a whopping 450%.

With this growth, Liberty needed to focus on its supply chain infrastructure. Its Information Technology and operational management made it their priority to select and deploy a warehouse management system to manage the University’s assets and supplies across its campuses.

“We interviewed several warehouse management vendors, looking for the right combination of features and a system that would easily interface to our Banner Enterprise software, and at a price point that we, as a non-profit organization, could afford. On the recommendation from Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, we also looked at TECSYS. We concluded that, quite frankly, TECSYS was the only vendor we interviewed that showed us a solution that would fit our needs for a price we could pay,” commented John Gauger, Project Manager at Liberty.

Liberty is planning an aggressive integration solution that will automate receiving, put away and shipping/delivery. TECSYS’ WMS will be the hub for interconnecting and distributing data to and from multiple Banner modules, as well as applications that drive work orders, fulfillment, and requisitions. Banner Unified Digital Campus is the world’s most widely-used collegiate administrative suite of student, financial aid, finance, human resources, and advancement systems designed to support institutions of all sizes and types.

“Liberty University is pleased to choose TECSYS as our warehouse management solution vendor. TECSYS’ WMS is a perfect fit for our institution due to its high level of flexibility and ease of integration with our academic ERP. We look forward to a successful implementation and a long relationship with TECSYS,” Gauger concluded.

About Liberty University

Liberty University is the world’s largest Christian university. Founded in 1971 by Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr., Liberty started with his vision to train young Champions for Christ. Liberty University is now the largest private university in Virginia, offering more than 60 accredited programs of study to over 12,000 residential students and over 42,000 distance learning students with a campus that stretches more than 5,000 acres and over 3.2 million square feet of facilities.

About TECSYS

TECSYS is a leading supply chain management software provider that delivers powerful enterprise distribution, warehouse and transportation logistics software solutions. The company’s customers include over 500 mid-size and Fortune 1000 corporations in healthcare, heavy equipment, third-party logistics, and general wholesale high-volume distribution industries. TECSYS’ shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS.

Developed with the goal of providing benefits to all key stakeholders – companies using Exact solutions, the channel partner, and Exact – the NexGen channel program expands the solution portfolio available to customers represented by a new or existing channel partner and provides the communication and strong support platform each partner needs to thrive selling and supporting Exact solutions.

“The channel is a key part of our growth plans for this year and beyond, so we are extremely excited to announce this new program,” said Mitch Alcon, President of Exact Americas. “By providing our partners with the support they need to win with our business solutions, we demonstrate our commitment to ensuring every company deploying our software receives the implementation, support, and consulting services they need to be successful.”

Exact is both modernizing the channel program for existing partners and introducing the right mix of opportunities and deliverables to attract new channel partners. “Our strategy is twofold,” explained Frank Grogan, Director of Channel Sales for Exact Americas. “First, design a new channel program that gives our existing long-term channel partners the tools to be highly competitive and successful in today’s marketplace. Second, offer a compelling program for potential new partners with all the benefits they’d expect to be successful.”

Sales support assistance from Exact‘s channel team, as well as a new channel enablement program, will benefit both existing and new partners rapidly adopting Exact Globe, Synergy and MAX solutions.
Exact Invites the Channel to Engage 2010

Engage, Exact’s annual user conference, is an opportunity for all Exact users to learn more about their Exact solution and extend their own professional network. Full participation from every channel partner and its customer base is critical to the overall success of the conference. Channel partners are always encouraged to attend, so NexGen program members will receive two free passes to each conference with the ability to earn more based on the registrations received from their customer base. Visit www.exact.com/engage-us for additional information about Engage.

The program should have particular appeal to channel businesses that are struggling to reverse steadily declining revenue streams due to sagging demand for old legacy on-premise systems such as those offered by Microsoft, SAP and Sage. For more information about the NetSuite SP100 Program, please visit www.netsuite.com/sp100.

The NetSuite SP100 Program breaks the mold of traditional on-premise revenue sharing. For qualified new customer transactions of 24 months or more, NetSuite SP100 partners realize the entire year-one software subscription revenue, enabling them to quickly recoup costs of sale and jump-start their first half of the 2010 revenue. Under the NetSuite SP100 Program, partners also enjoy 10% margin on all renewals, establishing a recurring revenue stream that can be quite lucrative as the partners’ NetSuite business grows.

“With this new program, NetSuite takes dead aim at the partner networks established by competitors including Microsoft, Sage, and SAP, who have been irresponsibly slow to innovate new applications that take advantage of cloud economics and productivity,” said Zach Nelson, NetSuite CEO. “The market for cloud computing is surging, but the ERP dinosaurs have nothing to offer their loyal partners. NetSuite is here to protect their futures.”

“NetSuite reinvigorated our business,” said Simon Whittle, The AIS Group, longtime Microsoft Dynamics VAR and new NetSuite Solution Provider. “After a tough year, NetSuite has given us new drive and excitement and a really good kick in the pants. This year we expect NetSuite to account for 50% of our new customer wins. We are positively looking forward to this year and beyond.”

The NetSuite SP100 Program includes many of the key advantages previously available to channel partners, including commissions paid on customer collections. Most NetSuite customers prepay for service anywhere from one to three years in advance, meaning the revenue split for the entire period is available to partners as soon as it is paid. And NetSuite remains the only top-tier cloud computing ERP suite provider who pays channel partners for customer renewals, not just new sales.

“If you ask many VARs how their business has changed over the last 10 years, most will say it’s pretty much the same, just tougher. Yet buyer behavior has definitely changed with, most recently, a strong move towards cloud computing,” said Brian Sommer, President, TechVentive, a leading industry analyst and advisory firm. “Programs like NetSuite’s SP100 should serve as a wake-up call for VARs because it’s not a question of IF they should add cloud computing solutions to their portfolio, it’s WHEN.”

Pioneering the Channel for Cloud Computing
With a ten-year lead over many traditional software companies only now beginning to understand the power, convenience, flexibility, and security of cloud computing solutions, NetSuite seeks to become the new gold standard for VARs and solution providers seeking sustainable growth and opportunities. NetSuite’s aggressive new channel compensation plan is just the latest in a long line of milestones for the leader in cloud computing business management suites. Since establishing its first channel program in 2002, NetSuite was the first and is one of the few cloud software vendors today to offer the cloud-based channel program to pay its partners margin on renewals for the life of the customer relationship.

In addition to its leading cloud business management suite, NetSuite also offers partners the many benefits of the SuiteCloud Development Program and network of ISVs who are developing a new generation of vertically-focused cloud business applications that extend the value of NetSuite. The SuiteCloud platform and SuiteFlex and SuiteScript languages provide solution developers with standards-based conduits for customizations and new functionality. The NetSuite platform can be adapted to a host of new verticals, without committing to the upkeep and maintenance of a custom enterprise IT environment. NetSuite frees solution developers to focus on process improvements and customer-specific functionality, instead of database synchronization and middleware.

NetSuite Cracks Gartner Top 10 for ERP Vendors
Gartner Dataquest recently released figures showing that NetSuite has joined the ranks of North America’s top ten ERP vendors by revenue. Strategic advisory service ISM Inc. recognized NetSuite and NetSuite CRM with a Top 15 CRM Small & Medium Business Software Award for 2009. Customer Interaction Solutions magazine named NetSuite CRM as a recipient of a 2009 CRM Excellence Award. Most recently, British businesses named NetSuite the top Enterprise Accounting Software vendor in Sift Media’s Software Satisfaction Awards 2009. These awards validate and reinforce NetSuite’s mounting importance to companies of all sizes looking for a powerful, integrated enterprise management solution.

For more information about NetSuite Inc., please visit www.netsuite.com

Yet this year, Valentine’s Day brought me a nice surprise. It wasn’t two-dozen red roses or an elaborate night on the town. It was the simple gesture of a heartfelt card and a homemade dinner. This Valentines, it was the small things that really made the day special.

Not only in love, but also in company communications, the small things can have the biggest impact. As a change management consultant for Panorama Consulting Group, our team has recently been spending a great deal of time facilitating inter-project and inter-company communications for a client. From milestone announcement emails to a dedicated project web-page, one pattern seems to keep emerging. It’s often the small things that create the biggest response and have the greatest impact on communication effectiveness.

Example 1: Last week we put together project update bulletin boards. Although I felt like I was in kindergarten creating these colorful collages of information, the small effort really paid off. In the short week they have been posted, we heard more comments and questions, and were able to respond to many on the spot.

Example 2: When inter-project communication needed a boost, we decided to start using an existing calendar within the companies’ SharePoint site. In days, the calendar starting filling up with useful project information. As a result, people were brought in the loop in a manner that streamlined quality communications and decreased the quantity of emails. It was really awesome to see an existing tool become a powerful communication solution.

The two examples above took less than a day to create and train users on, yet they have been some of the most effective communication mechanisms thus far in the project. In the end, it really goes to show, it’s the small things that can make the difference, in love and at work.

Blog entry written by Jacqueline Gardner, Senior ERP Consultant at Panorama Consulting Group.

Along with its growing portfolio of acquired companies offering innovative products from healthcare and highway safety to office products and abrasives and adhesives, 3M has inherited these companies’ business software installations, which currently run distinct processes from the shop floor, to the supply chain, to sales and reporting. The company is now unifying its IT landscape on SAP Business Suite to orchestrate business processes in an integrated operating model and gain clearer insight across its global operations.

“Providing innovative solutions to our customers around the world is our top priority, so we undertook a thorough evaluation to determine the best-suited business software that could further improve customer intimacy, service delivery and power each of our divisions and regions of operations with industry best practices,” said Ernie Park, vice president and chief information officer, 3M. “SAP business solutions will play an important enabling role in unifying core processes globally and supporting our ongoing strategy of meeting customer needs wherever they are. We expect the SAP deployment to provide significant value to 3M in the coming years.”

To help ensure business continuity, 3M is taking a phased approach to its deployment of SAP Business Suite 7. The company is taking an economical approach, shaping its long-term IT plans over time as its needs and the needs of its customers evolve. First implementations are already under way in Europe and Asia Pacific. In Europe, 3M is in the process of implementing a new demand forecasting and supply planning system leveraging the SAP® Advanced Planning & Optimization component. In the Asia-Pacific region, the company is planning to replace most of its legacy applications with SAP® ERP over the next several years. Once the proof of concept is successfully validated, additional rollouts will ensue to other geographies.

Business intelligence (BI) software from SAP will play a key role in the global deployment, enabling 3M’s management to access accurate and timely data on business performance across its divisions to support informed decision making. The SAP software agreement enables 3M to integrate the best practices it has gained with its existing BI deployments from the SAP® BusinessObjects™ portfolio in the United States and in other regions into the global rollout template.

With its lines of business operating in diverse industries, 3M aims to benefit from the industry innovation and the integrated applications delivered by SAP Business Suite 7. As new features to SAP Business Suite applications are added on via enhancement packages, 3M can continually adapt processes already adopted in the global process template without the business disruption typically associated with complete system upgrades.

“SAP and 3M share a commitment to innovation, not only in terms of our technologies but also in the way our businesses evolve to better serve customer needs,” said Robert Enslin, president, SAP North America. “The agreement with 3M underlines our ability to welcome new global companies to our installed base as they are look to address their current business issues and long-term objectives.”

About SAP Business Suite
SAP® Business Suite software enables enterprises to execute and optimize their business and IT strategies. SAP Business Suite gives organizations the unique ability to perform their essential industry-specific and business support processes with modular software that is designed to work with other SAP and non-SAP software. Organizations and departments in all industries can deploy SAP Business Suite software in a step-wise manner to address specific business challenges on their own timelines and without costly upgrades. SAP Business Suite provides better insight and visibility across organizations, improves operational efficiency and effectiveness, and increases the flexibility to address business change.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 95,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

A new vision has arrived; TECSYS’ Visual Logistics for healthcare founded on advanced technology that delivers visual instructions to workers on their hand held computer. With TECSYS’ Visual Logistics, workers and clinical professionals are able to leverage critical information to make faster decisions and accelerate their workflows. It also enables them to execute tasks more accurately; enhancing the safety and quality of their work and enables them to deliver more with less effort.

“In an industry such as healthcare where regulatory compliance is extremely stringent, operations are demanding, standards are high and products and supplies must be absolutely positively delivered to the right people at the right time, Visual Logistics represents the most innovative technology to the healthcare supply chain. Visual Logistics significantly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of product delivery and service to the highest levels known to date,” stated Robert Colosino, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, TECSYS Inc.

With TECSYS’ Visual Logistics for healthcare, workers and clinical staff are able to do the job quicker with increased accuracy and confidence, such as:

• Unmistakably identify pharmaceutical products, med-surge components, surgical tools and hygienic supplies.
• Instantaneously locate aisles, boxes, totes, pharmaceutical cabinets, products or parts.
• Recognize safe limits, hazardous material, compliance labels, and much more clearly identify lot numbers and expiry dates.
• Improve management of product allocations and physical inventory.
• Reduce user fatigue and fatal errors in monotonous repeat logistics activities.
• Learn on-the-go how to perform tasks, assemble surgical kits and/or package sensitive products and material.
• Reduce cost. Handle more with less.
• Improve service to customers and patients. Increase level of customer satisfaction.

TECSYS’ Visual Logistics Paradigm

The fundamental business case for Visual Logistics is based on the ability to increase throughput, eliminate errors and increase reliability. The more products that can be picked, packed and shipped accurately and in the least amount of time will definitely equate in lower labor cost and improved bottom line for healthcare distribution operations. Having accurate, relevant information immediately accessible and understandable by workers delivers better results and enables them to act promptly, make faster decisions and complete logistics cycles much faster.

TECSYS in Healthcare

For over a decade, TECSYS has been providing distribution and warehouse management solutions to the healthcare industry; these include Fortune 100 manufacturers and distributors, as well as a number of IDNs and third party logistics providers in Canada and the United States. The Company’s product suite for healthcare effectively streamlines business processes that cut across functional areas and consolidates fragmented operations, often replacing multiple legacy systems. As an integrated suite of applications, TECSYS’ software speeds up the flow of business activity across the enterprise, consolidates information, manages inventory, drives dramatic cost savings, and delivers superior customer service.
About TECSYS

TECSYS is a leading supply chain management software provider that delivers powerful enterprise distribution, warehouse and transportation logistics software solutions. The company’s customers include over 500 mid-size and Fortune 1000 corporations in healthcare, heavy equipment, third-party logistics, and general wholesale high-volume distribution industries. TECSYS’ shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS.

Cancer Treatment Centers of America offers a fully integrated care model that combines the best traditional medical care to treat the cancer with scientifically supported complementary therapies to help manage side effects, strengthen the immune system, and improve each patient’s quality of life. CTCA serves patients and their families at hospitals in suburban Chicago, Philadelphia, Tulsa and suburban Phoenix.

Given the organization’s steady growth, CTCA sought a more unified enterprise software system that would help address core business processes, from financial management to procurement, while providing greater insight and visibility into key business data. CTCA implemented the Lawson system across its four hospitals and headquarters in Schaumburg, Ill., and has experienced greater efficiencies through centralized procurement processes since implementation.

CTCA created individual teams focusing on accounts payable, materials management, reporting and finance across its facilities during the implementation to help promote training and user adoption of the Lawson system. CTCA is seeing ongoing improvements in efficiency as its staff continues to become more comfortable with the applications.

“Having software systems that help us unify and simplify many complex business processes reduces administrative time, which ultimately helps us reduce costs,” said Chris Cashell, director of administrative applications for CTCA. “We partnered with Lawson to deliver a system that helps us improve efficiency of our business operations and allows us to continue our focus on delivering high-quality care for the patients we serve.”

“Cancer Treatment Centers of America is a leading provider in care – and hope – for so many patients combating a devastating disease,” said Jim Catalino, general manager for Lawson Healthcare. “Our applications are well suited to help CTCA better meet its patient care and business objectives – while providing a unified business systems platform.”

About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,500 customers in equipment service management and rental, fashion, food & beverage, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution, public sector (United States), service industries, and strategic human capital management across 40 countries. Lawson Software is a global provider of enterprise software, services and support to customers primarily in three sectors: services, trade and manufacturing/distribution. Lawson’s solutions include Enterprise Performance Management, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Enterprise Asset Management and industry-tailored applications. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance. Lawson is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and has offices around the world. Visit Lawson online at www.lawson.com. For Lawson’s listing on the First North exchange in Sweden, Remium AB is acting as the Certified Adviser.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in uncertainties in the software industry; uncertainties as to when and whether the conditions for the recognition of deferred revenue will be satisfied; increased competition; general economic conditions; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; continuation of the global credit crisis; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks; pandemics, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company’s targeted industries and other risk factors listed in the company’s most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release.

News Facts

• Land O’Lakes, Inc., a $12 billion national, farmer-owned food and agricultural company, partnered with Deloitte to successfully implement Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne in support of its Dairy Foods businesses and corporate financial function.
• The scope of the effort included financial management, procurement, production and deployment planning, order management, manufacturing, warehouse management, quality management and plant maintenance. The project also provided for near real-time integration with Oracle® Transportation Management and Oracle’s Hyperion performance management applications.
• With Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Land O’Lakes standardized and streamlined business practices, replaced core legacy systems and simplified its IT portfolio.

Phased Rollout Delivers Results

• Accounting for about $4 billion of total revenue, Land O’Lakes Dairy Foods businesses provide butter, cheese and powder products to customers in the retail, foodservice and industrial food manufacturing sectors.
• To minimize business disruption and manage implementation risk, the company used a phased deployment over three and a half years that initially focused on cheese manufacturing. The initial phase also included corporate financial management. Phase two addressed butter manufacturing and phase three, the industrial business.
• The project was completed on time and on budget. It supports 2,770 users across the corporate campus, 12 plants, 40 third-party warehouses and 23 co-pack locations.
• The project achieved the benefit target return on investment of between 25 percent and 30 percent.
• Land O’Lakes first invested in Oracle in 1993.

Supporting Quotes

• “After multiple acquisitions, the Land O’Lakes Dairy Foods business found itself with disparate legacy systems and groups within the division were operating independently,” said Mark Thome, Vice President of Business Transformation and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). “Because of the complexity inherent in a single business unit that contains separate consumer retail, foodservice and industrial businesses, we knew migrating to a single unified ERP solution would be a major undertaking.
• “Working with Oracle and Deloitte, we have been able to create one standardized instance that has helped this business run as a whole,” continued Thome. “Oracle in particular has made a significant commitment to our success and we have been able to create a more effective and complete business solution with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. This project has enabled us to simplify our portfolio, strengthen our core set of organizational competencies, and lower support costs.”

Supporting Resources

• Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
• Oracle Transportation Management
• Oracle Hyperion
• JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Appcasts

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

News Facts

• Today at the pre-eminent healthcare information technology conference, Oracle introduced an enterprise healthcare analytics solution that helps providers create a detailed, holistic and integrated view of their enterprise.
• The solution integrates data from electronic medical records, clinical departmental systems, patient accounting, ERP, research, and other source systems to help providers rapidly and cost effectively unlock value from their clinical and operational data.
• Oracle’s enterprise healthcare analytics solution provides a foundation upon which providers can use pre-built business intelligence, analytic, data mining, and performance management applications from Oracle and its partners.
• Oracle® Healthcare Data Warehouse Foundation is a comprehensive, detailed data model specifically engineered for provider enterprise data warehousing that includes an expanding list of more than 1,000 entities and 12,000 attributes spanning the clinical, financial, operational, and research domains.
• The Oracle Healthcare Data Warehouse Foundation is designed for ease of use for analytic application developers and can be easily extended to accommodate a provider’s unique environment.
• Oracle® Operating Room Analytics is an analytic and performance management application that gives surgical services directors and surgical, anesthesia, and nursing leaders an enterprise view of operating room efficiency.
• This includes analysis of the case volumes, utilization rates, turnover times, as well as more than 200 pre-built operational efficiency measures, all of which can be easily customized and extended as new metrics are created.
• An ecosystem of healthcare partners is already emerging that is expected to provide analytic applications built on Oracle’s enterprise healthcare analytics foundation. This includes:
• Anthem Healthcare Intelligence for revenue cycle, service line, cost allocation, and productivity
• Outcome Sciences for quality reporting and patient registries
• Quantros for quality reporting, accreditation & compliance, and safety and risk management
• VigiLanz for infection control, pharmacovigilance and practice guidance

Oracle’s Rapidly Expanding Suite of Business Intelligence Solutions Offers Healthcare Providers Key Benefits

• A product approach – maturing healthcare sector moving away from customized, one-off solutions to more cost effective packaged options
• Provider-specific data model – stable foundation for enterprise data warehouse allows providers to benefit from third-party data integration tools and analytic applications that help reduce time-to-value and overall cost
• Optimized for ease of use – intuitive, well documented model lowers the cost, time and risk associated with custom development
• Greater flexibility – model is able to accommodate customization if needed to meet providers’ individual needs

Supporting Quotes

• “Healthcare providers have long struggled with effectively measuring clinical quality, operational efficiency and financial performance in a timely and actionable manner,” said Neil de Crescenzo, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Health Sciences. “Oracle’s enterprise healthcare analytics is designed specifically for healthcare providers to help them unlock the value of electronic health information to enable quality performance and clinical excellence, to drive departmental and operational efficiencies, and accelerate innovation to the point of care.”
• “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s HITECH provisions for meaningful use are illustrating the critical need for a thoughtful, detailed approach to integrating the healthcare enterprise,” said Ivo Nelson, Founder and Chairman, Encore Health Resources. “Health systems in the future will differentiate themselves based on their ability to integrate and use complex information from across the enterprise to drive change into their care and operational processes.”
• “It is critical for healthcare providers to have key business information such as daily volumes, financial indicators, productivity variances, service line metrics, and revenue cycle performance at their fingertips,” said Roy Mathews, CEO, Anthem Healthcare Intelligence. “However, enterprise performance dashboards become meaningful only when founded on a credible, comprehensive data warehouse. Because it is designed specifically for healthcare providers, we see tremendous value in Oracle’s new enterprise healthcare analytics and its ability to help providers vastly improve their overall productivity and improve quality of care.”
• “Having an integrated view across the provider enterprise is extremely important for organizations looking to meet emerging requirements for quality reporting and meaningful use as well as to effectively participate in a growing number of registries and post-approval research activities,” said Richard Gliklich, M.D., President & CEO, Outcome Sciences. “We believe that Oracle’s enterprise healthcare analytics will enable providers to create linkages between financial, operational and clinical processes that will ultimately make them more effective in measuring quality, efficiency and performance in a meaningful way.”
• “Data aggregation infrastructure capabilities as outlined by Oracle are pivotal to advancing access to actionable knowledge for improving patient safety, quality of care, compliance and for furthering ARRA goals for meaningful use of data in these domains,” said Sanjaya Kumar, M.D., President and CEO, Quantros. “We see the relationship with Oracle and its new enterprise healthcare analytics infrastructure as key for rapidly integrating and empowering healthcare providers with the decision support tools and clinical business intelligence analytics required to identify, enact and continuously monitor the impact of interventions.”
• “Once considered a luxury that few hospitals could afford, real-time patient safety monitoring is making it possible to detect adverse events, optimize outcomes and automatically send warning alerts to clinicians as they occur,” said David Goldsteen, M.D., Chairman & CEO, VigiLanz. “We expect Oracle’s new enterprise healthcare analytics to play a significant role in helping us further our mission to empower clinicians with timely information that helps optimize patient care.”

Supporting Resources

• Oracle in Health Sciences
• Webinar: Enterprise Healthcare Analytics – Measuring the Provider Enterprise Through the Secondary Use of Health Data
• Follow Oracle Health Sciences on Twitter
• Become an Oracle Health Sciences Fan on Facebook

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, visit oracle.com

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

“Customers have made it clear that they expect more from their software vendor than solutions that do not grow with their business and must be ripped out and replaced through a prolonged, expensive and risky implementation,” said Dennis Michalis, corporate senior vice president, Infor. “The success of the Infor Flex Program highlights our unique approach to software upgrades that provides transparency up front, mitigating the risk of an implementation that runs over on time or budget.”

Infor Flex enables qualifying customers with active maintenance contracts to upgrade from an existing Infor solution to the latest version of that software or to exchange an Infor solution to a more robust system which may take advantage of innovations through Infor’s Open SOA technology. Infor Open SOA, a unique, event-driven service-oriented architecture (SOA) leverages an industry standard business language to distribute data between certain Infor solutions and other systems, and provides a standards-based approach for non-disruptive integration of both Infor and non-Infor systems and data sources.

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc., a customer of Infor ERP SyteLine since 1997, is using the Infor Flex program to upgrade from version 6.0 to version 8.0. In addition, the Warrendale, Pa. based company is implementing Infor EAM, Infor PM 10 and Infor Expense Management, which will integrate into ERP SyteLine through Infor Open SOA, providing users immediate access to critical information aggregated throughout multiple systems.

“Software systems that collect data are useful, but to drive our business operations to the next level we needed to upgrade to a system that provides users with access to information that enables them to make informed, real-time decisions,” said Joseph Marcoz, IT director, Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. “Implementing a new ERP system across our 8 divisions is a daunting task, but Infor Flex is simplifying the process by providing a fixed cost and implementation period as well as a proven methodology that will minimize our downtime and enable us to quickly be up and running on a system that meets our needs now and into the future.”

In addition to supplementary modules and complementary applications, Infor Open SOA enables customers to deploy new components, which provide innovative functionality across multiple solutions. Such components from Infor will aggregate data across various aspects of the business and improve operations in the areas of business intelligence, accounting and strategic planning. Many of these future components will be included with an active maintenance contract, while others require the payment of a license fee. Such components will be delivered non-disruptively through Infor Open SOA, providing customers an additional benefit to participation in the Infor Flex Program.

“We recognized a need for a more robust system to manage our nationwide lighting inventory to continue to provide the world-class service that our customers have come to expect from E. Sam Jones,” said Julian Richard, CIO, E. Sam Jones Distributor, Inc. “The opportunity to upgrade our Infor ERP SX.enterprise system though the Flex program meant that we could be live and taking advantage of the solutions’ functionality in only six weeks – and that was an offer too good to refuse.”
According to industry analyst firm, AMR, implementing new ERP systems typically cost millions of dollars and can take two to three years before implementation is complete. “Many companies are struggling with older business systems that no longer meet their needs. Simply waiting until funding and resources are available for a new ERP system may damage morale and leave the company with inefficient business processes and inadequate information access,” AMR states in its 2009 report, “Should You Rehabilitate Your Current ERP System Rather Than Buy a New One?”

Additional Resources

• Infor Flex Web site – http://www.infor.com/flex/
• Blog: Dennis Michalis and MEPPI – http://blogs.infor.com/insights/

Infor’s Manifesto: At Infor, we work with a core belief. We believe in the customer. We believe that the customer is seeking a better, more collaborative relationship with its business software provider. And a new breed of business software: created for evolution, not revolution. Software that’s simple to buy, easy to deploy and convenient to manage. Our 8,000+ employees in more than 100 countries and 70,000 customers stand with us. We look forward to your sharing in the results of our belief. There is a better way. For additional information, visit www.infor.com.

Companies typically spend 15-20% of their software license fees on maintenance and support each year. In fact, according to a recent survey on our web-site, 69% of companies spend at least 15% per year for ERP support and maintenance (view the current ERP poll results). On the other hand, 8% indicate that they are no longer paying support for their systems. Given the 10- to 15-year average lifespan of ERP investments, license costs are often eclipsed by maintenance costs in the long-term. So it’s understandable that companies would want to reduce these costs.

However, there are some risks to consider before canceling your ERP software maintenance contract. Here are three reasons to think carefully before canceling your ERP maintenance contract:

1. Inability to upgrade your software. Once you cancel your maintenance contract, your organization will generally be ineligible for automatic upgrades. ERP vendors spend significant sums of money on R&D to improve their software functionality incorporating best practices from their client bases, so there may be opportunity costs and lost business benefits associated with canceling your maintenance.
2. Business operations become frozen in time. Because upgrades and support stop when the maintenance contract is canceled, it becomes very unlikely that you will change the system to keep up with the evolution of your organization. As a result, your business needs are likely to become misaligned with the functionality of the software. This misalignment may accelerate the need to completely replace your ERP system, which can be more costly than the savings from reducing annual maintenance.
3. Proliferation of workarounds outside the system. Because of the first two reasons, users are more likely to become frustrated with the system and start adopting their own business processes and workarounds outside the ERP system. This will generally decrease user satisfaction with the system and undermine business benefits. Companies generally make significant investments in enterprise software implementations to take steps forward, so regressing backwards can damage your overall return on investment.

However, this is not to say that companies should blindly pay high costs for annual maintenance. These annual contracts are a high-profit area for ERP vendors, so these costs and terms should be negotiated accordingly. In addition, it is important to negotiate service level agreements (SLAs) to hold your ERP vendor accountable for the duration of the contract. Both negotiation tactics should be incorporated into your ERP selection process.

What do you think? Take one of our weekly polls on the topic or view the results regarding ERP software maintenance.
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EnterpriseIQ 7.7, which continues IQMS’ tradition of helping manufacturing organizations stay lean, agile and competitive, utilizes the popular Web 2.0 IQMS Community Server collaboration portal as the main catalyst for development changes. Community Server allows all IQMS customers to contribute their development ideas and to comment on ideas of others to help drive the system forward. This collaborative method streamlines the development process and allows IQMS to deliver customer-driven changes more quickly.

“Manufacturing, like so many industries, benefits from collaborative environments that influence the development process. IQMS brings that approach right into its ERP development with the Community Server portal, quickly moving valuable suggestions through our development process,” said Thomas J. Sine III, business systems manager at Comar Inc. “It is great that daily participation from customers all over the globe made a virtual IQMS users group that wholly shaped this new EnterpriseIQ release.”

As IQMS’ first fully collaborative development release, EnterpriseIQ 7.7 features more than 400 enhancements, across all areas of the extended manufacturing ERP package, including Quality Management, SPC, Shop Floor Integration, CRM, Scheduling, Process Costing, Human Resources and more.

Additionally, because EnterpriseIQ doesn’t rely on any third-party applications or integration partners, the upgrade process for IQMS customers is easier and they can realize more quickly the benefits of the improvements. A sample of the enhancements includes:

• New Employee Portal allows employees to easily update information such as address, emergency contact information, dependent and withholding changes.
• Archive Functionality has been broadened to include detailed time segments and specifics.
• Embedded Workflow has enhanced approval and reviewer capabilities for easy modification.
• Expense Tracking Module incorporates employee records, accounting and payroll to quickly process employee expenses.
• Costing Analytics provide greater control over profitability analysis.
• Automatic Email Alerts based on ASQ SPC rules for real-time data collection.
• Advanced Scheduling Process Throughput algorithms with graphical mapping that allow optimization of tote/batch size and move times between unlimited operations.
• Dashboard Library within Smart Page that provides information and metrics by specific business area.

“IQMS continuously develops our EnterpriseIQ ERP solution to stay technologically current and relevant to the manufacturing industry requirements,” said Glenn Nowak, vice president at IQMS. “It is essential for our customers to stay ahead of the curve. With constant and collaborative development, IQMS feels strongly that we enable our customers to do just that.”

Solution Availability

EnterpriseIQ 7.7 is available now. As always, all maintained IQMS customers are eligible to receive the update at no charge.

About IQMS

Since 1989, IQMS has been designing and developing ERP software for the repetitive, process and discrete manufacturing industries. Today, IQMS provides leading real-time manufacturing, accounting, production monitoring, quality control, supply chain, CRM and eBusiness solutions to the automotive, medical, packaging, consumer goods and other manufacturing markets. The innovative, single-source enterprise software solution, EnterpriseIQ offers complete functionality and scalable solutions all in a single database. With offices across North America, Europe and Asia, IQMS serves manufacturers around the world.

• Revenue was $8.8M in Q3, 2010 compared to $9.6M in Q3, 2009; the reduction was primarily due to the weakening of the U.S. Dollar which impacted revenue by $750K.
• Gross margin increased to 44% in Q3, 2010 from 42% in Q3, 2009
• Earnings from operations for Q3, 2010 were $142K compared to $329K in Q3, 2009.
• EBITDA for Q3, 2010 was $458K compared to $480K for Q3 of last fiscal year.
• Net earnings for the third quarter, 2010 were $62K or $0.00 per share compared to $97K or $0.01 per share for the third quarter of last fiscal year. Net earnings for the quarter were achieved after accounting for interest expense of $6K, foreign exchange losses of $27K and a share of net loss and amortization of intangible assets of $47K from a company in which TECSYS has an equity interest.
• Annualized return-on-equity was equal to 1.5% in Q3, 2010 compared to 2.5% in Q3 of last fiscal year.
• At the end of Q3, 2010 annualized recurring revenue in Canadian currency was $13.2M compared to $13.4M at the end of Q3, 2009; this drop is due to currency fluctuations. USD denominated recurring revenue increased by $672K or 12% while CAD denominated recurring revenue was flat. Recurring revenue is principally made-up of annual software maintenance contracts.
• At the end of Q3, 2010, backlog stood at $17.8M compared to $17.9M at the end of Q2, 2010.
• During the quarter, the Company generated $617K cash from operations. Cash, cash equivalents and other short-term investments amounted to $7.5M at the end of Q3, 2010, the same as at the end of Q3, 2009 with no significant long-term debt.

Peter Brereton, President and CEO of TECSYS Inc., commented on the results: “The success of our vertical strategy continues to benefit the business with YTD proprietary product sales being up 11% and demand for customization services and third party products being down resulting in higher gross margins and a more scalable business. With more than 50% of our revenue generated in the United States, Q3 was significantly impacted by the weaker U.S. Dollar and by the slower than usual decision making. Prospects and clients are taking extra time in this tight economy to finalize their decisions, but our pipeline is significantly more active than it has been since 2008. Our client base continued to invest in our solutions and services, culminating in a number of new agreements and our services’ organization completed fifteen go-lives during the quarter.”

During the quarter, the Company signed a number of agreements with existing clients and new customers including:

• Three healthcare products distributors
• Three import-to-retail distributors
• One major third party logistics services provider to a major healthcare products manufacturer
• An ecommerce site for tropical retail goods and services
• Five office products distributors
• Eight industrial distributors

Furthermore, TECSYS also deployed its supply chain execution solutions at fifteen customer sites, three of which were in healthcare, five in high-volume distribution for mid to large size clients and seven in the SMB sector.

Year-to-date, fiscal 2010 Highlights include:

• Revenue for the first nine months, 2010 was $27.9M compared to $30.6M for the same period of last fiscal year due to a decrease in hardware sales. However, the Company’s proprietary product revenue in the first nine months, 2010 increased by $479K or 11% compared to the same period in last year.
• Earnings from operations for the first nine months, 2010 were $1,255K compared to $1,366K for the same period in last fiscal year.
• EBITDA for the first nine months, 2010 was $2,032K compared to $2,155K for the same period in 2009.
• Net earnings for the first nine months, 2010 were $916K or $0.07 per share compared to $1,015K or $0.08 per share for the same period of the prior fiscal year. Net earnings for the first nine months were achieved after accounting for net interest expense of $4K, foreign exchange losses of $221K and a share of net loss and amortization of intangible assets of $96K from a company in which TECSYS has an equity interest.
• Annualized return-on-equity was equal to 7.6% in the first nine months of fiscal 2010 compared to 8.7% for the same period in last fiscal year.

TECSYS’ Q3 FY2010 Earnings Conference Call:

Date: February 25, 2009
Time: 4:30 pm
Phone number: 800-926-9761 or 416-981-9007

The call can be replayed by calling 800-558-5253 (access code: 21460321) or 416-626-4100 (access code: 21460321).

About TECSYS

TECSYS is a leading supply chain management software provider that delivers powerful enterprise distribution, warehouse and transportation logistics software solutions. The company’s customers include over 500 mid-size and Fortune 1000 corporations in healthcare, heavy equipment, third-party logistics, and general wholesale high-volume distribution industries. TECSYS’ shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS.

Vertro, which provides millions of home pages and / or toolbars to Internet users, selected NetSuite OneWorld to replace its SAP BusinessOne installation. In the old environment, subsidiary rollup had to be managed by a cumbersome bolt-on interface, data entry for transactions was tedious, and the CRM support was not integrated. Additionally, the accounting package was “client-based” causing the company to incur additional IT staffing, hardware, administrative, and maintenance expense. Now Vertro entrusts its financial operation, including key procure-to-pay and order-to-cash processes, to NetSuite OneWorld.

“SAP BusinessOne wasn’t the right fit for our changing needs,” said Mike Cutler, Vertro CFO. “NetSuite’s power and simplicity sold us. Our financial operations are streamlined, our IT support costs are minimal, the reporting serves both the financial and managerial needs, and our Sarbanes-Oxley compliance becomes much easier. This design is exactly what we need.”

NetSuite OneWorld was designed from the ground up for modern enterprises with wide operating footprints but a lean operating model — perfect for Vertro, which operates in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Spain.
NetSuite enabled Vertro to dramatically simplify order codes and achieve greater financial consolidation under root accounts to make reporting and navigation easier. Since adopting NetSuite, Vertro has benefited from superior customization and control over invoice presentation, improved expense management, and enhanced visibility into the company’s pipeline. “I wish we had NetSuite six years ago,” Cutler said.

Vertro joins the growing list of companies turning away from legacy ERP solutions such as SAP in favor of modern, efficient, environmentally friendly cloud computing from NetSuite. On the strength of technologies such as NetSuite OneWorld and SuiteCloud Connect, NetSuite is recognized as a Top Ten ERP vendor by revenue in North America by Gartner Dataquest, the first pure cloud computing provider to reach that milestone.

For more information about NetSuite Inc., please visit www.netsuite.com.

With more than 260,000 subscribers, on-demand offerings from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio empower people with the tools and information required to drive their businesses forward. Responding to customer feedback, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand brings together all SaaS BI solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio into a complete, integrated BI toolset. Customers will be able to go to one vendor for all their on-premise and on-demand BI needs, rather than having to assemble a patchwork approach to their BI deployments.

The solution will also include capabilities that make it easier than ever for business users to tap into their data online, get better insight into their organization and securely share illustrative reports and dashboards with colleagues inside and outside the firewall. Significant features include:

• SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software, which empowers people with powerful data exploration and visualization capabilities.
• Capabilities that guide people with no prior BI experience through the process of accessing, exploring, visualizing and sharing data – all without needing to switch between applications.
• The ability to access all on-demand and on-premise data – including SAP data and data from the Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) application. People will be able to easily upload data to create dashboards, reports or interactive visualizations.
• An on-demand solution for creating ad-hoc reports, conducting what-if analyses and securely sharing this information inside or outside the company. Business users will be able to provide customers, partners and employees across all lines of business with immediate, anytime access to the most current data.

“GENBAND has been using crystalreports.com for a few years, which allowed us to add reporting functionality to our Salesforce applications,” said Angie Reese, CRM Business Applications manager, GENBAND. “Everything I’ve seen in SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is so easy to navigate. Tools like SAP BusinessObjects Explorer will be a great product to draw a much bigger audience of users. The components of this aren’t as technical as seen with other BI applications. GENBAND is also a big Oracle shop for the back-end and a Salesforce shop on the front-end, so another key benefit of the solution is how easily and quickly it can integrate into our existing IT structure.”

SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand will also include flexible pricing, allowing customers to try and use the product, and easily scale their deployment as necessary. Three editions are planned that range from a comprehensive version with limited storage to one with more advanced capabilities and the ability to handle larger data volumes. This pricing and packaging model allows even casual users to seamlessly move from individual use to departmental-wide deployments. They will be able to build out their SaaS BI system from a complete set of easy-to-use front end tools to add backend capabilities, such as a hosted data warehouse and development environment and single sign-on security.

“Current market trends show strong demand for SaaS BI tools that are easy to use and acquire, and IDC research expects the SaaS BI market to grow three times faster than the overall BI and analytics market over the next five years,” said Dan Vesset, program vice president, Business Analytics, IDC. “As organizations look for intuitive, cloud-based solutions that can empower their end-users, applications that supplement traditional BI functionality of query, reporting and analysis with support for workflow, search and collaboration will become increasingly attractive to them – especially applications that offer rapid, alternative deployment options.”

SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand will be available as industry-specific and line of business-specific solutions through Oco, Inc., an SAP BusinessObjects OEM partner with a focus on large enterprise and upper-midmarket business segments. SAP is currently planning to make SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand available through its SAP® PartnerEdge™ program in the channel partner ecosystem later in 2010.

“As an SAP BusinessObjects partner, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand gives Oco the unique opportunity to bring our cutting-edge analytics to companies in a new, innovative Web 2.0 solution,” said Bill Copacino, CEO, Oco Inc. “By combining Oco’s pre-built industry and line-of-business analytics with SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand, users gain rich content to create compelling dashboards and multi-dimensional reports with detailed, transaction-level data. Having clear insight into a rich store of business information will enable them to identify specific opportunities for improvement, analyze various response scenarios and take decisive action to realize value from their solution.”

“Customers want to work with their data their way – whether it’s behind a firewall, on the Web, or on their local computer in spreadsheets,” said Marge Breya, executive vice president and general manager, Intelligence Platform Group and SAP NetWeaver Solution Management, SAP. “Only SAP can deliver what customers need in this new reality. We understand that user choice is driving the growth of SaaS BI. That’s why solutions like SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand let customers understand their business the way they want – instantly and easily. With access to data at their fingertips, customers can make more confident decisions, share their insights with others and react quickly to any changes in their business. SAP makes BI more pervasive by giving underserved casual users an affordable, easy-to-use on-demand BI solution. This is an important milestone in SAP’s on-demand vision, and further proof that we continue to innovate in the cloud.”

Follow SAP BusinessObjects on Twitter at @businessobjects, and be sure to check out the Needle In A Haystack blog.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 95,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

The computility solution will be integrated into the CDC gomembers enterprise product line and will add new functionality to that platform with an association management software solution featuring integrated web modules and web collaboration tools for Not-For-Profit (NFP) organizations. This solution, used by more than 100 NFP customers throughout the U.S., automates processes including membership, events services, communications and financials.

CDC Software acquired gomembers at the end of 2009 and offers SaaS and on-premise enterprise solutions for Not-For-Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) market. The CDC gomembers platform is at the center of CDC Software’s strategy to acquire complimentary SaaS solutions targeting the NFP and NGO market. CDC Software also offers comprehensive on-premise and SaaS solutions for manufacturing, distribution, and retail industries including eCommerce, enterprise requirements planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM).

“We are extremely excited to complete the acquisition of computility,” said Paul Plaia III, president of CDC gomembers. “It will add additional web functionality to the CDC gomembers solution and we believe it will provide one of the leading on-demand solutions for NFP organizations. We plan to continue acquiring more companies like these as we build scale and expand globally in the key NFP/NGO vertical market. We are also very delighted to welcome the computility customers and professional staff to the CDC Software family.”

According to Bruce Cameron, president of CDC Software, “The computility acquisition fits strategically, as well as meets our disciplined acquisition criteria. CDC Software is committed to expanding our SaaS solutions for NFP/NGO market and our eCommerce offerings in the growing Cloud computing space. Our corporate goal is to grow our recurring SaaS revenue stream, along with sticky maintenance revenue from our on-premise customers, to about 70 percent of our total revenue over next few years. Therefore, we plan to continue to make more investments in the SaaS market to further expand our solution offering in this growing market.”

CDC Software’s software as a service and on-demand expansion strategy is centered around several recent acquisitions: CDC gomembers, a provider of SaaS enterprise solutions for the NFP and NGO market and CDC Truition eCommerce, an on demand e-Commerce platform for retailers and brand manufacturers. These acquisitions, as well as past ones, are also part of CDC Software’s “acquire, integrate, innovate and grow” strategy. This corporate strategy is fueled by its global scalable business and technology infrastructure that includes multiple complementary applications and services, domain expertise in vertical markets, cost effective solution engineering centers in India and China and a worldwide network of direct sales and channel operations. By leveraging this global infrastructure, CDC Software has achieved a successful track record of integrating software companies that typically match a subscale profile and fit synergistically as well as add new functionality within CDC Software’s strategic product roadmap. CDC Software’s business and technology infrastructure also help integrate its acquisitions by driving more cross-sell synergy to its 6,000 customers globally, eliminating redundant expenses, streamlining efficiencies and positioning these businesses for organic growth and profitability.

About CDC Software

CDC Software (NASDAQ: CDCS – News), The Customer-Driven Company™, is a provider of enterprise software applications and a full range of services designed to help organizations deliver a superior customer experience, while increasing efficiencies and profitability. Leveraging a service-oriented architecture (SOA), CDC Software offers multiple delivery options for their solutions including on-premise, hosted, cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) or blended-hybrid deployment offerings. CDC Software’s solutions include enterprise requirements planning (ERP), manufacturing operations management, enterprise manufacturing intelligence, supply chain management (demand management, order management and warehouse and transportation management), e-Commerce, human capital management, customer relationship management (CRM), complaint management and aged care solutions.

CDC Software’s recent acquisitions are part of its “acquire, integrate, innovate and grow” strategy. Fueling the success of this strategy is the company’s global scalable business and technology infrastructure featuring multiple complementary applications and services, domain expertise in vertical markets, cost effective product engineering centers in India and China, a highly collaborative and fast product development process utilizing Agile methodologies, and a worldwide network of direct sales and channel operations. This strategy has helped CDC Software deliver innovative and industry-specific solutions to more than 6,000 customers worldwide within the manufacturing, distribution, transportation, retail, government, real estate, financial services, health care, and not-for-profit industries. For more information, please visit www.cdcsoftware.com.

About CDC Corporation

The CDC family of companies includes CDC Software (NASDAQ: CDCS – News) focused on enterprise software applications and services, CDC Global Services focused on IT consulting services, and outsourced R&D and application development, CDC Games focused on online games, and China.com, Inc. (HKGEM:8006) focused on portals for the greater China markets. For more information about CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA – News), please visit www.cdccorporation.net

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to our expectations for completing these acquisitions and the terms thereof, if at all, our expectations regarding the potential benefits of acquiring these business, including potential synergies, our beliefs about the competitive and market position of these businesses, our beliefs regarding technology and products, and the integration thereof, our expectations regarding our ability to attain future expansion and success with these businesses’ customers and in the NFP/NGO market segment, our beliefs regarding the earnings accretive nature of these transactions, our beliefs regarding Q4 2009 performance and the reasons thereof, our beliefs, regarding our current and future competitive market position, our beliefs regarding the timing and availability for any products developed, our beliefs regarding company’s products, and other statements that are not historical fact, the achievement of which involve risks, uncertainties or assumptions. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties and changes in circumstances. There are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements including, among others: the conditions of the SaaS and NFP/NGO markets, the ability of CDC Software and these businesses’ products to address the business requirements of the market, demand for and market acceptance of these businesses’ technology, as well as: (a) the ability to realize strategic objectives by taking advantage of market opportunities; (b) the ability to make changes in business strategy, development plans and product offerings to respond to the needs of current, new and potential customers, suppliers and strategic partners; (c) the effects of restructurings and rationalization of operations in our companies; (d) the ability to address technological changes and developments including the development and enhancement of products; (e) the ability to develop and market successful products and services; (f) the entry of new competitors and their technological advances; (g) the need to develop, integrate and deploy enterprise software applications to meet customer’s requirements; and (h) the possibility of development or deployment difficulties or delays; If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. Also, the results and benefits experienced by customers and users set forth in this press release may differ from those of other users and customers. Further information on risks or other factors that could cause results to differ is detailed in our filings or submissions with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and those of our ultimate parent company, CDC Corporation, located at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to management as of the date of the press release, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking statements which speak only as of the date of this press release. The company assumes no obligation to update or alter the forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Historical results are not indicative of future performance.

This list was compiled by KM practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors and their customers and colleagues, and is in its tenth year of publication, with the Consona Knowledge Management solution making the list for eight straight years.

“Being recognized by KMWorld again this year shows our dedication to enhancing the customer experience by developing leading service and support automation tools,” said Tom Millay, general manager of Consona’s CRM products. “Offering consistent and accurate knowledge across every channel is difficult to achieve in today’s rapidly changing service and support environment. The technology and depth of KM functionality we deliver, combined with our dedication to integrate it with other mission critical applications, is helping our customers meet and exceed their business goals. This is why we’re counted among the major players in the industry.”

“In today’s knowledge economy, Consona does more than simply throw sophisticated technology at its customers; it provides real solutions through inspired planning and execution throughout the entire constituency chain,” says Hugh McKellar KMWorld editor in chief.

The Consona Knowledge Management solution delivers a resolution workbench for customer-facing agents, a comprehensive support portal for customer self-help, a knowledge repository designed for rapid capture and easy editing, a market-leading adaptive search and navigation system that provides easy access to all relevant content across the enterprise, and real-time analytics dashboards powered by QlikView.

Consona Knowledge Management is also the core component of Consona’s Knowledge Driven Support suite, representing the market’s most tightly-integrated set of case and knowledge management features. The first of its kind, Consona KDS helps enterprise-class service and support operations resolve their customers’ problems efficiently with personalized service by offering consistent knowledge and support processes, across every channel. KCSsm Verified v4 by the Consortium for Service Innovation, Consona KDS is built on smart technology that knows the customer, identifies the problem and provides the resolution in a seamless workflow, all while recording and analyzing every customer interaction along the way via powerful analytics.

Previous 100 Companies are archived online at www.kmworld.com.

About KMWorld:
KMWorld is the leading information provider serving the knowledge, document and content management systems market, KMWorld informs more than 50,000 subscribers about the components and processes – and subsequent success stories – that together offer solutions for improving business performance. KMWorld is a publishing unit of Information Today, Inc. www.kmworld.com

About Consona Corporation:
Consona Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and services for companies of all sizes. Consona is dedicated to becoming a valued business partner by helping each and every customer continuously improve business processes over time. Toward this mission, Consona invests in the people, processes, technology and tools needed to provide its customers with a unique combination of customer care; product fit; a broad range of consulting, IT and business services; and industry expertise. Consona serves more than 4,500 customers worldwide and across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, distribution, financial services, health care, high tech, and local government. Battery Ventures and Thoma Bravo jointly own Consona. For further information, visit www.consona.com, e-mail infoATconsona.com, or call (888) 8 CONSONA.

The American Coatings SHOW, a bi-annual event that brings together top paint and coatings development decision-makers, will offer the latest information about an extensive range of industry products.

As a product designed specifically for paint and coatings manufacturers, DEACOM paint manufacturing software simplifies complex business process issues by seamlessly managing all areas, including formulation, regulatory reporting, QC/QA, inventory control, production, sales order entry, accounting, purchasing, and retail Point-of-Sale (POS) in one, easy-to-use system. DEACOM will be available during show hours to demonstrate how manufacturers can reduce their overall maintenance and IT costs while achieving greater data visibility and integrity.

Deacom has exhibited at the American Coatings SHOW since its inception in 2008. To learn more about the DEACOM ERP Software Solution or to schedule a show demonstration, call 610-971-2278 ext. 15 or visit www.deacom.net.

# # #

About Deacom, Inc.

Headquartered in Wayne, PA, Deacom, Inc. is the producer of DEACOM, a complete accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for building component with difficult-to-handle requirements. The DEACOM System seamlessly links all departments within a manufacturing company, providing a comprehensive view of the entire operation. By making complex issues simple, Deacom helps streamline manufacturing business processes to maximize productivity and profitability.

However, this person had an interesting counter-point. Despite the potential risks and downsides of customization, there are upsides as well. Companies with true competitive advantages in their industry are likely to have one or more key business functions that are not addressed by leading ERP software vendors. The added costs may be immaterial compared to the potential upside, especially for a larger high-volume company. Therefore, customization can become somewhat of a necessary evil.

However, there are a few caveats to this perspective. First, as with any indulgence, customization can be acceptable only in moderation. ERP implementation failures often over-customize to accommodate an endless array of user requests, so it is important to have strong project governance and controls in place to ensure you are only customizing functionality that is absolutely necessary.

Second, don’t let customization be an excuse to choose the wrong software. An effective ERP selection process should weed out the software solutions that are not a good fit for your operational needs, which will minimize your need to customize the software.

Finally, customization should not be a surrogate for leveraging the best-practices embedded in your ERP solution. If the functionality in question is not a core competency or competitive differentiator (think G/L or procurement), then carefully consider the processes that are built into the software. It may be difficult to change your business to fit the software, but it may be the lesser of two evils in such instances.

Just how does customization affect ERP implementation results, such as cost, duration, and overall satisfaction? Read our 2010 ERP Report to learn more about the results of over 1,000 organizations across the globe.

A recent survey of Sage’s small and mid-sized business customers found that 44 percent of them have been negatively affected by the recent minimum wage increase, and 29 percent have been forced to cut staff. In October, national unemployment figures reached the highest rate in over 25 years, and 22% of small businessesii reduced employment during 2009. The resources provided by the Minimum Wage Calculator offer advice and suggestions to help business owners find ways to cut costs without losing valuable talent.

The calculator incorporates state-specific wage rates, and allows the user to define the number of employees, type of employment and hours worked weekly to determine the estimated impact a potential wage increase would have on the company’s bottom line. Depending on the level of impact, the calculator then provides online resources to help business owners offset the added payroll expenses associated with the minimum wage increase. For example, companies can get practical tips and advice on customer focus, process improvements, money management, helpful checklists, and more.

“Small and mid-sized businesses nationwide face tremendous pressure from a variety of sources, including the minimum wage increase announced last year,” said Connie Certusi, General Manager, Small Business Accounting Solutions, Sage. “After talking with our customers and understanding the impact, we’ve developed the Minimum Wage Calculator. It’s another small way Sage supports small and mid-sized businesses, just as we have for nearly 30 years.”

The calculator can be found at www.minimumwagecalculator.com.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs more than 4,100 people and supports nearly 3.1 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,400 people and supports 6.1 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.

©2010 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, Peachtree, Timeslips, ACT!, and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Lawson has made a complimentary copy of the excerpt available for download at http://forms.lawson.com/forms/idc_2010_Integrated_tm.

The report states: “Lawson again emerged as a market leader in this analysis. IDC sees the Lawson approach of enabling access where the individual user works as particularly noteworthy. Bringing the capability to Microsoft Outlook works well for users that are not bound to their desktop devices and sets Lawson up well as UIs become more mobile.”

The IDC Marketscape report evaluated 15 talent management system vendors across 27 criteria, encompassing the vendors’ talent management offering strategy, go-to-market strategy, system capabilities, and business factors such as financing and R&D available. Lawson received high scores for its talent management functionality, global reach, industry sector expertise, and focused investment in its future product roadmap.

“Lawson Talent Management delivers advanced tools that better connect an organization’s workforce needs to its business objectives,” said Larry Dunivan, general manager, Strategic Human Capital Management, Lawson. “Our positioning in this report reflects the benefit of Lawson’s strategy to offer a suite of talent management capabilities in a familiar technology space such as Microsoft Outlook. Lawson Talent Management delivers actionable information about increasingly complex workforce needs that helps our customers gain knowledge and take action in support of business strategies, enterprise-wide.”

Lawson also received a “leader” position in IDC’s December 2008 report, “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Integrated Talent Management 2008 Vendor Analysis2,” by Lisa Rowan.

Lawson Talent Management, part of the Lawson Strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) System, is designed to help organizations strategically manage, develop and retain employees, and improve the ability to identify and develop top talent and emerging leaders. Lawson combines core HCM functionality such as payroll, benefits management, and employee self-service with strategic HCM functionality, including talent management and other advanced capabilities. By identifying and optimizing talent, organizations have tools that help maximize employee effectiveness and efficiency, and drive improved profitability. Lawson recently announced further enhancements and updates of Lawson Talent Management Suite, to support managers and employees in better defining career and learning goals.

More than 1,400 companies use Lawson Human Capital Management applications to manage talent, automate administrative HR processes and help HR staff focus on more strategic, value-added employee initiatives. Lawson Human Capital Management applications provide organizations with the information they need to maximize workforce potential while helping HR leaders contribute to organizational excellence with applications that directly support business operations.

About IDC MarketScape
IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

Delivering expert insights, interaction with peers and the chance to engage Epicor in an open, collaborative environment, the 2010 Epicor User Summits consist of multiple one day events, sponsored by Progress Software Corporation. Users will gain valuable information from Epicor technology and business experts on how to further streamline business operations while increasing effectiveness and preparing to take full advantage of new market opportunities as they appear. Through this exclusive networking opportunity, Epicor will demonstrate new ways to extend business efficiencies in today’s volatile and rapidly changing markets and economies.

The 2010 Epicor User Summits are information-packed sessions that will benefit every department within a company. Whether working in the executive, finance, IT, operations, or sales and marketing department, attendees will discover new ways to improve the bottom line, expand financial insight and control, save time and effort adapting systems to changing environments, streamline operations, and access information from the enterprise to generate more leads and close more sales. Tailored specifically for existing Epicor customers, this year’s user summits will focus on getting more performance and productivity from current Epicor implementations. Real world examples will be highlighted through Epicor customer success stories at each event. An extended networking lunch will provide additional opportunity for customers to exchange experiences, and share solutions and ideas with peers and Epicor experts.

Epicor User Summit Schedule:

• Tuesday, March 2, 2010 — Morristown, New Jersey
• Thursday, March 4, 2010 — Boston, Massachusetts
• Tuesday, March 9, 2010 — Carson, California
• Thursday, March 11, 2010 — Dallas, Texas
• Tuesday, April 20, 2010 — San Jose, California
• Thursday, April 22, 2010 — Seattle, Washington
• Tuesday, May 4, 2010 — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Thursday, May 6, 2010 — Cleveland, Ohio
• Tuesday, May 11, 2010 — Chicago, Illinois
• Thursday, May 13, 2010 — Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Monday, May 17, 2010 — St. Louis, Missouri
• Wednesday, May 19, 2010 — Atlanta, Georgia

“The 2010 Epicor User Summits deliver invaluable information to our customers on further extending the performance and effectiveness of their current Epicor solution, as well as enabling them to explore the potential of their next-generation solution,” said James Norwood, senior vice president of product marketing for Epicor. “These user summits provide an important opportunity for our customers to gain knowledge and experience from companies doing business just like they do. Additionally, customers have the unique opportunity to experience first-hand an exclusive debut of our latest ERP solution, offering extensive new capabilities for customers in the manufacturing, distribution and services industries.”

For more information, visit: www.Epicor.com/Summits. Follow the roadshow on Twitter during and after the summit events by tagging tweets with #EpicSummit.

About Epicor Software Corporation

Epicor Software is a global leader delivering business software solutions to the manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality and services industries. With 20,000 customers in over 150 countries, Epicor provides integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and enterprise retail software solutions that enable companies to drive increased efficiency and improve profitability. Founded in 1984, Epicor takes pride in more than 25 years of technology innovation delivering business solutions that provide the scalability and flexibility businesses need to build competitive advantage. Epicor provides a comprehensive range of services with a single point of accountability that promotes rapid return on investment and low total cost of ownership, whether operating business on a local, regional or global scale. The Company’s worldwide headquarters are located in Irvine, California with offices and affiliates around the world. For more information, visit www.epicor.com.

Epicor is a registered trademark of Epicor Software Corporation. Other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners. The product and service offerings depicted in this document are produced by Epicor Software Corporation.

WPS, which distributes parts and accessories for motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), snowmobiles, and other sporting goods from its warehouses in Boise, Idaho; Fresno, Calif.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Elizabethtown, Pa., has been a VAI customer for over 10 years. After upgrading its S2K for Distribution package in January, WPS is poised to improve customer and vendor relationships with advanced data analytics capabilities, enhanced employee productivity and streamlined warehouse management operations.

Ed Fowles, Senior Project Leader/Trainer, VAI, who was on-site to oversee the implementation of the new software, said, “Western Power Sports, which has quickly grown to become one of the premier power sports suppliers in the country, needed to implement a newer version of VAI’s S2K software to handle the distributors rapidly growing client base. S2K offers streamlined navigation and redesigned screens, which provides increased flexibility, greater information access and a built-in database. I anticipate that these tools will help to improve the performance of each employee as resources are allocated more effectively and response times increase.”

Rody Cummings, IT Director, Western Power Sports, remarked, “We have been a VAI customer for over 10 years and are exceptionally pleased with the firm’s software solutions and excellent customer support. As such, when it came time to upgrade our ERP software, we didn’t need to look any further than VAI. The company’s experienced staff possesses a thorough understanding of the wholesale/distribution industry, which ensured a smooth, well-executed implementation. This S2K upgrade positions WPS for a profitable future.”

S2K Enterprise for Distribution offers customers numerous solutions to help manage supply chains, enterprise resources and customer relationships efficiently and effectively.

About Western Power Sports, Inc.

Western Power Sports is a wholesaler/distributor of power sports parts and accessories with corporate headquarters in Boise, Idaho. WPS distributes over 75,000 products that include motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile, watercraft and bicycle parts and accessories. Currently the third largest wholesale distributor in the U.S., WPS has a strong foothold on the power sports market with warehouses located in Boise, Idaho; Fresno, Calif.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Elizabethtown, Pa., and also has its own clothing line. For more information, visit www.wps-inc.com/wps/WIHOME1.pgm.

About VAI (Vormittag Associates, Inc.)

VAI is an award-winning software developer and an IBM Premier Business Partner. Designed for the mid-range market, S2K Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Suite is used by a wide variety of mid-sized companies worldwide, with a number of clients in the manufacturing, distribution, retail, food and related service industries. Advanced applications such as Warehouse Management Systems, EDI, CRM and e-Business provide companies the power to leverage their information technology investment. VAI is headquartered in Ronkonkoma, New York, with branch offices in Miami, Orlando, Chicago and Oroville, California. For more information, please contact Diane Dady at 800-824-7776, ext. 236 or visit www.vai.net.

While we aggressively monitor ERP benefits with our clients, we are now opening this same question up for websites visitors to weigh in on the subject.  Take a moment to answer our weekly ERP poll and then check back to see how your response aligns with that of the average visitor.

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“Manhattan Associates will play a key role in our continuing IT transformation,” said John Sullivan, executive vice president and chief information officer, QVC. “Streamlining our distribution processes with the Manhattan platform will enable QVC to expand its distribution capacity and reach new fulfillment levels across every selling channel.”

Manhattan’s Warehouse Management and Labor Management solutions are part of the Distribution Management solution suite within the Manhattan SCOPE supply chain process platform, designed to leverage the spectrum of people, tasks and events across the supply chain for the most efficient and accurate performance possible. SCOPE’s modular service-oriented architecture facilitates the creation of cross-suite applications to address specific requirements for the goals of each Manhattan customer.

“QVC is one of the largest and most innovative multimedia retailers in the world and perhaps the best example of the potential of optimized multichannel retailing,” said Pete Sinisgalli, president and chief executive officer, Manhattan Associates. “Manhattan SCOPE solutions are designed to help leading retailers like QVC reach new levels of service to its customers, vendors and partners.”

Receive up-to-date product, customer and partner news directly from Manhattan Associates on Twitter and Facebook. Just visit www.twitter.com/ManhAssocNews to follow our latest news and join the Manhattan Associates Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/ManhattanAssociates.

About QVC, Inc.

QVC, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation attributed to the Liberty Interactive Group (Nasdaq:LINTA), is one of the largest multimedia retailers in the world. QVC is committed to providing its customers with thousands of the most innovative and contemporary beauty, fashion, jewelry and home products. Its programming is distributed to more than 180 million homes worldwide. The company’s Web site, QVC.com, is ranked among the top general merchant Internet sites. With subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, and launching in Italy in 2010, West Chester, Pa.-based QVC has shipped more than a billion packages in its 23-year history. QVC, Q, and the Q Ribbon Logo are registered service marks of ER Marks, Inc.

About Manhattan Associates, Inc.

Manhattan Associates continues to deliver on its 20-year heritage of providing global supply chain excellence to more than 1,200 customers worldwide that consider supply chain optimization core to their strategic market leadership. The company’s supply chain innovations include: Manhattan SCOPE®, a portfolio of software solutions and technology that leverages a Supply Chain Process Platform to help organizations optimize their supply chains from planning through execution; Manhattan SCALE™, a portfolio of distribution management and transportation management solutions built on Microsoft .NET technology; and Manhattan Carrier™, a suite of supply chain solutions specifically addressing the needs of the motor carrier industry. For more information, please visit www.manh.com.

“We are very enthusiastic about our new partnership with Lawson, which will empower us to further support Lawson’s strong offering within the Food & Beverage industry”, said Johan Gotting, CEO at Elvenite. “Throughout the years we have built strong relationship with a number of high profile brands in the Food & Beverage market, like Löfbergs Lila, Kavli, Marine Harvest and Norgesmøllene. We are committed to building long lasting and mutual beneficial relations with our customers.”

“Service partners like Elvenite bring critical experience and deep industry knowledge, which supports Lawson’s commitment to deliver industry specific solutions and increased value to food and beverage companies in Sweden and Norway,” said Dan Jönsson, alliance manager, services partners in Nordic, Baltic, Switzerland, Germany and Austria for Lawson. “We very much welcome Elvenite into our growing Lawson partner network, and see this as another opportunity to deliver a superior customer experience to our customers.”

Oracle’s product suite, which includes eBusiness, JD Edwards, and Peoplesoft, is number two in the ERP market in terms of market share and install base.  In addition to our client experience with Oracle, we also recently compared the product to other leading enterprise software packages as part of our 2008 benchmark study of over 1,300 ERP implementations across the globe.  More recent data from our 2010 ERP Report will be made available in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, some of the findings we discovered from our experience and research include:

• Oracle is installed by 28% of organizations that use an ERP software solution.
• Its product line is evaluated, selected, and implemented in an average of 18.6 months, below the overall average of 20 months for other solutions.
• Oracle implementations have the highest level of predictability of all ERP software vendors in our study.
• The average initial cost to implement Oracle is approximately 25% less than SAP, its primary competitor in the marketplace.  Expressed as a percentage of annual revenue, Oracle’s total cost of ownership is nearly 50% less than SAP.
• Oracle software solutions tied for first in executive satisfaction (76%).

However, in addition to the above strengths, there are two key tradeoffs to consider when evaluating Oracle as a potential option:

• Oracle products are implemented with a total cost of ownership of $12.6 million or 10.6% of annual revenue, both of which are significantly higher than the overall averages of $8.5 million and 9%.
• eBusiness Suite, JD Edwards, and Peoplesoft as an aggregate had the lowest level of employee satisfaction of solutions in our study.

The point is not to suggest that Oracle’s products are better or inferior to other enterprise software solutions, but rather to provide one data point as part of a robust ERP software selection process.  While this provides useful information on the surface, it is also important to consider business requirements that are unique to your business, understand the key functional and technical differentiators, and assess the overall fit with your organizational and operational needs.

Learn more about how Oracle stacks up to other leading ERP software solutions by viewing the below video presentation.

Among companies that have recently implemented enterprise software initiatives, we found that an underwhelming number are at least somewhat satisfied with the end result. According to the study, 32% of executives are dissatisfied with their ERP software. Perhaps not surprisingly, end-users are even more dissatisfied (39%) with their enterprise software solutions.

Because companies invest such large amounts of time and money in their ERP software (as outlined in more detail in the report), it is surprising that there is only a 2 out of 3 chance that they’ll like what they end up with. This data underscores some of the key contributors to ERP software satisfaction:

1. Companies too often pick the wrong software. Many companies in the study underestimate the need for a thorough ERP software selection process. As a result, organizations often choose and implement solutions that are not good fits for their unique business requirements. It is simply not possible to be satisfied with software that doesn’t fit your needs.
2. Executive expectations are often misaligned with ERP implementations. The fact that executives are too often dissatisfied with their enterprise software investments, even though they are typically infrequent users of the system, suggests that their needs are not being met in providing more visibility and transparency to their organizations. Reporting and business intelligence, which are usually afterthoughts delayed until the last weeks of an implementation, often determine executive satisfaction.
3. ERP implementations too often go over budget and miss milestones. When an executive sees that his or her organization has just sunk an average of 6.9% of annual revenue in their ERP software, it better be worth it. Implementations generally take longer and cost more than expected, and executives will only be satisfied when they see clear and tangible paybacks on those investments.
4. Employees are often left behind. Best-in-class enterprise software initiatives include effective organizational change management activities to ensure employees are comfortable, efficient, and productive in the new system. However, companies that neglect this important activity are more likely to have dissatisfied employees. This issue is even more pronounced in today’s climate of layoffs, uncertainty, and declining employee morale.

Companies that effectively address the above areas are more likely to complete their ERP implementations on time and under budget and, more importantly, are also more likely to have satisfied executives and end-users. Read more detail in our 2010 ERP Report.

SAP has had great success reselling Open Text Document Access, Open Text Archiving and Open Text Invoice Management solutions, and the companies announced in October an expansion of the agreement that enables SAP to resell Open Text Extended ECM (see “SAP and Open Text Expand Global Reseller Agreement”). Today’s announcement allows SAP to resell one of the industry’s leading DAM solutions as a part of an overall MRM and IPM solution with emphasis on enterprise marketing departments across every industry, as well as media industry publishing houses, entertainment firms and broadcasters.

DAM Drives Integrated Global Marketing Campaigns
With increased adoption of digital marketing channels, marketers need to develop higher volumes and more sophisticated digital assets that require collaboration with multiple departments, all while reigning in costs and achieving measurable return on marketing investments. Still, many marketing organizations suffer from a lack of standardized processes concerning content asset creation, publishing, maintenance and distribution. These problems can lead to marketing inefficiencies in lost or misplaced assets, having duplicate, or misused assets.

To address these problems, marketers are turning to digital asset management solutions for centralized, global visibility across all marketing assets and usages. This enables them to simultaneously deliver integrated campaigns that span multiple products and regions to ensure consistent communications and branding. Further, organizations are using these tools to create marketing dashboards that monitor program effectiveness in real time.

When used in conjunction with the marketing capabilities of SAP CRM, SAP Digital Asset Management can support the entire marketing process from planning, developing content, execution and results measurement. It offers comprehensive functionality for collecting, managing, finding, using and distributing all types of content. Use cases range from strategic brand management to investor relations and partner collaboration, among many others.

“Many marketing organizations are making an investment shift to digitized marketing channels, thus creating a need for those organizations to develop, manage and distribute higher volumes of digitized content in a more systematic way,” said Susan Popper, senior vice president, Marketing Communications, SAP. “By providing a robust and well-proven DAM solution with the marketing capabilities of SAP CRM, we can help customers deploy a flexible, efficient infrastructure marketers need to achieve more with less, and succeed in the evolving digital media landscape.”

Integrated DAM Drives Competitive Advantage in Media and Entertainment
For media companies, the continued rise of digital content and its distribution channels dramatically increases the need for fully integrated, standardized media and asset management solutions. The SAP Digital Asset Management application allows editors and producers at media companies to more efficiently ingest, log, access, transcode and conform, distribute, reuse, monetize and archive rich media content. When used in conjunction with the SAP® Intellectual Property Management application, SAP Digital Asset Management provides media companies with a seamless process for organizing, collaborating on and tracking digital content to streamline their overall production and distribution processes.

Open Text is a strategic SAP software solution partner for ECM with multiple products that have achieved SAP-certified integration status. The two companies have been working together for over 20 years to help more than 3,000 SAP customers manage enterprise content more efficiently. Open Text is currently the only ECM vendor with a number of ECM solutions resold by SAP.

“There is significant opportunity to help enterprises create more value and drive more influence from their existing content and to lower the costs associated with creating and managing new content,” said James Latham, chief marketing officer, Open Text. “The continued growth of fast-moving digital media and online content make DAM solutions imperative. We are excited to see the continued expansion in our relationship with SAP. This ability to reach, serve and integrate marketing assets with business processes will further accelerate the adoption of DAM among enterprise customers and media companies alike.”

For more information, visit www.opentext.com/dam-for-sap.

About Open Text
Open Text, an enterprise software company and leader in enterprise content management, helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their businesscontent. Open Text brings two decades of expertise supporting 50 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts to help organizations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness. For more information, visit www.opentext.com.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 95,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.” For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Honest Tea chose SYSPRO software in 2007 after an extensive software search. Clark simply states, “SYSPRO fit our needs. We’re going to be a $200 to $250 million company, and we needed software that could handle that volume. SYSPRO does have a great track record, and SYSPRO has room for growth.” He adds that SYSPRO reseller Driscoll and Associates, Inc., was also a key factor in the company’s choice of SYSPRO. “We gave them a lot of questions, and they always came to us with answers and solutions,” he says.

About Honest Tea
Honest Tea, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, makes a variety of ready-to-drink bottled organic teas, thirst quenchers and drinks that are sold in tens of thousands of stores across the US.

In 2008 The Coca-Cola Company acquired a 40 percent interest in Honest Tea, and today Coca Cola and its subsidiaries are both suppliers and customers. In 2010 Honest Tea will be expanding its relationship with Coca Cola, whereby Coke will be manufacturing Honest organic teas in glass bottles out of its plant in Massachusetts.
For more information, go to: www.honesttea.com

About SYSPRO
Since its inception in 1978, SYSPRO has been delivering state-of-the-art business solutions to some of the world’s leading companies. As a global leader in the production of world-class ERP software, the company now caters to the specialized needs of over 14,000 licensed companies in more than 60 countries worldwide. SYSPRO is marketed globally through regional territory distribution centers and a global reseller network in the US, Canada, Africa, Asia Pacific, Australia and the UK.

SYSPRO is a fully integrated business software solution that provides complete control over the planning and management of all facets of business including accounting, manufacturing and distribution operations in a variety of industries.

For additional information on SYSPRO, call Stanley Goodrich at 714/437-1000 or go to www.syspro.com
All company names and products mentioned in this release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

In conjunction with the Lawson M3 10.1 launch, Lawson also introduced Lawson for Fashion, a comprehensive, industry-specific enterprise software solution for fashion companies, connecting business processes from product concept to customer. Lawson M3 10.1 and Lawson for Fashion are generally available as of today. Lawson is introducing the latest M3 solution in 39 countries globally, including five new countries now supported by the M3 solution; Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Argentina and South Africa.

The latest version of the Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System includes numerous enhancements across Lawson’s targeted industries to help make users of the Lawson M3 system even more productive and satisfied. Enhancements include new Lawson Smart Office functionality, designed to help users create a more effective and efficient user environment on their desktop. The new release also includes Lawson Enterprise Search, which brings Internet-like search functions to a user’s Lawson and non-Lawson data, helping to simplify searches for structured and unstructured data across multiple systems.

Lawson M3 10.1 also includes enhanced package management functionality as well as a strengthened Lawson M3 Demand Planner, which helps companies avoid excess production or stock-outs. It also includes new bulk order management to help companies efficiently plan their supply chain resources, which ultimately helps support lean supply chain concepts. Comprehensive catch weight handling functionality will also help improve supply chain efficiency specifically for food and beverage companies.

More details on the latest version of the Lawson M3 system and its other industry-specific enhancements are available at www.lawson.com/101foryou.

“Lawson M3 10.1 really establishes the idea of ‘Lawson for you.’ It’s built around the specific industry business challenges that our customers face every day,” said Henrik Billgren, vice president of M3 Industries and Application Product Management for Lawson. “Talking to our customers ‘Lawson for YOU’ is about YOUR industry, YOUR company, YOUR users – it really focuses on the very specific needs of our customers’ industries. We’re focused on further simplifying the Lawson M3 system to help drive down the total cost of ownership for our customers by bringing new technology, simpler operation and user interaction – and an easier path for upgrades. By doing this, we help our customers realize benefits of their software investments faster, while helping them become stronger organizations.”

Lawson M3 10.1 is designed to help reduce the total cost of ownership for Lawson customers. It helps improve scalability, while offering high availability and improved system management on Windows with support for the Windows 2008 64 Bit/SQL 2008 platform. In addition, the new Lawson Customer Correction Self Service (CCSS) is a fix correction service that helps reduce the complexity, time and skills required to manage the M3 solution over time.

“By focusing on the needs of our customers in the specific industries we serve, we’re able to deliver products that help address business efficiency, user experience and total cost of ownership, specifically focused on our customers’ business needs,” said Billgren. “And by moving our customers to the latest Lawson technology, we’re offering a simpler path to upgrades and future product enhancements – helping to make the ownership experience simpler in the long-term.”

About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,500 customers in equipment service management and rental, fashion, food & beverage, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution, public sector (United States), service industries, and strategic human capital management across 40 countries. Lawson Software is a global provider of enterprise software, services and support to customers primarily in three sectors: services, trade and manufacturing/distribution. Lawson’s solutions include Enterprise Performance Management, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Enterprise Asset Management and industry-tailored applications. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance. Lawson is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and has offices around the world. Visit Lawson online at www.lawson.com. For Lawson’s listing on the First North exchange in Sweden, Remium AB is acting as the Certified Adviser.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in uncertainties in the software industry; uncertainties as to when and whether the conditions for the recognition of deferred revenue will be satisfied; increased competition; general economic conditions; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; continuation of the global credit crisis; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks; pandemics, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company’s targeted industries and other risk factors listed in the company’s most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release.

SuiteFlex’s Powerful Technology Enabled Delivery of Complex ERP Implementation On Time

The complexities of Wireless Matrix’s three distinct lines of business and the retention of several production systems required NetSuite to deliver highly tailored business processes in a short period of time. NetSuite supports the deep and intricate relationships between components and products necessary to Wireless Matrix’s manufacturing floor. Previously Wireless Matrix used an assortment of front- and back-office applications for its business processes, including Made2Manage ERP (by Consona), Salesforce.com, and Remedy. Now, Herndon, VA-based Wireless Matrix relies on NetSuite OneWorld for ERP, sales automation, marketing, manufacturing, work orders and RMAs, inventory, and customer support.

NetSuite Professional Services conducted the Wireless Matrix rollout, ensuring that the company transitioned quickly and effectively to their new working environment, delivering customized support for the company’s intricate manufacturing, fulfillment, and customer service processes. “The NetSuite team was extremely knowledgeable and customer service-oriented, and worked to make sure we were happy with the implementation,” said Maria Izurieta, Wireless Matrix CFO. “They spent a significant amount of time understanding our business so that the end result would meet our needs.”

Founded in 1991, Wireless Matrix delivers wireless data services as well as GPS-based fleet management software solutions to a diverse clientele in the transportation and retail industries. As a rapidly growing organization which completed two major acquisitions in recent years, the company’s operations were largely isolated along three functional lines, and heavily tied to manual and paper-bound processes. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for the publicly-held company was difficult, and Wireless Matrix had difficulty adding new customers without costly increases in headcount.

After vetting over a dozen options, Wireless Matrix selected NetSuite OneWorld, the only comprehensive cloud computing enterprise management solution. NetSuite’s always-available, enterprise-wide scope means that everyone from operational staff to top executives can gain a clear and comprehensive picture of Wireless Matrix’s activities at any time.

With unified processes and a single version of the truth, Wireless Matrix has seen improvements across the board, including faster RMA processing and more accurate reporting and billing. Process controls and accountability make the company’s reporting more authoritative and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance easier to manage. By integrating with Wireless Matrix’s existing manufacturing, provisioning, and customer usage monitoring software using SuiteTalk technology, NetSuite supported the company’s existing world-class business processes while improving corporate-wide visibility. Wireless Matrix has gained cost efficiencies by replacing disconnected systems, improving visibility and agility, and holding the line on payroll even as the company continues to grow.

For more information about NetSuite, please visit www.netsuite.com.

NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are registered service marks of NetSuite Inc.

Proof of Delivery helps to improve fleet productivity, whether in-house or outsourced, by providing complete delivery information such as sites to visit, delivery times and containers to unload (i.e. boxes, pallets, cartons and parcels), and automates data capture with barcode scanning of goods. It also helps to shorten the order-to-cash cycle since it enables immediate and accurate invoicing, which decreases the number of disputed invoices and minimizes credits/chargebacks. The application captures the consignee’s written signature electronically, takes pictures of the condition of the goods (i.e. damaged goods) and transmits them to the central office for review. A built-in GPS receiver also enables the real time tracking of the shipping vehicle and goods for better route management.

CDC Software believes that interest is already building for this innovative new mobile product throughout CDC Supply Chain’s customer base. One leading European building-supply wholesaler/retailer with 250 stores, who is using the CDC Supply Chain Ranger platform for managing their 100 satellite depots, has expressed interest in eventually upgrading to Proof of Delivery.

Based on CDC Supply Chain’s Ranger platform, Proof of Delivery works on any handheld device supporting Windows 6.x, supports common network standards and can also work offline due to a built-in cache mechanism. The web services-based interface enables Proof of Delivery to integrate with CDC Supply Chain and other CDC Software solutions, as well as other enterprise and supply chain systems.

Proof of Delivery is the latest of several recent major product releases in the last few quarters that further validates CDC Software’s delivery of innovative products as part of its acquire, integrate, innovate and grow strategy. The key enabler in the “innovate” component of CDC Software’s corporate strategy is the company’s global technology and business platform that features an infrastructure of multiple complementary applications and services, domain expertise in vertical markets, state-of-the-art product engineering centers in India and China and product engineering’s adoption of the Agile development methodology which promotes high speed-to-market delivery, enhanced quality and exceptionally collaborative product development.

“Proof of Delivery is a mobile application targeting companies that want to have better control of their transportation and customer fulfillment process,” said Alan MacLamroc, chief product and technology officer of CDC Software. “This mobile application helps companies improve their customer service by minimizing handling errors and facilitating timely and accurate deliveries. The solution also helps improve fleet productivity, optimize supply chain visibility, minimize administrative paper work, and shorten the order-to-cash cycle, all of which can positively impact a company’s bottom line.”

“In addition to targeting CDC Supply Chain customers, Proof of Delivery is expected to be cross sold into CDC Software’s Ross and CDC Factory customer base. This latest new innovative product is yet another example of how we believe we are skillfully executing on our acquire, integrate, innovate and grow strategy.”

About CDC Software

CDC Software (NASDAQ: CDCS – News), The Customer-Driven Company™, is a provider of enterprise software applications and a full range of services designed to help organizations deliver a superior customer experience, while increasing efficiencies and profitability. Leveraging a service-oriented architecture (SOA), CDC Software offers multiple delivery options for their solutions such as on-premise, cloud-based or hybrid (blending of the two options) deployment offerings. CDC Software’s solutions include ERP, manufacturing operations management, enterprise manufacturing intelligence, supply chain management, warehouse and transportation management, human capital management, CRM, complaint management, aged care, SaaS and e-Commerce solutions.

CDC Software has made numerous successful acquisitions over the years based on its acquire, integrate, innovate and grow strategy. Fueling the success of this strategy is the company’s global scalable business and technology platform that features an infrastructure of multiple complementary applications and services, domain expertise in vertical markets, cost effective product engineering centers in India and China, a highly collaborative and fast product development process utilizing Agile methodologies, and a worldwide network of direct sales and channel operations. This strategy has helped CDC Software deliver innovative and industry-specific solutions to more than 6,000 customers worldwide within the manufacturing, food and beverage, consumer packaged goods(CPG), financial services, NFP/NGO, health care, aged care, home building, real estate, wholesale and retail distribution industries. For more information, please visit www.cdcsoftware.com.

About CDC Corporation

The CDC family of companies includes CDC Software (NASDAQ: CDCS – News) focused on enterprise software applications and services, CDC Global Services focused on IT consulting services, and outsourced R&D and application development, CDC Games focused on online games, and China.com China.com, Inc. (HKGEM:8006) focused on portals for the greater China markets. For more information about CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA – News), please visit www.cdccorporation.net.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to the new version of the CDC Supply Chain Proof of Delivery and our other products, our beliefs regarding the benefits and utility of Proof of Delivery, our beliefs and expectations regarding the potential effects and benefits for users of our products, including reducing costs in receiving, procurement and administration, improved accuracy and other benefits, our beliefs regarding building interest in Proof of Delivery, our beliefs regarding our corporate strategy and our success in executing on it, and other statements that are not historical fact, the achievement of which involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties and changes in circumstances. There are important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements including, among others: the continued ability of CDC Supply Chain solutions to address supply chain requirements; demand for and market acceptance of new and existing solutions; development of new functionalities which would allow companies to compete more effectively and changes in the type of information required to compete in the companies’ respective industries. Further information on risks or other factors that could cause results to differ is detailed in our filings or submissions with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and those of our ultimate parent company, CDC Corporation, located at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to management as of the date of the press release, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking statements which speak only as of the date of this press release. The company assumes no obligation to update or alter the forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Historical results are not indicative of future performance.

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While the day of go-live may be a huge step in a long battle, it is by no means a final step. It seems that many project teams use the go-live date as their single milestone and key measurement of success. This is a mistake, because going live is just one piece of the distribution software puzzle.

While a solid project plan and good end-user training schedule can mitigate many of the risks that organizations face at the time of cutover, there must be additional reinforcement after the distribution software is in use. An example of this is the “superuser”.

The superuser should be leveraged to provide general support and answer process and system related questions. Immediately after go-live, about 80% of user issues are related to lack of understanding, so a superuser should be the first level of support. Utilizing an organization’s superuser will help limit frustration and increase initial project success.

The need for superusers does not disappear once the organization passes through the initial post go-live period. Employees change roles and turnover occurs, therefore, new employees and reassigned employees will need training. The superuser is a perfect candidate for these ongoing training needs.

Finally, understand that functional use at go-live is only a start to obtaining full ROI. Once the team is comfortable with the new distribution software, it is time to further investigate functional usage and training. Whether you continue to train your superuser or the entire team on more in-depth functionality, ongoing training is a must. Ongoing training and increased functionality usage will go a long way in making sure your organization obtains the maximum benefits from your purchase.

By clearly defining your go-live and on-going support processes as part of your overall distribution software project, you will better leverage your software technology to realize the full scope of business benefits and ROI.

During the event, IFS will also participate in a special meeting for software developers chaired by FIATECH Director Dr. Richard H.R. Jackson. The meeting will provide an opportunity for software developers to discuss common issues that FIATECH, as a community can address, in particular, the ISO 15926 standard.

According to the International Organization for Standardization, ISO 15926 specifies a representation of information associated with engineering, construction and operation of process plants. This representation supports the information requirements in all phases of a plant’s lifecycle and the sharing and integration of information among all parties involved in the plant’s lifecycle.

FIATECH is an association of companies that build large assets such as refineries, power plants, large commercial buildings, or manufacturing facilities. Members of FIATECH also include leading providers of engineering, design, and construction services.

“IFS has a strong focus on providing project-based solutions to capital asset intensive industries such as energy and utilities, oil and gas, aerospace and defense, industrial manufacturing, and engineering and construction,” IFS Global Product Director of Asset Lifecycle Management Christian Klingspor said. “IFS became a member of FIATECH because of their commitment to developing standards and solutions that support the complex requirements of project-based companies.”

“We are delighted that IFS has joined our industry consortium of owners and operators, AEC & EPC contractors, universities, research institutes and solution providers,” FIATECH Director Dr. Richard H.R. Jackson said. “IFS’ strategic focus on project-based solutions aligns well with FIATECH’s charter of identifying and accelerating the development, demonstration and deployment of fully integrated and automated technologies to deliver the highest business value throughout the lifecycle of all types of capital projects.”

About FIATECH
FIATECH is an industry consortium that provides global leadership in identifying and accelerating the development, demonstration and deployment of fully integrated and automated technologies to deliver the highest business value throughout the lifecycle of all types of capital projects.

About IFS
IFS is a public company (OMX STO: IFS) founded in 1983 that develops, supplies, and implements IFS Applications™, a component-based extended ERP suite built on SOA technology. IFS focuses on agile businesses where any of four core processes are strategic: service & asset management, manufacturing, supply chain and projects. The company has 2,000 customers and is present in more than 50 countries with 2,700 employees in total.

SAP, which leads the ERP market in terms of market share and install base, is typically considered one of the three leading ERP solutions.  In addition to our client experience with SAP, we also recently compared the product to other leading enterprise software packages as part of our 2008 benchmark study of over 1,300 ERP implementations across the globe.  More recent data from our 2010 ERP Report will be made available in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, some of the findings we discovered from our experience and research with SAP include:

• SAP is installed by 35% of organizations that use an ERP software solution.
• Its product line is evaluated, selected, and implemented in an average of just under 20 months; very close to the average of other solutions.
• SAP implementations have the lowest level of business risk expressed in terms of companies that experience a material operational disruption at go-live.
• The software has the highest levels of satisfaction and business benefits realized compared to other ERP software vendors.

However, in addition to the above strengths, there are two key tradeoffs to consider when evaluating SAP as a potential option:

• SAP implementation durations have the highest degree of variability of all the solutions in our study.
• The total cost of ownership averages $16.8 million for the initial investment, or 18% of the implementing company’s annual revenue.  Both numbers are significantly higher than other solutions.

The point is not to suggest that SAP is better or inferior to other enterprise software solutions, but rather to provide one data point as part of a robust ERP software selection process.  While this provides useful information on the surface, it is also important to consider business requirements that are unique to your business, understand the key functional and technical differentiators, and assess the overall fit with your organizational and operational needs.

Learn more about how SAP stacks up to other leading ERP software solutions by viewing the below video presentation.

ACT! by Sage is the #1 selling Contact and Customer Manager worldwide with over 2.8 million users. ACT! users can organize all the details of their customer relationships in one place to improve marketing effectiveness, attract new customers, and create more value from existing relationships. Complete sales pipeline visibility helps ACT! users identify and take action on the most qualified sales opportunities. ACT! is easy to use and integrates with existing business solutions including Microsoft® Outlook®, Word, Excel® and Lotus Notes®. For more information call 866-903-0006 or visit www.act.com.

Customers, partners and anyone interested in ACT! can connect and discuss on social networking sites including the ACT! Online Community (http://community.act.com), Facebook (www.act.com/facebook), Twitter™ (www.act.com/twitter), LinkedIn® (www.act.com/linkedin), Plaxo (www.act.com/plaxo), and YouTube™ (www.act.com/youtube).

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs more than 4,100 people and supports 3.1 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,400 people and supports 6.1 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.

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© 2010 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

News ImageEffective, efficient customer support is also of utmost importance to Consona, a priority that has resulted in an excellent satisfaction rate for Intuitive ERP support. Based on customer survey results, 89 percent of Intuitive ERP users were satisfied with their support experience in 2009. Remarkably, compared to the same time period the previous year, case volume decreased 24 percent and the case backlog plummeted 26 percent, marking a significant increase in case resolution.

Consona believes strongly that an educated customer is a satisfied customer. The company’s proactive support through educational resources has proved an extremely valuable tool for customers to learn directly from Intuitive support staff and instructors, as well as from peers who share tips and experiences, through Consona’s vast database of online educational courses and Knowledgebase articles in the searchable Expert network that is accessible at any time.

At present, Consona offers more than 50 classes on the Intuitive ERP solution, which have served more than 8,000 customer downloads. Customer satisfaction for course offerings ranks an outstanding 100 percent, and the Intuitive ERP education team took in more than 500 cases in 2009, also garnering a 100 percent satisfaction rating of the experience. Ever looking to improve flexibility to meet customers’ needs, Consona Education now offers personalized training online, which allows customers to schedule classes to meet their busy schedules on a one-on-one basis.

In addition to these priorities, Consona also stands behind the importance of integrating customer feedback directly into product improvements, as they did in building the upcoming Intuitive ERP version 8.5.

“It is a real source of pride for us at Consona to produce outstanding customer satisfaction numbers like these that speak to what an important tool proactive support can be when customers are offered top-notch resources and capitalize on Intuitive course offerings,” said Todd Schulte, vice president of support and education at Consona. “We go the extra mile to provide a deep network of resources for our customers – with excellent support staff, a network of peer support, online courses, and educational articles – and we really take their feedback to heart so that we can continually update our offerings and stay abreast of evolving needs and improvements. It is clear to us that when we engage them in the processes of proactive training and product feedback, our customers become their own best resource – and ours.”

About Consona Corporation
Consona Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and services for companies of all sizes. Consona is dedicated to becoming a valued business partner by helping each and every customer continuously improve business processes over time. Toward this mission, Consona invests in the people, processes, technology and tools needed to provide its customers with a unique combination of customer care; product fit; a broad range of consulting, IT and business services; and industry expertise. Consona serves more than 4,500 customers worldwide and across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, distribution, financial services, health care, high tech, and local government. Battery Ventures and Thoma Bravo jointly own Consona. For further information, visit www.consona.com, e-mail infoATconsona.com, or call (888) 8 CONSONA.