Projected SSA Global IPO says much about enterprise market's future
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 5/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
Even as Oracle seeks through acquisitions to grow its enterprise applications business to the size of SAP's, less noticed is the horse race going on one tier below, where vendors are looking to quickly grow to a size ranging from $500 million to $1 billion.
Companies in this tier include enterprise vendors SSA Global and Infor, as well as supply chain vendor Manhattan Associates.
"It's hard to imagine surpassing SAP or Oracle anytime soon," says Cory Eaves, CTO with SSA Global, speaking at National Manufacturing Week 2005 in Chicago. "But we are a viable alternative, and will be one of the five or six [second-tier vendors] left standing."
SSA has two major enterprise system product lines: the first, SSA ERP LX, is descended from BPCS out of the former SSA; the second, SSA ERP LN, is descended from the former Baan.
To ensure resources for further growth, SSA is looking to an initial public offering (IPO). "We've pushed to become a growth company," says Eaves. "We need to get back on track with more acquisitions and extensions to our product line. We think of this as a beginning and not an end."
In fiscal year ending July 31, 2004, SSA Global's total revenues were nearly $638 million, of which 25 percent was derived from software license sales.
In addition to the two ERP systems—both built on the IBM WebSphere platform—the company has "add-on" products for corporate, customer, financial, human capital, and product management.
"We have a great relationship with IBM, especially in the wake of the PeopleSoft acquisition," says Eaves, "and there are many companies that run SAP at corporate, but our systems in the plant."
SSA has been working on the IPO for more than 10 months. There has been much speculation as to what its relative success or failure will say about the viability of the enterprise systems market. As of press time, no firm date for the IPO to become effective had been set.
In Brief
01/31/2004A done deal
08/01/2003SSA GT to acquire EXE Technologies
09/01/2003
