Intentia goes to (mid) market, standardized on IBM
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 12/1/2003 12:00:00 AM
IBM not long ago said it would increase support of its independent software developer (ISV) partners' efforts aimed at midmarket companies. Seen at the time as a move to combat Microsoft's thrust into enterprise systems, some first fruits of that work are evidenced in a newly enhanced relationship between IBM and enterprise provider Intentia.
Says Linus Parker, CEO of Intentia America, "IBM is going hand-in-hand with us to market with our joint offerings, including branding and codevelopment. We're defocusing Microsoft and building to the IBM stack."
In announcing that Intentia will standardize its Movex enterprise solution on IBM hardware and middleware, Parker denies, however, that Intentia is moving away from Microsoft technology just because Microsoft Business Solutions, the Microsoft unit that sells enterprise systems, is a competitor.
"It doesn't influence us that much that Microsoft Business Solutions is around. We're concerned with having the best open technology. IBM certainly is more open."
Intentia says the Movex suite is built on Java-based technology unique to the enterprise applications industry. Intentia also will develop an optimized version of Movex for Linux.
Despite reports that ERP penetration in manufacturing may be as high as 70 percent or 80 percent, Parker believes there is still plenty of room for ERP market growth. "We still see a massive market for midmarket ERP. Companies have enterprise systems, but they may be five or 10 years old," he says. "The vendor may not be around any longer. They may have financials from a vendor and have their own homegrown manufacturing system."
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