Tuesday, November 15, 2005

At last - the definitive scorecard!

It's been a labor of love, or perhaps sickness, but the ERP Graveyard Blog is pleased to present the official ERP Graveyard Scoreyard. Now, for the first time in one convenient location, you can track all the carrion that's accumulated in the enterprise software world over the past however-many years.

Conveniently grouped by Tier 1, 2, or 3 - and organized by acquiring entity, this is the essential resource for ERP death-watchers everywhere. The unique, patent-pending "indented tombstone" design gives you a quick-glance view into just how many times a particular company and product has changed hands. Consider for example the intrepid souls still working with an ASK/MANMAN system. They've been bought and sold three times, by our count.

We welcome your feedback - corrections, additions, etc, - in the comments section directly below. Thanks!

18 comments:

  1. Wonderware is still under Invensys, not under SSA Global

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  2. Calling SSA, Infor, Epicor and Activant "wannabes" is odd. Speedware never had an ERP and eXegeSys was, originally, HP's MM/FM/PM/MNT/..etc. package and, thus, needs three tombstone and not 2.

    Neither FRX, RealWorld nor ACT! are ERPs. In fact, many of these aren't ERPs, but, rather, simply accounting, BI or SFA applications.

    Great Planes and Navision are dead (R.I.P.)??

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  3. Anon1 - thanks on the Wonderware correction, I've removed them.

    Anon2 - good point on HP/exegesys. Fixed. As for the editorial comments- I've tried to include point solutions when they've been rolled up into a larger ERP "strategy" (which in the case of the Tier 3 guys is often a forced march into the up-market product). As for GP and Navision being dead, I think most people would agree that the companies they used to be are no longer with us. Whether MS succeeds in their grand MBS strategy is an open question, but the whole point of this blog is to track the acquistion strategies and the implications for legacy customers and partners.

    Thanks to both of you for the comments!

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  4. You're still showing Speedware as having an ERP? I thought that Speedware did BI and platform migration tools?

    Is your R.I.P. board a list of products or companies? MANMAN is a product, Lilly VISUAL is a product, GP is both and, while the company may been fully absorbed, the product is still alive and stronger than ever. Same for Navision.

    I'm not sure how ACT! can be considered to be part of an ERP "stragtegy."

    I think that you need to rethink the name of your second tier. Some of the members are powerhouses.

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  5. Which is more intrepid, sticking with a rock solid, proven, supported ERP (MANMAN), or entering into an ERP deployment just because? Especially when, I assume, that you'd suggest your package, which has far less of a track record than does MANMAN.

    Be careful taking shots at MANMAN.

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  6. Thanks to everyone for the feedback - please let me make one thing clear, if I haven't already. This is not a judgment of the merits of the products. MANMAN, for example, has a very good reputation, and I know some of the original developers.

    I'm simply making the observation that their vendor support relationships have been a little spotty as the ownership has changed hands several times. How actively is the original MANMAN "supported" by SSA these days?

    I've even heard anecdotally that some of these legacy acquirers have gone around and tried to buy back source code licenses from customers- and have threatened some with legal action in some cases when there was some ambiguity as to the status of the license.

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  7. Well, since, by you own parital admission, this is a marketing tool for your product, how would the sale of your company to an aggregator affect the supportability of OpenMFG? Most certainly in the same way that the roll ups of all of the other ERPs that you've listed, given a customer has a license to the source.

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  8. The difference is that we are building a community of people who have that source license, and who are actively contributing to the product development.

    See this week's issue of Computer Reseller News by way of example:

    http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=173601204

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  9. And how is that different than the many, many other VAR programs where becoming a VAR gives you access to certain pieces of technology that you can use to extend the stock product to meet a specific customer's needs?

    As part of the source code license, do you require that all modifications be given to your firm?

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  10. So now you're censoring? How very inclusive of you.

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  11. By the way, love the graveyard. A couple of corrections. Great Plains bought Solomon prior to the Microsoft acquisistion.

    SAP bought TopManage, which became Business One.

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  12. Coda is not under SSA; SSA's main Fiance solution is base on Masterpiece, a product from CA.

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  13. coda is not under SSA Global. Coda was sold before Baan acquired by Invensys.

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  14. I thought that QAD was a Tier 2 ERP and do not see them listed. Have they grown organically only or is there a reason you have not included QAD and related acquisitions?

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  15. Where is QAD in this graveyard? should be in the wannabes?

    Regards

    Rvergara

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  16. another product... MAX
    previously owned by ICL,
    in SSA portfolio since 2001 ?
    and now.... ?

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  17. Can you add SYSPRO to the list.
    www.syspro.com

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  18. You forgot to include interactive.. they merged with dataworks, then later became epicor.

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