But get this from the Onyx CEO. I've got to hope she was misquoted somehow:
With stronger monetary support from Battery Ventures and Thoma Cressey, the deal would make Onyx a larger player in the business, Anderson said. Customers need to have competition in the realm of enterprise product lines.
"I think that this kind of consolidation ... is very good for clients because clients need choices," she said.
Umm... don't rollups like the MS-PEGGIES give clients fewer choices?
Oh, no. When you buy from a consolidated Vendor you have many choices! When we had Infor's Visual Mfg. system we had 3 task management systems to choose from, 2 doc control systems, 2 ECN systems, 2 MRP scheduling systems, two distribution systems, 2 financial systems and so on. And those are only the ones that portend to be "integrated" with Visual Mfg. There are many other like modules available from additional Infor sister companies. That isn't to say the Visual modules all work together and talk because they don't. What you get is a choice of quasi integrated modules that aspire to work together, but don't in practce. Let's not even talk about look and feel consistency in the interfaces.
ReplyDeleteWhy I just got a letter from Infor the other day telling me about their wonderful PLM modules picked up by the GEAC acquisition. That adds a 3rd doc control option, a 2nd work flow module, a 3rd ECN module and other additional overlaps to Infor/Visual's offering.
The pitch from these vendors is "One stop shopping," which may be true, but what they don't tell you is the integration between all these modules is either half-baked or non-existant. So you STILL have to invest in integration efforts if you really want a seamless system. But, hey, at least you've got lots of choices...
-JR
Oh, no. When you buy from a consolidated Vendor you have many choices! When we had Infor's Visual Mfg. system we had 3 task management systems to choose from, 2 doc control systems, 2 ECN systems, 2 MRP scheduling systems, two distribution systems, 2 financial systems and so on. And those are only the ones that portend to be "integrated" with Visual Mfg. There are many other like modules available from additional Infor sister companies. That isn't to say the Visual modules all work together and talk because they don't. What you get is a choice of quasi integrated modules that aspire to work together, but don't in practce. Let's not even talk about look and feel consistency in the interfaces.
ReplyDeleteWhy I just got a letter from Infor the other day telling me about their wonderful PLM modules picked up by the GEAC acquisition. That adds a 3rd doc control option, a 2nd work flow module, a 3rd ECN module and other additional overlaps to Infor/Visual's offering.
The pitch from these vendors is "One stop shopping," which may be true, but what they don't tell you is the integration between all these modules is either half-baked or non-existant. So you STILL have to invest in integration efforts if you really want a seamless system. But, hey, at least you've got lots of choices...
Infor has over ten different ERP systems now with the merger yes you would have choice but infor will be looking to put their R&D budget into one or two systems if you had a system that SSA said they would not sunset and then you have infor saying they will no longer invest in that system I would be frustated.
ReplyDelete