Syspro has hired consulting firm, iPlan Industrial Engineers, to write a guide that helps executive decision makers set strategy for selecting, implementing and operating ERP systems. Syspro said the process is based around iPlan’s “Degrees of Freedom” framework with the book providing different strategies for “1) the system aspect, 2) the business processes aspect and 3) the people organization aspect in achieving the business objective.”

With the new CEO, Martijn Janmaat, making comments about changes that represent a continued reflection on the job performance of his predecessor Raj Patel (my view), Exact reported improvement in its financial condition. While revenue dropped by 1.9 percent for the year ended December, it grew in the second half with growth accelerating in the fourth quarter.

SAP has joined the Wholesale Application Community, a group that aims to create a unified and open platform for the market of mobile applications.  With SAP preaching the gospel of openness this year, it’s hardly surprising. The press release notes “ SAP provides one of the core solutions for WAC powering all developer settlement activities.” Read more...

Sales of desktop units of Intuit’s QuickBooks accounting software continued to drop as subscriptions of QuickBooks Online increased sharply for the second quarter ended January 31. Intuit sold 404,000 units, down from 431,000 a year earlier and 529,000 units two years ago. Read more...