News and Analysis

News and Analysis (15659)

SAGE LOSES ACQUISITION BID

The Sage Group is back in the merger-and-acquisition business, but the efforts of the English parent of Sage North America to take over a Polish company did not succeed. Sage bid 12.75 pounds a share for Teta, an ERP and HR vendor based in Wroclaw, Poland. However, Unit4, whose products include Coda and Agresso and which had previously placed a bid, came back with an offer of 12.80 pounds per share. Sage dropped its effort saying it could not justify a higher price. However, the move demonstrates that Sage, which purchased nothing of significance in 2009, sees the market differently this year.

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SAP EXTENDS SYBASE OFFER

SAP has extended its cash tender offer for the acquisition of Sybase at $65 per share. The offer was previously scheduled to expire on July 1, but the deadline was extended until 9 pm New York time, July 16. The original offer was conditioned on approval by the European Commission, which has until July 22 to review the deal. That's the expiration date of the 25-working-day review provided under European Union merger regulations.

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SMALL TOWN WIFI; VERY OPEN

Each time, I visit my hometown, Madison, Ind., I appreciate the openness of WiFi networks. It's the high-tech version of the farm community in which people don't lock their doors. Hopefully, nobody there reads this article. You can get on the public library's network simply by agreeing not to do the usual array of nasty things online. That's funny because the staff vigorously patrols the desktop units to keep nonmembers off those.

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BLYTHECO TOP AVALARA VAR

Blytheco, Sage's perennial award-winning reseller, has been named as Business Partner of the Year by Avalara. It is the second time Blytheco has won the top honor given by the Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based sales-and-use tax vendor. Avalara cited Blytheco as standing "head and shoulders above a list of superlative, high-performance resellers, ..."

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LAWSON REVS UP; NET DOWN

Although Lawson Software's results fell for the year ended May 31, the software vendor ended fiscal 2010 with improved results for the fourth quarter. That period saw the company produce revenue of $197 million, up 6 percent from $186.2 million for the same period a year earlier. And organic revenue was up 8 percent for the compared periods. Earnings were cut by a $5.6 million increase in the income tax provision, that stemmed from a variety of reasons.

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ROSEASP TAKES GP TO THE CLOUDS

RoseASP, owned by Linda Rose whose reselling organization was a finalist for Dynamics GP Partner of the Year, has taken Dynamics GP and made it available on-demand via a product called myGPcloud. According to Rose, her company is the first reseller to producing Dynamics on-demand, as opposed to making it available via hosting. The product also allows non-Dynamics Microsoft VARs to sell GP to their customer bases (that ought to make everyone in the overpopulated reseller channel really happy.) Read more...

ASCENDIX SHIFTS TO DYNAMICS CRM

Dallas-based Ascendix Technologies, which terms itself an award-winning SalesLogix partner, says it is will now focus investment on industry solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. That was the punch line of a press release that billed Ascendix and Infinity Info Systems as forming a strategic sales and services partnership. Under the relationship, the two will expand the marketing of Real Estate Advantage, a specialized CRM product built on the Microsoft offering, to the east coast and central regions of the country. However, Ascendix’s SalesLogix customers will be jointly supported by Infinity, a New York City-based company that is a perennial award winner in both the Sage and Microsoft channels. The Ascendix Web site shows it carries SalesLogix, but Dynamics CRM is far more prominent. Read more...

OPENAIR GOES EUROPEAN

NetSuite has launched a new version of OpenAir, its professional services automation package, for the United Kingdom and Europe. The SaaS vendor approached the situation with its usual modest claims. In the words of the press release "NetSuite OpenAir for international companies is a powerful solution that has the potential to do for services business what SAP's R/3 software did for the manufacturing industry in the early 1990s with its pioneering work in establishing best practices for ERP.  And what NetSuite press release would be complete without talking about the need for companies that use other products "to replace their current hairball of disparate, costly and often poorly integrated applications ..."

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TIMBERLINE GETS NEW VERSION

Sage North America has introduced Timberline Enterprise which is designed for service and specialty contractors and provides core accounting and operational functions such as service management, job management and estimating. The product was introduced on a limited basis with pricing expected to be published in the fall. The system offers what the company called interactive and intuitive workspaces, Process Maps for customizing and visualizing workflow and a dispatch board for assigning technicians to the correct jobs.

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INFOR ADOPTS MICROSOFT STANDARD

Infor's announcement that it is adopting Microsoft as its preferred technology and tools provider signals another step in the giant software company's work to bring its menagerie of acquired products onto a common platform. Read more...

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