I came across the following post on another forum that addresses the selection of ERP packages. I think the comments are very informative and interesting. I am not suggesting that this is an authorative view but I do think it is a widely held view outside our Baan community. What I think is interesting is that Baan doesn't even get a mention.

"...(# View Group Archive: http://ITtoolbox.com/hrd.asp?i=847 )
... I think we thought of:
Tier 1 SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, JDE (some people thought of JDE as a Tier
1 1/2)
Tier 2 Mid Tier players such as QAD, Axapta seems to be sitting there,
BPCS, Intentia, IFS, etc.
Tier 3 Small(er) Company Packages Soloman, Great Plains, etc.
I never really thought of anything as Tier 4, but you could use it to
categorize personal finance products I'd think - Quickbooks. Of course the
recent merger of PeopleSoft and JDE and then the purchase of PeopleSoft by
Oracle will change at least the Tier 1 players..."

In another article in the same thread the (now aged) Gartner crriteria for determining Tier level was given. This uses the Customer turn-over as the determinant.
"...Gartner Group used to define them as
Tier 1 > 1 Billion in annual sales (US dollars)
Tier 2 > 250 Million and < 1 Billion
Tier 3 < 250 Million
Recently tier 4 and 5 have been added by many to further subdivide the
original Tier 3
Tier 3 > 100 Million and < 250 Million
Tier 4 > 50 Million and < 100 Million
Tier 5 < 50 Million..."

This method is clearly inappropriate these days because some packages scale well (SAP...Baan) and can cover all sizes of company but this is due to the selection of database as well as the package. For example compare Baan with its own database to SAP and now Peoplesoft with (now its own proprietry) Oracle DB. Baan doesn't look so good without the likes of oracle (etc). Another factor that knocks this method out is the nature of the turn over as opposed to the company activity. I am aware of an operation that would be classed as half billion USD manufacturer but with highly automated manufacturing operation that involves less than 80 users. Other manufacturing companies with similar turn over may have hundreds of users spread over numerous sites.

For those people wondering where their careers may go this year with SSA appearing to want all but the dreggs of the professional services work, the above link may provide a lead into just how much different ERP software there is.

Terry

Baan has been off the scope for some time now.
Categorizing ERP systems in this fashion serves no purpose what so ever.

Baan is still a powerhouse when it comes to manufacturing environments. Most of Baan's processing takes place on the database system, so how much it will support depends largely on your back-end.

Historically Baan has a "chatty" architecture, which makes it not a first choice for high-volume environments.
Other than that, Baan is up there with the best of 'em.

Baan has been off the scope for some time now.
Categorizing ERP systems in this fashion serves no purpose what so ever.

Francesco

I agree but SSA-Global's current powerpoint presentations include numerous slides with graphs use the term and show that ERP-LN is right up there with the top couple of tier 1 players. SSA should not use the term because it is indefinitive -- they obviously think otherwise.

You will probalbly recall other posts where I have put the view that you can't buy a top-of-the-market software company one day for $135 million and then $10 billion the next. The products are not of the same genre.

Irrespective of the merits of the Baan sofware I think the product is going to go-down-the-gurgler very quickly with SSA unless they change their top management and strategy.

Terry

:cool:

Terry, I think nowadays there is not much choice in the Tier 1 space. Customers will like to see another choice, out of SAP and Oracle. The most likely competitor in the manufacturing sector is SSA, whether we like SSA or not. Only SSA has the complete product profolio and the vision, inherited from Baan, to compete with SAP and Oracle. The weekness of the offering is still the technology part, not the functional part.

But the real problem is that, it is really difficult to find a new Tier 1 prospect to sell the product. The market is gone, especailly worse in the manufacturing sector. The manufaturing work are keeping outsourced to the factories in Asia.