I came across a Tech Rebublic news clip saying that SSA Global are looking for partners to sell the warehouse management solution and offer a free e-book

Part of their spin boasts "...SSA Global is the third largest provider of ERP and extended ERP systems globally with 13,000 active customers in 90 countries..."

Probably true and due in no small part to their Baan purchase.

Terry

It was announced yesterday that Infor is aquiring MAPICS.

See this http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=17968

"The combined company will have revenue close to $600M. While Infor’s customer count is now higher than the “active 13,000” reported by SSA Global in late October, the revenue is slightly smaller. For the year ending July 31, SSA Global had revenue of $637.8M. The two companies now rank fifth and sixth in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market behind SAP, Oracle, Sage-Best, and Microsoft Business Solutions".

For those interetsed in the evolution of MRP, MRP II and ERP, this may shed some light on the history of MAPICS - http://www.itjungle.com/breaking/bn012705-story01.html

http://it.asia1.com.sg/newsdaily/news002_20050129.html

The article pointed to by jjx124 (is that an SSA alias?) has a couple of interesting points.

(1) SSA is moving its regional hq to Singapore (Is that not where Baan's was). This probably makes a lot of sense considering where the market growth is, I wonder if he (CEO el supremo, etc) includes the support center in this calculation?

(2) Not sure that it really means anything, but I should think there would be no doubt on a revenue basis that SSA is now in number 3 spot after JDE the PeopleSoft are out of the equation. But I think spots 1 and 2 have a lot more zeros before the decimal point when looking at their revenue and profit numbers.

(3) How will it feel being an IPO investor just for sake of paying the share proceeds from (their) unsecured investment to the existing owners as a dividend and not to buy out / reduce the existing owner's investment? I wonder how the IPO shares will rank along side those of the original investors in terms of dividend entitlement and quantum, voting rights, liability etc?

(4) Looks like the accountants have been flat-out again with the numbers. The reported earnings for the first quarter of 2004-2005 year of $167million are stated to be up 18 percent on the corresponding period in the prior year. This is only a little up on the average of $159 for the whole year ($638/4) and must look pretty sick against the 4 th quarter figure if we are to consider a gradual and sustainable growth in revenue over the year from the $142 for that quarter last year.

Terry

RE: The article pointed to by jjx124 (is that an SSA alias?)

Terry, just using a simple user ID. I'm not associated with SSA, just encountered an interesting article and thought I'd share it. It's always good to see positive news on the product.