I'm new to Baan and was just curious about the future of the product itself with the buyout by Infor. Does anyone have any information about this? Will the product names change themsevles? Thanks!

I'm new to Baan and was just curious about the future of the product itself with the buyout by Infor. Does anyone have any information about this? Will the product names change themsevles? Thanks!
Infor classify Baan as their first tier ERP product, targeting some larger customers. The future of an ERP product depends on the sales of new licence. It seems there is no much difference whether the owner is SSA, Infor or another. Both will find it difficult to sell the product to new customers. When Infor cannot differentiate Baan from the products of other vendors, and considering it has a much restricted distribution network, there is no reason to expect the licence sales to grow.

But for one thing can be sure, the product Baan will still exist for many years.

I am a big friend of BaaN but I am quite permisstic to BaaN's future. The reasons are:
1. ERP market is leveling off. Most vendors are fighting in SME market but the move of BaaN does not so obvious.
2. The product development is not fast enought and integredated. Comparing to the number one and number two, SAP and Oracle, BaaN put not such efforts on SCM, CRM and so on as an integrated solution. In the past few years, SSA kept the extended ERP modules as individual products. Now, Info claimes they provide bundles of products, not integrated products, to fulfill clients' requirements.
3. Its sales force is weak. Even the sales force of Baan claims they are number 3 ERP vendors but it seems not much people know them, even worser than the local ERP vendors.
4. Baan's market strategy is not so clear. I did meet some Info sales representives and they said they were kind of solution providers. However, if clients really look for a solution, why do not they ask those IT solution giants such as IBM and Acceture, for help?

Recently Infor AP is asking for Ideas on developing industry templates for Baan. They are trying to work out something like SAP All-in-one. But I think they also need something like SAP B1 or Microsoft Navison to penetrate the SME market.

The basic problems with Infor is still its capability to develop sales channels and service partners. You need some kind of an ecosystem to get the business up.

Hi tritonbaan,

Thank you for the interesting news. It seems more like Baan IVd - some idea from the past - http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?t=7174

I would also like to thank you for the great thread about the top 10 reasons to upgrade (and not to upgrade) from Baan to LN - Great feedback.

Here is the thread -

http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?t=28676

By the way, you may want to change your name from tritonbaan to tritonbaanln :)

Cheers,

Infor has, indeed, acquired several ERP systems, which suppose targeting on mid to low-end market.
Anybody still remembers Syteline or Visual? Probably not much. They are the Infor's ERP products now. Undoubtedly, for example, Syteline should be more functional than Axapta (at least comparing to Axapta 3.0) and target on the Axapta-like market. But now, which is the rising star?
Well, I don't think Infor does not have the products; however, Infor does not have effective selling channel.
As Garnter said, Infor is a "Super Collector". But, for what Infor collect several similar products?
BaaN is losing its market, not because of the product itself but because of the business strategy in the last 6 years.:(
By the way, who does know Infor itself is an ERP vendor orginally?
http://fscavo.blogspot.com/2004/03/agilisys-acquires-infor.html

:D ERP LN SMB Business Solutions

As Garnter said, Infor is a "Super Collector". But, for what Infor collect several similar products?
BaaN is losing its market, not because of the product itself but because of the business strategy in the last 6 years.:(
By the way, who does know Infor itself is an ERP vendor orginally?
http://fscavo.blogspot.com/2004/03/agilisys-acquires-infor.html

True, Baan is losing its market starting from 1998. Especially for some acccounts that were not cared by the vendor or a service partner for a long time.
But what make me believe that Baan will not fade out so easily.
- The market will not accept only one single player in the large enterprise segment of discrete manufacturing. 5% of the market can support the further developement of Baan. The choice to large manufacturing companies is very little now, actually is only SAP.

The only way that will make Baan disappear is that: SAP or Oracle acquire Infor, then terminate the development of Baan.

I think major reason for Baan loosing the market is the were not there in the market with me too product strategy and most of the modules in baan were not user friendly as compared to there competitiors. Even not clear cut strategy is being implemented by there buyersto create its USP. I think baan was selling b'se of the competitve price but as many new players& old players have grown in this segment which is slowly and swiftly eating its pie. The other reson baan have to improve a lot on is start looking beyond mfg........