hello all...

i knew of the similarity between baan and interBiz's (a unit of computer associates) MK-Manufacturing, but while going through some of the postings - i was amazed to look at the similarity...

although i am one of the fortunates to have worked on both baan and mk!! but the tragic part is - no one has heard of mk!

hope to contribute some more with whatever knowledge i have on this tool!!!

regards...

The only MK I know is Milton Keynes... and I'm not sure I want to hold that memory to long (only joking Milton Keynians)

Is MK-Manufacturing related to the Man-ManX product? If so, I believe Man-ManX was a derivative of Triton. I think Baan leased the code to CA. Perhaps that explains the similarities.

yes... it is related to ManMan-X but ManMan is an older version. Many organizations have upgraded themselves from Man Man to MK!!!

I wonder what you mean by "leased to CA"?

It meant that CA was allowed to market the Triton software, or some part of it, under the name Man-ManX. We were looking at Man-ManX in the mid-90's and heard about this from a press release that said Triton was going to cancel the agreement with CA.

Found this searching the internet:
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Manman and Manman/X are two completely different products.

ASK Manman, CA/MANMAN, and Classic MANMAN are all the same product. An ASK Corp. product developed in FORTRAN for the HP 3000 and DEC platforms in the early eighties. A very strong MRP II system with good Manufacturing and Order Entry functionality the product is still under current release around version 11.0 or 12.0.

About seven years ago or so The ASK Corp. bought the rights to develop Baan's Triton 2.0 and renamed the product Manman/X to cash in on the popularity of Manman. CA has a corporate policy of not putting money or effort into development so Manman/X has wallowed far behind the current Baan product although the basic guts are almost identical. Manman/X runs on NT and UNIX.

I have done implementations of all three of these, Baan, Manman/X and MANMAN Classic, so if you have any questions, let me know

Eric Shuss
eshuss@bbsca.com
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Hope this explains it.

not sure if i get all of the technical parts of this right, but the history is something like this....

back in the early 90's CA bought the US rights to the Triton v1.2 code from the Baan company. they made a few enhancements to meet US needs (v. Dutch/Euopean) and marketed it as Man-ManX--the X meaning that this system ran on Unix and to distinguish it as a different application than ManMan.

subsequently, Baan expanded its market to include North America. Baan made the decision to no longer give CA the source code. Baan had just released Triton3.0 and took the position with CA that their earlier agreement was only for versions thru Triton2.2. that's when the lawsuits started. i think CA sued Baan first and Baan counter-sued.

it all got settled in early 1995, around the time of Baan's IPO in may. the official announcement didn't give any $ figures, but the rumor was that Baan had to pay CA a big chunk of $ to go away.

Baan also had to give CA access to the source code for Triton 2.x.

Baan actually tried to get out of the contract based on their claim that the agreement was with ASK, not with CA. that didn't hold up in court either.

in that case, does anyone of u reckon, i have a prospect of employment in BAAN if i have abt 3 yrs experience in the CA product?

Go out on the Baan bulletin board (baan.com will link you there) and check. They are pretty tight on hiring now, but your references are somewhat OK.

Stephen Ruger
Lodestar Consulting
+1.215.785.6756
sr@mylodestar.com