This continues a series about customer moves to reshape their enterprise software landscapes. When I was researching SAP Nation, I was impressed with how many customers are swapping out software, moving to third party maintenance, “ring fencing” the core solution with specialist tools, and implementing two and three tier strategies – different solutions for headquarters, large and small subsidiaries. I presented a sample of case studies in the book. While those were in SAP settings, similar moves are happening around other solutions. Last week I profiled UNIT4’s successes in the UK local government sector.
In the book, I had presented several examples of Microsoft “two tier” successes – Delta (on its planes), Microsoft (in its stores and elsewhere) and at Würth Group.
At the Microsoft Fall analyst meeting, I had heard an executive from Kodak Alaris, a spinoff from the Eastman Kodak Co, a long time SAP customer, describe their decision to go with Microsoft Dynamics and its Azure cloud. Microsoft has since shared other customers where they have replaced SAP. These include Comptel, the Finnish telecom vendor; Piaggio Aero, the aerospace company based in Italy and Sapa Group, the Norwegian maker of extruded aluminum profiles. Dentsply, the dental equipment company, has been standardizing on Microsoft, moving away from SAP, Oracle and Infor at several locations. Other than Comptel, the others are all multi-billion $ entities in SAP’s sweet spot.
Microsoft has also showcased other “two-tier” successes. Hunter Douglas, the home furnishings company has been running Dynamics AX in its European operations and is now rolling it out across most of its manufacturing and fulfillment sites across S. America. Invatec, a medical devices sub of Medtronics has implemented Dynamics at five its design and distribution locations in the US and Europe. Dell, which has Oracle as its HQ ERP system, has Dynamics AX in place its eight manufacturing facilities.
Individually, you could dismiss them as small cracks in the frozen tundra, but there are many such cracks if you use a wide angle lens. Over the next few weeks I will profile other such “snapshots” and show why I believe they are an indication of coming significant churn in the enterprise software market.
