5 Misunderstood Facts About ERP

If you're researching ERP, negotiating for it or revamping your entire strategy, make sure you understand these five key facts about enterprise resource planning software -- or it could cost you dearly in expense and career success.

By Thomas Wailgum
Tue, April 14, 2009

CIO — Think you know everything about ERP? Here are five things to consider:

1. ERP Alternatives Are Everywhere
ERP has been forever linked with complexity, high cost and arduous 18-month rollouts. Today, however, enterprises have many alternatives to behemoths SAP and Oracle: On-demand and software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP vendors offer robust product sets and open-source apps (such as Compiere's) can be bought via Amazon.com's EC2 Web services platform.

2. SMB and Fortune 500 Firms Can Both Use SaaS ERP
SaaS is not just for small business. Case in point: Chiquita Brands is rolling out a SaaS ERP app to its global operations (70 countries, six continents) to manage its 23,000 workers. GE recently implemented a SaaS supply chain app to manage $55 billion worth of corporate spending among 500,000 suppliers in 100 countries. How's that for scale?

3. Next-Gen ERP Products Arrive in 2010
With regards to your purchase and rollout timing, understand that major revamps from the two behemoths are en route. Oracle's long-awaited (and already delayed) Fusion Applications Suite will reportedly emerge in 2010. SAP's Business Suite 7, announced in February, should be ready for prime-time use early next year. Each vendor hopes that its new offering will grab marketshare and customers from the other.

4. ERP Maintenance Fees Are Not Decreasing
Recession-strapped customers or not, Oracle recently affirmed that it has no intention of messing with its maintenance fee "cash cow"—that highly lucrative annual revenue stream paid by customers for "software license and product support" that delivers 90 percent margins. In 2009, SAP actually increased its maintenance fees to keep pace with its rival. Mooooo!

5. Project Failure Is Still an Option
Modern history overflows with ERP implementation disasters (just ask Hershey's or Nike or HP). Two recent cases provide even more angst: Waste Management is currently embroiled in a nasty $100 million lawsuit with SAP over a failed implementation, and Select Comfort notably decided (with shareholder pressure) to halt its $20 million, multi-module ERP project.

For more on enterprise software, see the Enterprise Software Unplugged blog.

You are here: Applications » Feature

Most Recent Applications Stories

White Papers »

Accelerate time to application value

For your IT organization to keep pace with the business, you need a new, faster approach to infrastructure deployment-an approach that increases agility and accelerates time to application value. That's HP Converged Systems. Built on Converged Infrastructure, these systems deliver the industry's first portfolio of pre-integrated, tested, and optimized infrastructure solutions for applications running in virtual, cloud, dedicated, or hybrid environments.

Top 10 Myths About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications

Even though virtualization has brought positive change to enterprise IT over the last decade, some skepticism remains about how valuable virtualization can be in the way companies deliver and run business applications. Uncover the truth about how you can run your business critical applications with confi dence without sacrifi cing
availability or service quality-and at lower costs.

The Hidden Truth About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications

This IDG whitepaper highlights key findings based on the Quickpoll Survey conducted with more than 300 Enterprise and Commercial IT decision makers worldwide about the state of their virtualization of business critical applications. This paper answers such questions as: What drivers are pushing companies to extend virtualization beyond servers? and What value are they realizing? Central to the paper are key results that expose risks of the past (fears of limited ISV support, performance impact) no longer are a factor for companies moving to 80+% virtualized.

Enterprise Java Applications on VMware: Unix to Linux Migration Guide

This guide focuses on key considerations for IT Architects who are in the process of migrating Java applications from UNIX to Linux as part of their VMware server consolidation project.

Virtualizing Tier 1 Applications: A Critical Step on the Journey Toward the Private Cloud

This IDC white paper explains how much of the Enterprise IT community is at a crossroads in extending their journey to the private cloud: Companies must virtualize their business critical applications in order to reap the benefits of cloud computing. The paper also includes two case studies and a sidebar highlighting the experiences of three enterprises with virtualizing their business-critical applications, which include Oracle and Microsoft SQL databases, SAP and enterprise Java, and a Microsoft Exchange email system.

Best Practices Guide: Microsoft Exchange 2010 on VMware

This guide provides best practice guidelines for deploying Exchange Server 2010 on vSphere.

Webcasts »

Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere

Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as support considerations

Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere

Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and disaster recovery and support considerations.

Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence

Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere® 5, VMware is helping customers accelerate the deployment of business-critical applications, including Exchange, SQL, SAP and Oracle.

Discover the Benefits of Virtualization for Federal Applications

Want to say goodbye to missed SLAs? VMware can help you virtualize mission-critical applications such as Oracle, MS Exchange and SharePoint to achieve dramatic improvements in uptime, performance and responsiveness. In this webcast, we'll discuss the key benefits of virtualizing your agency's most critical applications and Oracle databases as a necessary first step in fulfilling OMB's mandate to move IT services to the cloud. With VMware, you'll be on the way to quick, effective and full compliance.

When Java EE Is Overkill: Lightweight Application Server Benefits

The complexity, cost and technological bloat of traditional Java EE application servers are often barriers to running a lean and efficient IT organization. Increased need for scalability and rapid application delivery are driving businesses to reconsider the platform they use for application deployment. By combining the portability and agility of the Spring framework with a lightweight application server, your organization can meet business demands while staying within budget constraints. VMware vFabric™ tc Server is a modern, lightweight Java application server based on Apache Tomcat. It improves developer productivity, control and manageability-and is the most flexible platform for virtualizing Java applications and workloads for the cloud. View this webcast to learn about real-world examples of companies that have adopted VMware vFabric tc Server and how to plan for future cloud deployments.

Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5

Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to expand disaster protection beyond their most critical applications, largely because they are uncertain whether the quality of the protection is really worth its cost. VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5 is the market-leading disaster recovery product that addresses this situation for organizations of all kinds. It complements VMware vSphere to ensure the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications.

Newsletter Sign-Up »

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter