At its BaanWorld 97 conference in Frankfurt yesterday, Baan Co NV pledged further support for Windows NT and announced Compaq Computer Corp will provide the Baan IV migration programme for Microsoft Corp BackOffice. The company sees NT as an increasingly important operating system, and has said it will be working closely with Microsoft to enhance its SQL Server and the scalability of NT. Chief operating officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Bob Lewis, Bob Lewis, said the company intends to support all major databases, coinciding with the announcement that Oracle Corp’s Universal Server will provide back-end support for Baan IV and the forthcoming Baan V. Lewis believes this will be one in the eye for enterprise planning rival SAP AG. He said the NT support offered by Baan means we can deliver a rapid implementation, unlike SAP. The migration program is being described as a unique NT upgrade, incorporating hardware, software and services, enabling existing Baan customers to easily and cheaply migrate to Baan’s new NT-based environment. Baan IV has just been certified with the designed for Microsoft BackOffice logo, and Baan believes it is the first enterprise resource planning company to achieve such ‘status’. The company also pointed out that while it will continue to support Unix, last year NT copies sold more than all of the 36 Unix versions put together.
