Now armed with Motif and Windows graphical user interface clients for its Triton manufacturing suite, Baan International BV, Ede, Netherlands, is heading out to vertical markets, planning versions of its software tailored for automotive, electronics, food and beverage, and complex, industrial manufacturing markets. It has a bunch of announcements set for late this month. The company, which claims 1,000 Triton production sites, will use some of the $120m it raised in its flotation to develop the packages. It has also been ramping its US operation, aiming to move from a primarily product-driven outfit, to a marketing-driven concern. Baan said Triton attracts users looking for SAP R/3 or Oracle and Avalon alternatives, and touts what it claims is a unique ability in the software that enables the user to decide when the actual production system gets put together out of development pieces, the customer order decoupling point, as it calls it. Implementation costs, it claims, are generally less than twice the price of the product set, compared to five times the product cost that a SAP AG installation may cost the user. Triton currently supports Oracle and Informix databases; it has Sybase code internally but no release scheduled. The company sees no demand for an Ingres implementation. The company’s 25-strong research and development unit in Ede is currently evaluating strategies for implementing object technologies, although it doesn’t think object databases are currently robust, or pervasive enough, for manufacturing applications such as Triton. Support for object development languages is a more likely route. Of the big six integrators, Baan works most closely with Ernst & Young and KPMG, but also with Cap Gemini Sogeti SA (and its Hoskyns Group Plc in the UK) and former Philips Electronics NV affiliate BSO/Origin in its home country. Baan last week reported second quarter net profits of $3.3m from a $2.6m loss last time around. Revenue was up 122% on same period last year at $47.3m. Net revenue for the six months to June 30 was up 123% at $86.2m over $38.7m for the first six months of 1994. Net income for the six months was $5.4m compared to a loss of $5.6m in the same period last year. Licence revenues were up 182% to $23.4m in the quarter, up from $8.3m last time. The company expects its revenue mix to shift from 40% licence fees, 40% consulting and 20% hardware now, to 50% from licences, 40% services and 10% hardware over the coming year. It claims it’ll do 40% of its business in the US this year – 80% of revenue came from Europe last year. The 225-strong north American operation accounted for around 25% of its second quarter revenues.
