Midrange ERP software house JD Edwards & Co has a new president and chief executive officer, Douglas Massingill, replacing company co-founder C. Edward McVaney. Massingill, who is 41, takes the helm as JD Edwards is preparing to break the magical $1bn mark in sales of its WorldSoftware AS/400-based ERP suite and its OneWorld open systems suite (which runs on AS/400s, but also on Unix and NT servers). During Massingill’s tenure at JD Edwards as vice president of worldwide operations, a post he took over in 1994, and as chief operating officer, which he became in March 1997 six months prior to the company’s initial public offering, JD Edwards has seen revenues skyrocket (JD Edwards had sales of $843m in the past four calendar quarters), seen employees grow to 4,500 and customers grow to 4,700. JD Edwards’ programs are now installed at over 6,600 sites worldwide. Massingill spearheaded the company’s move into the open systems arena, and during the last quarter (ended August 27) open systems licenses of OneWorld accounted for 20% of the company’s $98m in license sales. Massingill is also credited with a move into the small and medium business market and expanding partner programs to help sell and install its programs. Working closely with Massingill will be David Girard, the company’s new chief operating officer. Girard moves up from the general manager of global operations position he has held since last year; prior to coming to JD Edwards, Girard held several positions at Dun & Bradstreet’s software division. Also important to the lineup at JD Edwards is Jim Maikranz, the vice president of sales strategies that JD Edwards hired away from competitor SAP America three weeks ago. And he is gunning very heavily for his former employer. Theirs is the suite to beat, says Maikranz. JD Edwards possesses technology and vision that give it a unique growth opportunity to become the true ‘thought leader’ in the enterprise software marketplace, and I look forward to putting in place aggressive growth strategies that will expand our base of satisfied customers and move JD Edwards further toward the top. McVaney has been at the head of JD Edwards as chairman and chief executive officer since its inception in 1977. His middle name is the Edwards in JD Edwards, the J and D are Jack Thompson and Dan Gregory. McVaney, Thompson and Gregory were all accounting specialists and were the first three developers of JD Edwards AS/400-based accounting programs. Gregory has since died, and Thompson is no longer a developer at the company but is on its board of directors. McVaney, who is 57, will continue at JD Edwards as chairman of the board and fully expects to remain active in guiding his company’s strategic direction.
