Swedish enterprise resource planning vendor Industrial & Financial Systems, AB (IFS) will this month begin offering its IFS Applications package as a service accessed over the web or via leased line. The Linkoping-based company has built a hosting facility at HQ and started a separate division, provisionally known as IFS Facility Management, but potentially to be renamed @IFS. The company will begin serving a number of its Scandinavian customers in this way during October, rolling it out to first the US, then the rest of Europe at a later date, explained Hans Hedlund, who is heading the new division.
Hedlund said the new service will be available on payment of a fee per month and per user. It will be accessible either via a web browser, he went on, or over a leased line, in which case there is no load time. He added that, although competitors such as SAP and Oracle are moving toward a software-as-a-service model for at least part of their business, IFS is first to bring such an option into the Scandinavian market.
IFS operates in 32 countries, and reported a net profit of SEK371m ($45.6m) on global revenue of SEK1.24bn ($152m) in 1998.
