As expected, ERP vendor JD Edwards yesterday revealed details of its ActiveEra ebusiness strategy, promising to introduce 60 new front end applications to provide self-service functions to end users over the web by the end of 1999.
The first 30 should emerge along with Release 733.1 of the company’s OneWorld ERP package, due on 14th June. They will cover customer order functions, such as order entry and order status tracking, and also enable employees to make minor changes to their own personnel files, such as address changes and adding dependents. A further 30 will come with release 733.2 in the fourth quarter of this year.
ActiveEra Portal, a customized Web front end which will provide users with access to services pertinent to their specific job role, will also be available in the fourth quarter, said the company. JD Edwards follows its rivals SAP AG and PeopleSoft International Inc in setting up an enterprise portal. David Girard, the company’s chief operating officer, claims the move has been prompted primarily by customer demand: We have to do this, but not because our competitors are, but because the market demands it. Moreover, he adds, JD Edwards, which had annual revenues of $934.0 million in its 1998 fiscal year, will overtake its immediate competitor, $1.3 billion Peoplesoft, in the near future.
Earlier this week, JD Edwards’ chairman Ed McVaney made a commitment to the approximately 3,400 customers currently using the most recent releases of the company’s earlier World package for IBM’s proprietary midrange AS/400 platform. Previously, JD Edwards had planned to phase out support for the A7 and A8 releases of World in early 2000. But in his keynote speech on Tuesday, McVaney said that support would now be extended until February 2002. But, he warned the 7,000 attendees, you don’t want to be the last ten customers on those versions, and there’ll be plenty of good incentives not to be.
According to Girard, the company plans to migrate its entire installed base to the more recent OneWorld package, which runs on Unix and Windows NT as well as the AS/400, because of the costs involved in developing and supporting two products. But clearly, that’s not going to happen in the short term, he says. More details, below.
