Enterprise resource planning vendor, Lawson Software Inc said yesterday that it has renamed its former internet products division as the advanced technologies division. William Lawson Jr, who formerly served as VP of the old internet unit, has been promoted to executive VP of the new division. Speaking to ComputerWire yesterday, Lawson said the company decided to change the division’s name because it considered itself an internet company and it didn’t want to give the wrong impression to customers that only a part of the business focuses on the web. We are an internet products company, said Lawson, if we kept the old name we thought we’d be giving off the wrong image; that some of our products weren’t internet products, but that’s not the case. Lawson said the division was originally set up to web-enable the company’s ERP products, but once that was complete the group started to develop other products including Lawson’s Collaborative Commerce Suite and its Open Component Solutions as well as starting up a services arm to train its partners and customers. As executive vice president, Lawson will oversee the future direction and development of the company’s web products as well as being responsible for identifying new and emerging technologies for integration into the company’s products. The company also used the opportunity to provide details about its upcoming user conference in Nashville, Tennessee next week. Although he wouldn’t give specific details, Lawson said the company would be making a series of significant product and services announcements regarding partnerships with Microsoft Corp, IBM Corp, Deloitte and Touche and Arthur Anderson, among others.
