Erp Sap

Taking the mystique and complexity out of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and plugging it into the extended enterprise are the herculean tasks that Netherlands-based client-server applications vendor, the Baan Company, has set for itself - but it seems to be making good progress.

The company made a slew of announcements including a new alliance with Microsoft, that flesh out some of the promise of BaanSeries, a product delivery mechanism introduced two months ago that will smash down the walls of monolithic ERP applications today.

ERP solutions today are too expensive, creating a barrier for many companies that could benefit from the increased productivity and profitability of ERP applications, and Baan ERP segment has been guilty of this as well. The company's vision is to reduce the complexity of ERP software to such an extent that even an eight-year old child will be able to implement it.

That's probably a little extreme, but the company is certainly aiming for implementation times measured in days. It wants to keep complexity under the hood, just as the mechanics of a car engine stays hidden from the driver, while using the dashboard in the form of Dynamic Enterprise Modelling - Strategy Execution (DEMSE), to drive the business. DEMSE is the fundamental building block of BaanSeries and together with BaanERP (formerly Baan V) was the first manifestation of the company's vision and strategy.

Central to this vision is the total embrace of Microsoft technologies, including Windows NT, Component Object Model (COM) and Distributed COM (DCOM).

Baan's vision to make Baan ERP accessible to companies of all sizes is the best example of the Digital Nervous System and in total concord with our drive to introduce Internet capabilities, simplicity and scalability into the Microsoft platform. Baan is a great ally for Microsoft in its goal to making NT a scalable and secure enterprise platform.

The alliance expands the memorandum of understanding signed between the two in with Baan strengthening its commitment to COM/DCOM by adopting it as the primary development, deployment, maintenance and interoperability infrastructure for BaanSeries.

Baan's other announcements includednew components in the BaanSeries, BaanFrontOffice, BaanSCS and BaanDataNavigator; an ERP solution tailored at the midmarket called Baan-on-Board; Baan Migration Packages, to help users move to BaanERP and beyond; the formalisation of Baan Midmarket Solution, a channel organisation to build up the reseller and distributor network for the company's thrust into the midmarket; and the strengthening of its worldwide customer organisation in the form of BRIDGE (Baan Readiness to Increase Direct Global Effectiveness).

Baan ERP is still some way from achieving its vision of SAP in the ERP stakes, but there seems to be a buzz about the company, now that most of the pieces of its masterplan are in place.