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- ASP's on the Upswing
- Best Suites
- SAP Wins Customer Choice Award
- Software Giants Eye the SMB Market
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ASPs on the Upswing |
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Application Service Providers (ASPs) are realizing rapid
growth once again. More companies than ever are looking to
software service providers to fulfill their technology
needs. According to NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, "The rate of
growth of software delivered as a service is exponentially
higher than that of software delivered on a CD."
What makes ASPs better now than
when they were first touted in the late 1990's?
Customers can access new software features more quickly
and don't need to wait on an IT professional to install
a CD. Application service providers generally provide
better customer service compared to a traditional
software installation since both the provider and
customer have access to the same install in real time.
ASPs understand that they have to work to keep their
customers happy. ASPs have also become experts at
customizing software and offering specialized services
to meet individual customer needs.
Read the latest on ASPs...»
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Best Suites |
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Best Software recently announced the company's plan to
deliver a series of "Best Suites" for a range of
industries, all designed to advance the company's drive
to service the industry-specific needs of its vertical
market customers. Best Suites include solutions for
accounting practices, construction, distribution,
manufacturing, nonprofit, and real estate.
"Business owners today want
business management applications that are highly
integrated and that work the way their industries work,"
Verni said. "Through our aggressive program of product
acquisition, integration and internal development, we
are able to deliver Best Suites for a range of
industries representing clear solutions to answer those
needs. Our customers can now select a wide variety of
modules from a complete Best Suite that is right for
their work processes, industry, and business size. The
suites provide not only the best business applications,
but will also offer out- of-the-box integration to
deliver data seamlessly throughout an enterprise."
At the annual Insights partner
conference, we were able to see how Best plans to
implement this new and exciting strategy through the use
of a common "desktop" for all products and the "Best
Integration Framework", which serves as middleware
between existing Best software products. One such
integration that we were able to see the pre-release
version of was the Timberline Estimating package feeding
MAS 90 job costing. With this combination, Best can
offer an industry leading construction estimation tool
with the proven back end accounting offered by MAS 90.
Read the
press release... |
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SAP
Wins Customer Choice Award |
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I-BN is proud of its new affiliation with SAP's
Business One, particularly since SAP received a
recent award at a Mid-Size Enterprise Summit as the
best in customer solutions for the small to
medium-size business market. Hundreds of IT
specialists chose SAP as their preferred software.
SAP is the largest
provider of business software in the world, and
is committed to providing solutions that link
small and mid-size companies with their
customers and partners. For more information on
SAP Business One, contact your I-BN Sales
Representative at 877-336- 4426 x231
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Read the complete press release |
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Software Giants Eye the SMB Market |
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The Small and Middle Market Business (SMB)
market is the new target for large application
software companies. In the past, the market was
relatively fractured with literally hundreds of
vendors in the space vying for customers. The
"big boys" were known as the JBOPS (JD Edwards,
Baan, Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP), and used to
dominate the Fortune 500 and just below that
space.
Now the new leaders are
called SPOMS (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Microsoft
and SAGE [aka Best in the US]), and their
domination extends into the SMB space. This has
been caused partly due to a shakeout in the
market after Y2K and consolidation in the SMB
space primarily by Microsoft and Best/SAGE.
A recent article by Adam
Stone discusses how the larger players like SAP
are looking to the SMB space and how that
translates into benefits to the consumer.
Although the article portrays the cost of these
solutions as high, we find the SAP Business One
product is priced pretty equivalently to the SMB
ERP leaders. For more information, read the
article or call your I-BN Sales Representative.
Read the complete article on
Small Business Computing
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Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy... |
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During the summer months, I-Business Network will
offer 2 newsletters (May/June and July/August) to
our subscribers. Look for more new information on
Best Software from the recent Insights conference
and details on the new SAP Business One version 2004
in the next issue. We wish you all a relaxing and
fun-filled summer! |
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