UNIT4 positioned by leading analyst as alternative to 'out of touch' high cost big ERP vendors

UNIT4 Business Software Ltd, the UK division of global business software group UNIT4, has been positioned by Technology Evaluation Centres (TEC) in a recent blog as an alternative for budget-stressed customers currently using the world's largest enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.  Entitled "Out of Touch ERP Vendors Means Third-Party Support is Here to Stay," and written by technology analyst Predrag Jakovljevic, the report takes issue with the high cost maintenance streams demanded by Big ERP vendors Oracle and SAP.

"Software vendors can make more than 90 per cent profit margins on maintenance fees, yet their licensees are disappointed in the value they receive, and in many cases, they don't see value in expensive incremental upgrades,"  reports TEC's Jakovljevic. "In addition, the software vendor support model is outdated and in many ways irrelevant for today's enterprise software."

Referencing alternatives to high-cost and inflexible services and maintenance approaches, TEC quotes UNIT4's Ton Dobbe, Vice President of Product Marketing.  "UNIT4's Route 66 user independent strategy of releasing new 'milestones' for its Agresso Business World ERP solution follows the same maintenance schedule.  Every milestone is supported for three years and experience packs are relying on a particular milestone – and therefore also typically have a three year life-span.
"Quite simply to go from one Agresso release to the next does not require a big budget, and competitively, UNIT4 upgrades come at a fraction of the cost of a similar action with competitors, which we are frequently told by prospects are priced anywhere from $100,000 – $1 million and can be even more.

"UNIT4 release upgrades, due to the underlying strength and capabilities of the VITA architecture are often done internally by our customers' IT departments, and when contracted externally, typically run at $10,000 – $50,000; a fraction of typical SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, or similar upgrades.

"For both UNIT4 Agresso and CODA financials, there is never a requirement to completely re-implement which, as we have been told by various analysts and prospects, is the norm for our competitors," Dobbe said.
To see a full copy of the blog, go to http://bit.ly/RQpu0m.