Microsoft, i2 Ease Supply-Chain Collaboration - ' ERP and CRM ' (
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For its part, i2 also will be working with key customers and partners, but on a somewhat "more limited basis" and not until late summer or early fall, i2's Nairon said.
Also through the new solution, customers and partners will be able to extend the data models of various ERP and CRM (customer relationship management) products, for example, and then to run imported customer and product information on top of MDM for data synchronization, Vettical said.
Microsoft's four ERP products—all obtained through acquisitions, and now being pulled together through Microsoft's Project Green umbrella—are Axapta, Navision, Great Plains and Solomon.
Under Microsoft's PPI—first rolled out at the National Manufacturing Week conference in March—Microsoft said it will work with third-party partners on solutions around global value chain performance; sales and customer performance; new product development performance; and plant floor operations performance.
In an interview with Ziff Davis Internet News in March, Charles Johnson, worldwide director of manufacturing at Microsoft, predicted that the company will expand on PPI with an SCM initiative later in the spring.
According to some analysts, the supply-chain deal announced last week is a good move for both Microsoft and i2, as well as for their customers and partners.
"Many of Microsoft's manufacturing customers are still doing [supply chain] transactions manually, on paper. But it looks as though integration with i2's products will help them to perform these transactions electronically, as well as to synchronize data," said Chris Alliegro, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.
"[Deeper] integration with Microsoft Office makes a great deal of sense, when you consider how much time users are spending in Office. It should also save on customer-side development."
Michael Schiff, an analyst at Current Analysis Inc., noted that in conjunction with other announcements issued last week, including a deal with the Teradata division of NCR Corp., i2 is extending its reach across a wider customer base.
"When you think of enormous amounts of data, you tend to think of Teradata," Schiff said. "On the other hand, Microsoft's products are used by many smaller companies—although I certainly don't want to imply that Microsoft doesn't have large customers, too."
Microsoft and its customers and partners also stand to gain from the supply-chain pact, he said.
"Microsoft's had a reputation with customers as a technology vendor. But [pacts] with ISVs, resellers and systems integrators help to produce solutions for customers, along with building sales for both Microsoft and its partners," Schiff said.
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