J D Edwards eyes mid-enterprise market

Supply chain and enterprise resource planning software vendor J D Edwards claims its push into the mid-enterprise marketplace will not adversely affect its resellers.

Supply chain and enterprise resource planning software vendor J D Edwards claims its push into the mid-enterprise marketplace will not adversely affect its resellers.

The company, which made the announcement earlier this month, will be using its direct sales force to increase sales of its software, rather than going through the channel.

J D Edwards has also turned its attention to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), announcing a product bundling deal with IBM to develop specialised versions of Big Blue's iSeries eServers, which will be designed to run J D Edwards' collaborative multiple platform commerce software.

In its enterprise push, J D Edwards is specifically aiming at companies with a turnover of between $250m and $3bn, representing "the classic mid-enterprise sector of the marketplace", according to Trevor Salomon, marketing director for northern Europe.

"This will not make any difference to our channel partners in the UK, because they don't actually sell services to companies with turnovers of more than £150m," he insisted.

J D Edwards has direct and indirect sales strategies in the UK, Salomon said, claiming that the announcement could even provide its UK channel partners with more business in the long run.

He added that channel partners will be able to increase business with the launch of the jointly developed eServer, which is destined for release later this year and will be sold through both companies' channel partners.

"This product will appeal to SMEs because of the 'plug and play' aspect that has been incorporated," said Salomon. "The main reason many SME's haven't gone into ebusiness before has been because of the complexity of a product. This server will be compelling because they only have to plug the machine in and it does the rest itself."

Bob Yelland, Big Blue's iSeries manager for Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: "This is good for IBM's channel partners. It will actually help them increase penetration in the low end marketplace and give them a stronger base to go into that market in terms of competitive pricing for products."