Mixed feelings for wider Baan model

Baan will continue to diversify its product range in an effort to move beyond the struggling ERP market, even though some of its Vars are unhappy with the manufacturer's recent changes.

Baan will continue to diversify its product range in an effort to move beyond the struggling ERP market, even though some of its Vars are unhappy with the manufacturer's recent changes.

Speaking last week at Baan-World in Vienna, Mary Coleman, chief executive of Baan, said the ERP vendor's focus will now be business-to-business ecommerce.

Baan can be a dominant player in the ecommerce sector she claimed. "For Baan to take advantage of the ebusiness revolution, it must lead change and not merely follow it."

However, John Kelly, marketing manager at Baillie Business Systems, a former Baan reseller, said the changes meant the vendor had begun a cull of the channel to concentrate on larger resellers. Baillie will no longer sell Baan but will concentrate on servicing and consulting around the product.

"One or two Vars were pushed and a couple pulled away. Baillie found the market was not there and Baan itself was becoming much more complicated," he said.

Baillie had managed to convince some clients that Baan had recovered from poor results. But the huge and unexpected loss in the vendor's last financial quarter "took the wind out of everybody's sails", Kelly added.

However, Richard Hawthorn, sales and marketing manager at reseller Parity Solutions, said Baan had made all the right moves during the year.

Hawthorne claimed "the Baan story will become stronger" and expected the ERP vendor to benefit from projected growth for the customer relationship and supply chain management markets.

Mike O'Connor, business development manager at Miracle Enterprise Solutions, said: "For Baan, standing still meant regressing."