Migration to Java Is Paying Off, Intentia Says

by Alex Woodie

When ERP software developer Intentia shifted development from RPG to Java, about 10 years ago, it knew things would get tough. While the IT spending collapse of 2000 was probably worse than anybody expected, the Swedish company says the decision to move to Java is now paying off. That decision also created the foundation for last week's announcement of an expanded alliance with business intelligence software maker Cognos to capitalize on the company's common Java architectures.

Allan Davies, Intentia's chief marketing officer, knows a thing or two about the pain Oracle is now facing in integrating PeopleSoft and its diverse ERP product lines. "For Oracle to support two or three product lines is a very expensive plan going forward. We know, because we're supporting two products," he says. "We made that decision in the 90s [to develop a new product line]. It's paying off now, but it took a lot of pain."

Back in the mid-90s, Intentia realized that it would need to adopt leading-edge technology if it wanted to have a modern product to sell 10 to 15 years down the road. "When a company makes an ERP decision, they're making a five to 10 year investment. Why buy software that's based on 10-year-old technology?" he says. "It's based on old technology that doesn't have the integration capabilities, doesn't have modern access to Internet technology, when we can offer those guys a platform based on Java and XML, to take advantage of portlets and the WebSphere platform."

So in 1996, Intentia standardized development of its Movex ERP suite (which is popular among midmarket manufacturers and distributors in the clothing, apparel, and food and beverage industries) on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology. Movex Java debuted in 1999, and reached parity with the RPG version around 2002, Movex officials have said. Although it will continue to support the RPG version as long as its customers need it, Davies says his customers are well aware that Intentia's policy is to do all new development in Java.

Intentia weathered the rough years following the dot-com boom of the 1990s. License revenue declined by about 26 percent from fiscal 2001 to 2003. But sales of Movex Java are now accelerating, Davies says, which shows the decision to change architectures was a good one. Currently, there are 250 customers live on Movex Java, out of a total installed base of 3,500, he says, and there are another 200 in the pipeline that should be up and running on Movex Java by the end of the year.

The expanded partnership with Cognos that Intentia unveiled last week should also boost Intentia's bottom line. As part of the new alliance, Intentia and Cognos will work closely together to integrate Cognos business intelligence tools with Intentia's ERP software, at the database level. The expanded partnership is still young, and no joint products have yet been announced, but it's very likely that they will be announced in the near future.

The common J2EE architecture used by Cognos and Intentia will make the technical collaboration that much easier, Davies says. "We had been working together for some years, and we wanted to take it to the next level," he says. "We are both committed to the J2EE platform. That opened up a number of possibilities for us, which means we needed to enter into a development agreement to take advantage of the architecture."

When IT spending cooled in 2000, many ERP vendors, including Intentia, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, resorted to pushing business intelligence, in addition to CRM and e-commerce, Davies says. While there was a lot of hype, not many customers got much real value out of it, he says. "There's no value [to business intelligence as an add-on component]. It's got to be part and parcel of the ERP database."

As part of the deal, Intentia will OEM technology from Cognos that will be deployed on Linux and Windows servers running IBM's WebSphere middleware. Analysts will use Cognos software to extract data from the ERP system and then to work with it on local servers or workstations. In addition to technological collaboration, the deal calls for expanding their joint sales and marketing activities.