Infor Revives Infinium Brand for Casino Business

December 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

Before SSA bought a struggling Infinium Software in 2003, Infinium, along with its System 2000 line of ERP software, was one of the most well-known brands in the AS/400 market. For several years, we didn’t hear much out of the Massachusetts outfit, as the software line took on new names and was overshadowed by competing SSA solutions. Last month, Infor–the company that subsequently purchased SSA–revived the Infinium brand once again with two announcements related to the casino industry.

Infinium has always had a strong market in the casino industry, which is very heavily populated with System i machines, particularly with its human resources, finance, and CRM modules. To that end, Infor in November unveiled a partnership with Strategic Labor, a Worcester, Massachusetts, developer of Java-based scheduling software for the hospitality, healthcare, distribution, and petro-chemical industries.

The partnership has led to an integration between Infor’s i OS-based HCM Workforce Management solution (the one originally from Infinium) and Strategic Labor’s Strategic Workforce Scheduler that will give casinos more power over their employee schedules. Specifically, the deal brings Infor’s Infinium customers access to Strategic’s rules-based scheduler, which automatically configures schedules based on business requirements, employee skill, availability, and budgets, according to Infinium. It will also enable much greater control over scheduling at table games.

The integrated solution will be sold by Infinium Software Inc., which Infor points out is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infor.

The second Infinium-related announcement is a sales deal with Paragon Gaming, a Las Vegas company that develops and operates casinos, including three properties in Canada. As part of the deal, Paragon will license the Financial Management System (FMS) SunSystems and Performance Management (PM) Planning and Budgeting applications.

The software will run on Microsoft SQL servers, Infor says, and is being handled through Infinium Software, which Infor again points out is a wholly owned subsidiary of Infor.

It’s interesting to note that the only two times that the phrases “Infinium Software” or “Infinium Software Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infor” appear on the Infor Web site (outside of third-party press stories hosted on the site) are these two press announcements from November.

So why is Infor bringing back the Infinium name? Could it be that Infor is preparing to sell the Infinium assets? After all, it was just a few months ago that Agilysys–the big dog in the casino-related i OS software market that owns the core LMS and SWS applications–put itself up for sale.

The answer is no, according to an Infor spokesman, who says Infor has no plans to spin off the Infinium product line or the Infinium Software subsidiary.

The reason Infor brought back the name has to do with the legal bodies overseeing the casino industry. Because Infinium Software has a license with state gaming commissions, it must use the Infinium name when selling these offerings or showing them off, as Infor did last month at the G2E Conference in Las Vegas, the spokesman explained.

And since Infor hasn’t made many Infinium-related announcements lately–in fact, these appear to be the only two Infinium announcements since Infor acquired the stuff via SSA way back in 2006–the use of the Infinium name seemed “new,” when in fact it was there all along.