IT Strategy for Large Corporation: ERP/MRP/CRM, Unix/Linux/Windows,
Microsoft/Java – balanced approach
By Andrew Karasev
Alba Spectrum Technologies
USA
1-866-528-0577,
1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
Combining Microsoft
Business Solutions Great Plains ERP with non-Microsoft Business System or CRM:
Lotus Notes Domino, Oracle, DB2
There are multiple
opinions on building your established large business IT system. Some companies
prefer to be “Microsoft shop”, others prefer to stick to Java world. In our
opinion large company should try balance its ERP in several layers: Hardware,
Operating System, Database Platform, ERP/CRM software vendor. The history
always proofs that staking on one thing statistically has a chance to fail,
remember Windows/Mac battle in the middle of 1990th? Then Java
resurrected UNIX world in the end of the 20th century. All these
facts just tell us that any prediction of the future should not be accurate,
because the factors we could consider in the prediction formula will be
superceded by new conceptions. Good example would be C cross-platform
programming language – however now we are crazy about thin client – so where is
C longevity? So, in 2004 we merged several companies to serve large corporate
businesses, positioning us as cross platform integrators and the company,
envisioning harmony between multiple computer platforms and conceptions. Let us
give you our bullets below:
- Microsoft Business
Solutions pluses – old conception
that OS should be separate from the DB platform and from your accounting
application doesn’t work when we consider modern Microsoft: it now offers all
in one: Microsoft Great Plains/Navision/Axapta/Solomon/Microsoft CRM/Small
Business Financials ERP, based on MS SQL Server DB platform and all this nice
suite is working under Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. This is very nice to
have and the price would be lower, however you are in the business space and
conceptions of Microsoft corporation, which really deserves you to consider
either ERP or CRM solution to be trusted and handled into Microsoft guys
- ERP/Accounting/MRP
- we suppose that the old days of
expensive ERP application are going to the history. Nowadays we see the trend
to use reasonably inexpensive and functionally sufficient applications, based
in decent SQL platform. So, our suggestion is – do not pay for “high end” ERP/Accounting
system and rather consider reliable budget solution as a platform for light
customization
- Business System/CRM
– CRM market should be considered
a mature one in 2010, when such pioneers as Siebel will cross 15 years of the
existence. Again in our opinion you’d rather pay for small or moderate
customization to budget CRM solution to have work done. Microsoft CRM or
SalesLogix would do the job
- Oracle Financials
– we are supporters of the
companies who decided to go with Oracle Financials or SAP and have their
CRM/Business Management System to be placed on the Microsoft Windows
platform. Microsoft CRM would integrate with Oracle smoothly
- Microsoft CRM
– in our opinion large publicly
traded company should consider using Lotus Notes Domino for document workflow
and CRM and when adopting MS CRM – it should consider using Domino as primary
email server – see our MS CRM – Lotus Notes Domino email connector
description.
Good luck and you can always seek our
help in customization, implementation, integration and support. Call us:
1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com
Andrew Karasev is Chief
Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains,
Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona,
Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Germany, Continental Europe,
Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports
and Microsoft CRM SDK