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Lawson Update

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I haven’t felt the need to write about Lawson in quite some time.  Not because they are not a major player, or that they don’t have a decent mix of technology.  The truth of the matter is that Oracle and SAP seem to be so dominant these days that I hardly run across anyone else.  I’ll hear about Lawson projects every once in a while, but the volume seems to be much lower than in prior years.

Frank Scavo over at the Enterprise System Spectator had some good analysis points that I definitely agree with.

  • We discussed Lawson’s SOA framework, Landmark. Introduced over two years ago, Landmark incorporates pattern, or domain-specific language, to allow business analysts to build applications without knowledge of programming. So far, Lawson’s human capital management (HCM) offering is built on Landmark as well as its new strategic sourcing application. Eventually, all of Lawson’s products will transition to this new technology environment.
  • How does Lawson compete with SAP and Oracle? These days I’m hearing of many cases where prospects are not considering other vendors and when they do, SAP and Oracle are difficult to beat. Barry indicated that Lawson competes by focusing on key verticals, such as healthcare and retail. When they compete in their sweet spot, they do not lose many deals.
  • Lawson continues to be one of the largest enterprise system vendors that has managed to show enough success to remain independent during this period of software vendor consolidation. Its share price is at its highest point since 2002, which vindicate Lawson’s CEO Harry Debes

Let’s face it.  When Lawson competes in healthcare (I don’t have much exposure to retail markets), they rarely lose.  This is simply one of those markets where they are so entrenched as a vendor and they have such great brand recognition, it’s hard for anyone else to break in.  Certainly the fact that they have targeted development efforts in a very few verticals has helped out as an Oracle and SAP can’t provide the depth of healthcare specific functionality due to their needs for addressing broader markets.

It’s also interesting that Frank addresses Lawson’s continued independence.  Their ability to do so in these years of consolidation and still stay competitive has been impressive.  While Oracle and SAP have been out there building huge applications for the masses, it’s possible that Lawson’s focus on the few has resonated better within those limited markets.  And considering how large healthcare and retail are, perhaps this has been the right strategy after all.

I certainly don’t have the exposure to Lawson I’d like to have.  My guess is they also operate in more of a mid market segment (I’d characterize this as below 20K employees as the average client size).  But clearly they are a viable vendor, even if they have escaped my notice lately.

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