Infor Reports 17 Percent Annual Organic License Growth and 16 Percent Organic License Growth for the Most Recent Quarter

First Full Year with New Strategy and Management Team Accelerates Growth in Licenses, Subscriptions, Support, Margins, Innovation, and Customers

ATLANTA - Jan 03, 2012

Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, reported 17 percent license growth for the twelve months ended November 2011. The company also reported 16 percent organic license growth for its second fiscal quarter, which ended November 2011. EBITDA margins improved to 27 percent, and new customer additions and support subscriptions accelerated. Growth in Infor's core ERP business in the second fiscal quarter was up 25 percent over the previous year. This strong financial performance caps an exciting year of transformation driven by major investments in industry-specific business applications.

"Infor now has one of the largest engineering organizations in the world dedicated to innovating in business applications," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor. "Business processes have become more complex and dynamic while most of the software industry's investment drifted to infrastructure. Customers are responding to Infor's tidal wave of new industry features, consumer-grade user interfaces, and Infor10 pre-integrated suites. Infor plans to continue a disruptive strategy of delivering release after release of deep industry features that eliminate cumbersome customizations, productize geographic localizations, and provide in context business intelligence with projects measured in months and not years."

The last 12 Months at Infor:

• Customer Growth - Infor added more than 2500 new customers during 2011 and expanded its relationship with more than 12,000 existing customers. Infor also saw growth in support and consulting, with more than 500 customers re-engaged with Infor for support. New or existing customers that made significant investments in Infor products in 2011 include Ferrari, BAE Systems Military Air and Information, Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc., Greif, and Liberty Mutual.
• Investment in Engineering -Infor added more than 500 software engineers in 2011 and announced plans to hire an additional 75 developers in its Innovation Center, which will be housed at the company's new headquarters in New York City. Infor shipped 69 new products, 1904 new features and 2001 customer enhancement requests - up more than 70 percent from the previous year.
• New headquarters - In November Infor announced a relocation of its headquarters to New York City. The new office will feature an Innovation Center where software engineers and graphic designers will focus on building out Infor10's intuitive graphical user interface, and lead the integration of social applications into the enterprise.

Enhanced Product Offerings & Strategic Partnerships:

• Enhanced software platform - The company unveiled Infor10, its next generation enterprise software which offers an enhanced user experience and industry-specific functionality. On the front end, Infor10 Workspace provides customers with a single sign-on, common navigation and common look-and-feel across multiple applications. Infor10 ION, the company's lightweight middleware technology, connects and integrates Infor and third-party applications to increase the speed of business through improved data sharing.
• Strategic Partnerships - This year, Infor partnered with Salesforce.com, a leader in enterprise cloud computing to offer three new InForce applications that bring the power of the back office to the front office, and throughout the social enterprise, helping customers collaborate and drive growth. Additionally, Salesforce.com made a multi-million dollar investment in Infor as part of the agreement.

"As we look to the future, 2012 will be just as exciting for Infor," added Phillips. "We have a strong, motivated team, a market looking for new alternatives, and a customer-centric strategy that is working well and generating growth."

About Infor

Infor is a leading provider of business software and services, helping more than 70,000 customers in 164 countries improve operations and drive growth. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.

Infor Financials SunSystems 4.4 release is now generally available

Dear Infor Channel Partner—

Infor is pleased to announce that the latest release of Infor Financials SunSystems 4.4 is now generally available. The 4.4 release of SunSystems introduces the following new and enhanced functionality.

User Interface

New user experience: A new user interface has been introduced to provide quick and efficient access to SunSystems functions while allowing users to work with keyboard access and established shortcuts. Standard menu access for each operator is complemented by a "Favorites" option, allowing a user-defined menu with personalized entries. The traditional SunSystems modules are represented as tabs. Within each module/tab, the content is organized in newer-style categories represented with icons. The majority of forms have been enhanced to include descriptive content in dropdown boxes, calendar controls, and checkboxes for standard Yes/No options, but old-style character responses are preserved throughout.

Help for SunSystems 4 (core languages): The interconnected suite of Help files, which was available only in English in SunSystems 4.3.3, is now delivered in all languages in which the SunSystems 4.4 user interface is delivered (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese [Simplified], Chinese [Traditional], and Japanese).

Security and Control

SunSystems Security: The separate, centralized security facility introduced with SunSystems 4.3 (4.3.1) is now an integral part of SunSystems 4.4 with a single, combined installation routine.

Permission Control on Allocation Marker Updates: The application and removal of allocation markers in Account Allocation, On-Line Allocation, Journal Entry, Journal Import, and Reconciliation Manager can now be restricted by Operator Permissions. A new Allocation Marker Restrictions tab has been added to Operator Group Database Miscellaneous Restrictions in User Manager. Access to On-Line Allocation has also been made subject to Operator Permissions; a new action has been added to the Database Menu Selections for Journal Entry in Ledger Accounting.

Audit Reports: Reference and Transactional Audit Reports have been enhanced to include timestamp data.

Audit Control: Audit Control can now be configured for individual databases rather than functioning system-wide. A simple facility to copy existing audit control settings from one database to a second or all databases is available.

Customer-driven Enhancements

Account Allocation and Account Inquiry: Selection criteria to extract by due date have been added to these functions to facilitate better debtor and creditor control.

Sales Invoicing: A user's own bank details can be recorded and made available for inclusion on the sales invoice. Default own bank details can be defined on the "Own Address" Names and Address record. This can be overridden by alternative own bank details on individual customer Chart of Accounts records.

Portuguese Invoicing: Changes have been introduced to meet new sales invoicing regulations introduced by the Portuguese government at the beginning of 2011. This functionality is enabled by the introduction of a user hook and works using an encrypted hash total.

Technology

Platform Updates: Infor Financials SunSystems 4.4 is now available for Oracle 11g R2.

Windows Printing: Windows Printing has been reworked, enabling the user to identify and setup suitable Windows printers via User Manager and SunSystems for ad hoc print use. Local or network printers can be easily assigned to an existing SunSystems printer profile in a new User Manager dialog. Once Windows printing is enabled, a standard Windows print dialog is presented to the user when the print function is selected. Further amendments such as printer selection, number of copies, paper orientation, etc. may be made at this time before the print is confirmed.

Windows Database Collation: A native Windows database collation has been introduced. Data and screens now operate using a Windows collation and code page, replacing any previous DOS collation. European language users upgrading from earlier releases must convert SunSystems backup files generated from their previous SunSystems installation before restoring into version 4.4. A new CodePageConverter.exe utility has been made available for this purpose in the SunSystems program directory.

Add-on Operator Permissions: The previous version 4.3.3 super user ZO=Maintain Add On Op. Permissions has now been replaced. With the introduction of the new Navigator menu interface, the installation of add-on products now requires the addition of new modules and functions to both Navigator and User Manager. A new ThirdPartyInstaller.exe utility has been made available for this purpose in the SunSystems program directory. An XML file containing all required updates is required in conjunction with this utility.

This method should be considered when your SAP B1 application is already implemented and you are comfortable to go ahead with the next phases, where you plan to introduce custom business logic, integration and reporting. Remote support might be not the best way to do the job if you are facing initial system implementation. Here we recommend you travelling or local consultant. Remote support is good option on secondary market or in other words for existing customers. On the other hand local consulting force might be limited in their interest and in the sense of technical expertise to undertake SDK programming project. Let's review possible phase two and three projects which could be outsourced to nationwide support organization:

1. Customizations and SDK programming. Software Development Kit includes objects description and code samples in popular programming languages such as C#, VB and C++. We recommend you to do coding in Microsoft Visual Studio. However it doesn't mean that you cannot integrate something sitting in Linux box with Business One. What it might be is ecommerce shopping cart coming from the PHP programmed custom ecommerce portal hosted in MySQL. In this case you can program custom integration in MS Visual Studio C# and turn it into SOAP XML web service or stick to old good days http post

2. Ongoing integrations. There is typically no question about filling CSV templates and import data in Data Transfer Workbench. Every local consultant should be familiar with these also called Excel templates and how to do data migration in initial implementation. Advanced ODBC connection has its pluses when you would like to open ODBC compliant database via SQL View. It works pretty much the same way as CSV templates however you can do data selection tuning in the View SQL code and in this case there is no need to regenerate or manually rekey CSV template in Excel

3. Crystal reports design. The best report is probably the one where rows selection logic is outside of its scope and sits in SQL View or even better SQL Stored Procedure. You can test selection results and be sure that your future report is reliable even prior to opening CR Designer. If you expect that report will be having the same layout in the future then by separating pulling logic in SQL you do not need to open report in Designer to make business logic modifications. All that could be done directly in SQL Stored Procedure or View

4. How remote support works? There are numerous remote access technologies, such as Web Session, VPN, Remote Desktop Connection, Citrix to name a few. Let's come through the web session example. You call or email your consultant, she or he issues web session in Gotomeeting (or similar web session management software) and emails you invitation to the session. You open your email, click on the link and go all the way through in Internet Explorer. When you are in the session you show your screen and share keyboard and mouse control with remote technician. There is complete feeling that consultant is physically next to you in your cubicle

5. Supporting global organization. Remote technical support is good option if you have presence in several world regions and might be implemented in Hub-and-Spokes Corporate ERP model where you have high-end ERP in the headquarters and SB1 in the international offices worldwide. In version 8.8X SB1 is now available to be deployed on the same SQL Server for all the countries and we recommend you to host this server in your headquarters and open it to international users via Citrix

MUMBAI, INDIA: Infor, a provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced that it will relocate its headquarters to New York City in the summer of 2012.

Located in "Silicon Alley," known for its high concentration of Internet and technology companies, Infor's new headquarters will feature an Innovation Center, where Infor will house newly-hired software engineers and graphic designers, said a press release.

"Infor's commitment to move its headquarters to New York is another sign that international, high tech companies see this state as the place to be," said Governor Andrew Cuomo. "I have repeatedly said that our number one mission is getting people back to work. This deal is an example of how we are working tirelessly to make sure companies know that New York is open for business."

Infor expects to have one of the largest software engineering teams in New York City and access the rich pool of technical talent in the region. The planned technology campus the City of New York is building in conjunction with major universities was also an attraction for the company, along with the city's accessibility for Infor customers from around the world, the release added.

"Infor's relocation of its headquarters to New York City is another vote of confidence in our booming tech sector," said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

He added that this growth in the tech industry demands a large, dedicated work force, and that's why our Applied Sciences initiative to build a new engineering school here is so important. It's just one of the ways we are supporting the tech sector so that companies like Infor can grow and create jobs in New York City.

"2011 has been a strong year for Infor, with three consecutive quarters of year-over-year double-digit growth that have fueled our decision to accelerate investment in product innovation by coming to New York's Silicon Alley," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor.

He added that this state-of-the-art facility will enable them to hire and house developers and graphic designers to enhance the user experience and integrate social applications into the workplace, further advancing the speed of business for their customers. They also plan to build a customer center that showcases these innovations in an environment as compelling as the technology itself.

Infor's new headquarters will be located at 641 Avenue of the Americas, and will feature an open, loft-style design. The layout will fuel product innovation by providing an environment conducive to collaboration and transparency, with no traditional executive corner offices.

Infor's current headquarters in Alpharetta, Ga. will continue to operate as its main shared services center, housing critical functions such as finance, human resources and tax.

 Whether creating work boots for use in the field of combat, in the world of manufacturing, or just to make a fashion statement, Red Wing Shoes' innovations have made the company a global footwear success. As the company established a growth plan to expand its reach, it added an enterprise resource planning system that could integrate enterprise applications and keep the company abreast of all operations from manufacturing to shipping product to customers.

Red Wing Shoes is a $500-million privately held company, with more than a century's worth of experience. The company was founded in 1905, and within 10 years, Red Wing Shoes was producing more than 200,000 pairs of boots annually. It was also the primary company manufacturing footwear for American soldiers fighting in World War I and World War II.

The company continued that tradition; it still features Red Wing-brand work and steel-toe shoes and also designs a casual line in three domestic factories as well as one overseas. The company recently augmented its portfolio with a garment division that creates flame-retardant clothing for oil and gas workers.

"We had an expansion plan on our docket for quite some time to jump into garments, and we also eventually want to add 125 more stores over five years," said Joe Topinka, the company's CIO. "Simultaneously, we're supporting a growing wholesale e-commerce operation. We went from no customers to 2,500 in a short period of time. This made us push the envelope on customer service."

What makes the company unique, however, is that Red Wing Shoes' business model starts with raw hides. The company tans the leather, manufactures the footwear, and then sells it in one of its 400 stores (half company-owned, half dealer partnerships), throughout retail partners' stores and online through its wholesale division.

It is imperative for the company to track the flow of raw materials from rawhide to finished goods, a process that can be tedious. By adding an ERP system five years ago, the company gained insight into the entire supply chain, from raw materials to finished goods, as well as within its own manufacturing and retail operations.

The company chose an ERP system from Lawson Software, St. Paul, Minn., to handle, and streamline, its operations. The platform is linked to the retailer's AS400 computing platform, and it pulls all item movement data from store-level point-of-sale and e-commerce transactions into a common database.

The solution is also linked to an EDI system, which monitors placed orders and vendor payments. As the company receives raw and finished materials inventory from suppliers, they are scanned into the system upon arrival at one of the warehouses, using a mobile scanning system.

Information from all business functions is integrated, including sales forecasting, which contributes to inventory optimization; order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment; revenue tracking, from invoice through cash receipt and the matching purchase orders; inventory receipts for arrivals and costing based on vendor invoicing.

Looking ahead, the solution will support the company's expanding "stores on wheels" initiative, which includes launching "mobile stores," or pop-up locations that are "where the workers are," Topinka explained.

The company is also launching the newest version of the solution this summer, and expects that "to fuel tremendous productivity benefits as well," he says, adding that the company will begin the implementation this fall.

In addition, the chain is in the early stages of a new POS upgrade, as well as exploring an e-commerce initiative that enables customers to pick up merchandise at a store. "The success of these programs and upholding customer service includes integrating all applications within our ERP system so all item movement remains visible," Topinka said

Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, announced the acquisition of new product lines from Single Source Systems, Inc., an Infor solution partner and leader in service management solutions. The acquired product lines include Service Management Plus (SM-Plus), SM-Plus Mobile and Workbench Suite. The addition of these products to Infor's solution offerings will benefit dealers, distributors and manufacturers primarily through a direct relationship with Infor and closer alignment of Single Source and Infor products.

Infor has acquired complementary new product lines from Single Source Systems, an Infor partner and leading provider of service management solutions, including:

• • SM-Plus - enables service-centric companies that make, distribute and service high-value or complex equipment to manage the entire service life cycle of that equipment.
  • SM-Plus Mobile - allows field technicians to use a laptop or mobile device to remotely access critical supply-chain information such as unit configuration, incident history, service history, service contract status, and parts availability while still in the field.
  • Workbench Suite - allows users to consolidate several role-related screens, performance gauges, navigation shortcuts, process flow guides, and advanced search/report tools in one easy-to-access location.

Following this acquisition, Infor intends to deliver significant product enhancements and to integrate these key solutions with a number of core Infor platforms, providing even greater synergies between the Single Source product lines and existing Infor product offerings. Several of the acquired SM-Plus products were specifically designed to work with Infor10 ERP Business (SyteLine) and were developed using Infor's Mongoose software development toolset.

Customers that had previously been working with Single Source will also benefit from the strength and stability of partnering with Infor, the third largest enterprise applications provider in the world, with a focus on product innovation and customer value. Customers will also benefit from unified support from a single vendor, reducing critical response time and streamlining access to product support.

IT systems and services provider Cambridge Online has extended its ERP capability by partnering with manufacturing SME enterprise software giant Infor.

Cambridge Online CEO Ray Olds explains that the company will now offer Infor10 ERP Business (SyteLine) to discrete manufacturers across a broad range of industries, including metal fabrication, industrial equipment and machinery, high tech electronics and automotive manufacturers in the UK.

"We need to be partnered with a manufacturing software provider with long-standing specialism in handling the pressures associated with discrete, custom manufacturers," explains Olds.

Choosing Infor SyteLine, he says, is about recognising the importance of agility and responsiveness for such manufacturers. "Infor10 ERP Business is the right product for this environment," he adds.

Cambridge Online will provide sales, installation, integration and support, with immediate effect.

In the meantime, the firm retains its Microsoft Gold partner status, says Olds, insisting that it will continue to offer Microsoft Dynamics NAV to existing customer-base and in other markets.

"Infor's channel strategy is key to our growth and generates 24% of license revenues globally," comments Jean-Philippe Pommel, Infor's vice president of channels, EMEA.

"Establishing partnerships with the right quality organisations is key to capitalising on this growth, so recruiting a proven channel partner like Cambridge Online is key to executing on this strategy."

By 2015, 40% of SAP's business will come from alternative channel partners, as the company seeks to accelerate growth and its global footprint.

This is according to Eric Duffaut, SAP global president of ecosystem and channels. Duffaut was speaking during a roundtable at SAP's Sapphire Now conference, in Madrid.

Duffaut said SAP is driving its channel partner network, and has grown its small and medium enterprise (SME) segment by 42%. Currently, 76% of SAP's customers are SMEs, at 90 000 out of 150 000 customers.

Duffaut explained that 80% of SAP's mobile applications come from partners. "Today, we can only effectively compete by building a strong channel network. Our success depends on how we embark on developing this channel ecosystem."

He added that co-innovation is a key part of SAP's strategy; working closely with partners to develop applications.

Luis Murguia, SAP senior VP of ecosystem and channels for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, concurred. "After the SAP acquisition of Business Objects, we had a much wider choice of solutions for our customers, and had to re-think how we could address the market and reach the right customers.

"SAP has started the new partner ecosystem and channel to embrace all of its partners to drive a much more holistic approach compared to the past; which was segmented."

Uwe Bohnhorst, COO of itelligence, a SAP partner, pointed out that the partner ecosystem means it now has new revenue streams and the ability to make its business model more robust, scalable and profitable.

"Now, with SAP moving towards platforms, we as a partner have the ability and duty to understand our customers' business and co-innovate with partners in a system that provides real value."

SAP recently acquired e-commerce firm, Crossgate in a deal that closed on 1 November. The Crossgate platform has enabled SAP's customers to connect electronically in the cloud with thousands of partners and extend a company's business processes to its community.

According to the company, participation in this business network will eliminate the need for costly point-to-point integration, helping reduce complexity, while enabling its partners to scale up.

Recent partnerships, which have expanded on-demand solution options from SAP and extended its ecosystem, include Amazon Web Services, Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Virtual Computing Environment coalition and Verizon.

Infor, the provider of business application software, has launched Infor10, which features a consumer-grade user experience, complete industry-specific software applications and Infor10 ION Suite, a lightweight, middleware technology that changes the way enterprise software is managed.

"Our customers today already enjoy best-in-class applications with deep out-of-the-box functionality across a variety of highly specialised industries and micro-verticals. Infor10 sets a new standard for how work gets done. People at work have come to expect the same user experience they encounter in their everyday lives as users of Twitter, Facebook and Google. Infor10 and the Infor10 ION Suite bring that to the workplace," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor. "This unique combination provides our existing customers the opportunity to dramatically upgrade and extend their investments in Infor applications and it gives new customers the next wave of enterprise software innovation they've been seeking," he said.

The Infor10 ION Suite is at the heart of Infor10. ION connects and integrates Infor and non-Infor applications, storing information in a common format and repository. ION allows information that flows among applications, analytics and social media streams to be accessed by users from their desktops, laptops and mobile devices.

Unlike conventional middleware, the lightweight ION technology is not layered on top of existing applications, but infused into them. As a result, ION makes integrations quicker, simpler and more reliable. "ION creates the mobile, social and flexible enterprise," said Soma Somasundaram, senior vice president, Global Product Development, Infor. "Because it's lightweight and built using open standards, ION installs much faster than heavy middleware and allows customers to get up and running quickly and efficiently so they can focus on their core business," he said.

ION enables new and existing Infor and non-Infor applications to work as a holistic solution, helping to create streamlined workflows and end-to-end business processes, while improving system performance speed and upgrades.