The rumour is that Lawson Software is for sale. They have retained Barclays to find a buyer. See link for details http://tinyurl.com/4l9vpoq
The buyers interested in Lawson are potentially INFOR, MS, HP, ORACLE, SAP and IBM. For ORACLE, SAP, and MS this would add to their stable of ERP based software. It would also provide a quick win for these companies to penetrate further government, human resources and financials especially to mid-sized companies. Lower operating expenses will increase margins for the three vendors mentioned. All of these vendors have the cash for this type of transaction.
As for INFOR’s position their vertical focused strategy is well served for medium sized companies featuring financials government and human resources. This would strengthen the INFOR stable of ERP solutions and complement their Workbrain software which would make sense to be integrated into Lawson and extend an already strong HR solution. INFOR would have acquired an ERP that is focused on government and midsized companies (One of INFOR’s sweetspots)
If IBM were to purchase Lawson that would provide IBM another software but more importantly give them an in towards the enterprise software space adding to their stable of other software products. By adding a full ERP especially with HR and financials strengths complements IBM strategy and gives them another avenue for their collaboration software of Lotus Notes and the Lotus Smartsuite. Their professional services and consultative approach gives them another product they can resell into midsize companies. This was the original intent of the SAP partnership target midsize companies because both SAP and IBM software products form a better play than each of these companies individually. If IBM was to purchase Lawson, then midsize companies could have an enterprise software from IBM and be complemented with all other IBM products. IBM already partners with Lawson to offer a cloud solution so this makes it a great fit as these can be offered by one company now.
The way HP can benefit from this is one of the more intriguing plays. With Leo Apotheker at the helm of HP who knows more about enterprise software than the former CEO of SAP. This acquisition would give HP a pure foray into the ERP enterprise software space. With their stable of hardware, infrastructure especially with their IaaS, cloud computing platforms and consulting would give HP an actual business suite of software. This would complement their professional services consulting model. Their infrastructure and platforms may be enough to provision Lawson entirely as a cloud or SaaS system. By putting them in an enterprise space which HP is trying to break into as one of the emerging markets for HP. With the Palm OS being added on all new HP devices in 2012 may also give them a mobile platform to deploy Lawson. The combination of the mobile and traditional on-premise can rapidly extend Lawson and it can quickly fill a gap in the market for Mobile ERP. This post was written before the acquisition.
So if you have about $1.9Billion dollars laying around Lawson can be yours. That’s considering there is no resulting bidding war. Good Luck.
Eval-Source is an Analyst/Consulting consulting firm that offers enterprise software evaluation, cloud computing consulting, business process optimization and technology planning for organizations. Our innovative professional services make your life easier whether it is to acquire enterprise software or provide you with fact – based information to match your business with IT. Eval-Source provides critical decision support to validate your technology investments using the Tru-Eval system. Follow our blog at www.eval-source.com/blog or on twitter @eval_source or our site
