Government Customer Embraces Lawson’s Cloud Move
Lawson Software, which focuses on enterprise resource planning, human capital management among other products and services, recently disclosed plans to offer its Enterprise Management Systems and Talent Management suite via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Now, a government customer has stepped up to embrace Lawson’s cloud strategy. Here are the details.
Lawson External Cloud Services, the software company claims, will make it easier for customers to buy, install and maintain enterprise software. Lawson cites Scott Co., Minn. among its first customers to opt for the Amazon EC2 offering. Lawson has been hosting the local government’s Lawson S3 Management Systems since 2007, also providing disaster recovery services. Lawson continues to provide hosting, but the DR duty now moves to EC2. A spokeswoman for Lawson said the switch has reduced recovery time from 24 to 48 hours to 8 hours.
Lawson does not anticipate disaster recovery to be the typical use case for the Amazon cloud service, according to the spokeswoman. Instead, DR will be “just one of many options,” she noted.
Other vendors, however, have developed DR-specific offerings. Double-Take Software, for example, in February revealed a disaster recovery arrangement with Amazon Web Services. Here again, EC2 is cast in the role as organizational backstop. Early customers include a construction company and a dental practice.
Overall, managed service providers may find disaster recovery in demand within certain niches. In addition to local government, healthcare organizations appear ripe for managed DR as medical records go electronic.
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It is good to hear that more traditional software houses like Lawson are dipping their toes in the cloud computing water. To us at UNIT4 it confirms that we have been on the right track for the past two decades. Lawson like many others is simply providing its existing ERP systems as hosted solutions with a subscription payment option.
UNIT4 has been offering SaaS and cloud solutions for 20 years. The SaaS version of Multivers, (Multivers Online) has over 2500 customers and the international ERP solution Agresso Business World and enterprise financial system CODA Financials have been offered with hosted options and subscription payment terms for many years. In addition to these solutions, we started developing a dedicated cloud accounting application, FinancialForce.com, a multi-tenant application developed on the salesforce.com development platform, three years ago and it is now enjoying growing demand with clients in 14 countries.
UNIT4 has recognized for some time that most clients, especially medium and large organizations, want to take a hybrid approach to cloud computing, with a mix of in house ‘on premises’ software and cloud technology. Virtually none of our clients have 100% of their business systems in the cloud – they usually opt for a mixed environment to give them the flexibility and cost profile that best fits the organization’s specific needs.
For this reason, last year we launched a dedicated business division called, ‘UNIT4 Hybrid Computing’. We work with clients to help them create the optimum mix of technologies to best meet their business objectives.
Joann: Congrats on the UNIT4 SaaS moves. Please be sure to keep our editorial team post (joe [at] NineLivesMediaInc.com) regarding your ERP SaaS moves. In Lawson’s case, I think they had no choice but to adjust with the times…
-jp