Thus, the competition from more rounded BI providers, such as Cognos, Business Objects, SAS Institute, Informatica, and Hyperion, and from tier one ERP providers, will only become a greater challenge for FRx, despite many of these vendors' likely less sharp focus on financial reporting, planning, and budgeting at this stage. It will be particularly interesting to watch the approach of the parent, Microsoft, to Crystal Reports (now part of Business Objects), which made quite a splash a decade ago when selected as the reporting engine for Microsoft Visual Basic. Its technology partners largely overlap with FRx to include Best, ACCPAC, MBS, Exact Macola, and Epicor.
For example, across all Solomon series of modules, there is the OEM embedded, industry-accepted, and familiar Crystal report writer, which can publish reports directly to the Web (using an embedded Crystal Reports Smart Viewer) or into Excel. Crystal is also designed to consolidate data from existing front- and back-office applications, and provide speedy analysis and distribution of this information in a suitable reporting format. Web-enabled Crystal Enterprise allows reports to be deployed over the Internet or a corporate intranet, and to a variety of formats including XML, PDF, DHTML, RTF, Word, Excel, text, e-mail, and version 7 .rpt.
Any report can easily incorporate charts, pictures, logos, colors, field highlighting, or running totals. However, given Microsoft's intended foray into the reporting sector of the broader BI market with its recent unveiling of SQL Server Reporting Services, slated for a foreseeable future, may seriously strain the partnership with Crystal Decisions, which could deprive MBS products' users of this sleek reporting feature. While a complementary, tandem strategy is more likely than a replacement strategy, given MBS is still currently evaluating the latest offering from Crystal Decisions for incorporation in future versions of MBS's products, one can never be sure of how any co-opetitive software partnership may turn out in the end.
Also, while FRx Software and Microsoft will address the unification of the above islands of analytics under the Microsoft BI umbrella, through Web parts leveraging FRx and Forecaster data; integration to Microsoft SharePoint 2.0 and Digital Dashboards portals; more specific details are not available at this stage, which will likely mean several years lag behind competitive products.
The competition does not end with more rounded BI providers either, given a slew of slick budgeting and planning products that many go well beyond leveraging GL data. In addition to the above-mentioned BI powerhouses, Applix, Cartesis, Longview, Comshare (now part of Geac), Closedloop (now part of Lawson), OutlookSoft, Prophix, and SRC Software would be only some. For example, OutlookSoft's software allows for bidirectional data collection, analysis, and communication of information contained in internal and external data stores such as ERP and CRM systems.
Further, while FRx Software's advantage is its interface's familiar look to financial personnel, it still requires certain training, given its particular spreadsheet-like interface is not exactly Excel-like. Some competitors are lowering customer's training and ongoing costs by taking advantage of functionality in Microsoft Excel and Outlook, while streamlining consolidation and preserving data and referential integrity issues. Web services will accelerate this trend by making it easy to combine Microsoft Office functionality with corporate procedures.
Possibly the best example would be the financial reporting archrival F9 product delivered formerly by Synex Systems, and now owned by Lasata, which promotes itself with the tag line: "You know Excel ... you know F9." It also integrates with more than forty accounting packages, many of which are also from the FRx Software fold, and it can easily populate a spreadsheet with "live" data from the GL to create a custom report publishable on paper or digitally. Users can create reports for any time period, and F9 can consolidate GLs that do not share the same account structure. Another competitor, Timeline, with its slew of patented "accounting intelligent" and analytically richer products like Analyst Reporting, Analyst Filter, and Analyst Consolidations has also occupied some space and thereby limited FRx's opportunities through a number of private label agreements, such as with Sage, ACCPAC, Lawson, and Deltek Systems.
Another intruder into FRx Software's hunting grounds would be Cetova, a spin-off of consulting firm GL Associates, which has created a financial statement reporting product, C-FAR, leveraging its years of implementation experience with former J.D. Edwards World and OneWorld product lines (now part of PeopleSoft), which has been a coveted but never penetrated market for FRx. Given Geac and Lawson's recent acquisitions of former FRx Software competitors, the opportunity shrinkage for FRx is likely to occur in that manner too. To possibly wrap up FRx Software's potential market erosion, one should mention Epicor's own eIntelligence Reporting offering, as well as Bennet/Porter & Associates' Crystal Vision product's existence too.
For example, across all Solomon series of modules, there is the OEM embedded, industry-accepted, and familiar Crystal report writer, which can publish reports directly to the Web (using an embedded Crystal Reports Smart Viewer) or into Excel. Crystal is also designed to consolidate data from existing front- and back-office applications, and provide speedy analysis and distribution of this information in a suitable reporting format. Web-enabled Crystal Enterprise allows reports to be deployed over the Internet or a corporate intranet, and to a variety of formats including XML, PDF, DHTML, RTF, Word, Excel, text, e-mail, and version 7 .rpt.
Any report can easily incorporate charts, pictures, logos, colors, field highlighting, or running totals. However, given Microsoft's intended foray into the reporting sector of the broader BI market with its recent unveiling of SQL Server Reporting Services, slated for a foreseeable future, may seriously strain the partnership with Crystal Decisions, which could deprive MBS products' users of this sleek reporting feature. While a complementary, tandem strategy is more likely than a replacement strategy, given MBS is still currently evaluating the latest offering from Crystal Decisions for incorporation in future versions of MBS's products, one can never be sure of how any co-opetitive software partnership may turn out in the end.
Also, while FRx Software and Microsoft will address the unification of the above islands of analytics under the Microsoft BI umbrella, through Web parts leveraging FRx and Forecaster data; integration to Microsoft SharePoint 2.0 and Digital Dashboards portals; more specific details are not available at this stage, which will likely mean several years lag behind competitive products.
The competition does not end with more rounded BI providers either, given a slew of slick budgeting and planning products that many go well beyond leveraging GL data. In addition to the above-mentioned BI powerhouses, Applix, Cartesis, Longview, Comshare (now part of Geac), Closedloop (now part of Lawson), OutlookSoft, Prophix, and SRC Software would be only some. For example, OutlookSoft's software allows for bidirectional data collection, analysis, and communication of information contained in internal and external data stores such as ERP and CRM systems.
Further, while FRx Software's advantage is its interface's familiar look to financial personnel, it still requires certain training, given its particular spreadsheet-like interface is not exactly Excel-like. Some competitors are lowering customer's training and ongoing costs by taking advantage of functionality in Microsoft Excel and Outlook, while streamlining consolidation and preserving data and referential integrity issues. Web services will accelerate this trend by making it easy to combine Microsoft Office functionality with corporate procedures.
Possibly the best example would be the financial reporting archrival F9 product delivered formerly by Synex Systems, and now owned by Lasata, which promotes itself with the tag line: "You know Excel ... you know F9." It also integrates with more than forty accounting packages, many of which are also from the FRx Software fold, and it can easily populate a spreadsheet with "live" data from the GL to create a custom report publishable on paper or digitally. Users can create reports for any time period, and F9 can consolidate GLs that do not share the same account structure. Another competitor, Timeline, with its slew of patented "accounting intelligent" and analytically richer products like Analyst Reporting, Analyst Filter, and Analyst Consolidations has also occupied some space and thereby limited FRx's opportunities through a number of private label agreements, such as with Sage, ACCPAC, Lawson, and Deltek Systems.
Another intruder into FRx Software's hunting grounds would be Cetova, a spin-off of consulting firm GL Associates, which has created a financial statement reporting product, C-FAR, leveraging its years of implementation experience with former J.D. Edwards World and OneWorld product lines (now part of PeopleSoft), which has been a coveted but never penetrated market for FRx. Given Geac and Lawson's recent acquisitions of former FRx Software competitors, the opportunity shrinkage for FRx is likely to occur in that manner too. To possibly wrap up FRx Software's potential market erosion, one should mention Epicor's own eIntelligence Reporting offering, as well as Bennet/Porter & Associates' Crystal Vision product's existence too.
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