The largest southern African site of Hansa ERP software has gone live with Namibian retailer Cymot.
Installer Liquid Thought of the Western Cape says the Hansa cross-platform enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software does not shackle itself to Microsoft and is making a name for itself on the African continent because of its portability to various platforms. These include Microsoft, Linux, Unix and Mac.
"Microsoft is making big inroads into the ERP/CRM space and it should soon be able to control around 80% of that market. However, there will always be those who, for some reason or another, dislike using Microsoft products, so we don't see why we have to exclude those people from being customers of ours," says Roger Strain, a Liquid Thought director.
Liquid Thought is a Microsoft value-added reseller, but it does not consider supplying a product that could compete with the US software giant as a negative.
"It really is about us being able to service our clients and supplying them with a solution for their needs," says Zulfiq Isaacs, Liquid Thought MD.
Isaacs says Hansa's installed base runs mainly on Microsoft boxes. However, he notes: "The whole infrastructure argument is becoming irrelevant. Clients are better educated than before and do their homework about what they want their systems to do. What operating system is used is not really a major factor," he says.
The Hansa financial software products are optimised for the small and medium enterprise market, supporting a maximum of 500 users. The Cymot site has about 180 users and it took six months to install.
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