Lawson leads software industry into next technology paradigm shift

Lawson Software has built a new corporate enterprise software model based on technologies gleaned from the Internet and World Wide Web. Calling it a major software industry paradigm shift, Lawson Software has introduced Self-Evident Applications (SEA), the model for all future Lawson applications. Gavin Kleinhans, Manager: Lawson Business Unit, SPL's Application Products Division, says the SEA model is based on a network-centric architecture designed to deliver application functionality to light-client, browser-based desktops. "Among the significant customer benefits of the new technology is the elimination of expensive and time-consuming application software training requirements - which Lawson calls 'Zero Training' - and the mass deployment of graphical enterprise application systems via corporate intranets and extranets," he says. The introduction of SEA followed closely on Lawson's announcement of LOGAN (Lawson Open Graphical Application Navigator), a browser-based tool that provides information access, Drill-Around, query and graphical reporting capabilities fed from the dynamic metadata in on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems. LOGAN gives users dynamic access to current data and warehoused data from Lawson and non-Lawson systems. LOGAN works as a knowledge (metadata) based navigator that, once the enterprise data model is defined, is able to interpret and instantly respond graphically to user queries. For corporations, LOGAN offers an attractive business alternative to more invasive "push" technologies. Richard Lawson, chairman of Lawson and executive vice president of web products, comments: "The technology is now available to move beyond client/server technology - an industry standard that has disappointed tens of thousands of corporations who thought they were going to gain immediate significant return on their enterprise-wide client/server investment. "Some aren`t even implemented yet. Here we are eight to 10 years into this technology and implementations are no faster and more costly than ever. It was time for a technology change, and we`re pleased to be the first to provide the solution." With SEA, Lawson users will never again need to be trained on their Lawson applications, so implementation becomes simply a matter of delivering the application over the Internet to users who can then start working from day one with any standard web browser. Lawson executives believe strongly that recent competitive announcements declaring that "intuitive" technology can be gained from standard client/server technologies is impossible. "You are still asking people to think in a way that is not natural," Lawson says. "Pull-down menus - even with clumsy bolted-on EIS systems - are just not the way people work naturally. Do you wake up in the morning and immediately arrange your mind in a pull-down menu? Self-Evident Applications are NOT the same thing as intuitive applications. Self-evident means that you begin work immediately on the application because your work is already arranged the way you`d approach it without the computer." Lawson cites the success of the World Wide Web allowing mass access to information with no training as evidence of the practicality of the solution. "It`s already proven successful," Lawson says. "With SEA, we`re employing a technology that has already proven superior to rigid and inflexible client/server interfaces." Self-Evident Applications contain a built-in, out-of-the-box application information system that sifts data through knowledge filters, then graphically displays information with hyperlinks - the same technology used on the Internet. With SEA, Lawson gives companies practical and cost-effective extensibility of business functions by extending the Lawson Insight process suite throughout the corporation - even to a company`s own customers and trusted trading partners. Lawson is now shipping Self-Evident Applications in the Requisitions module of its Lawson Insight Procurement Suite. Lawson Insight Requisitions can now easily be deployed enterprise wide to all employees.