ITWeb: Lawson Software describes its offering as: "Leading-edge technology without the attitude." Please explain the concept behind the motto.
Lawson: We have noticed that companies which get reasonably large in the industry start developing a certain attitude of: "Do it our way, we know the way it should be done." We have always gone into companies trying to give them the tools to do it their way. Lawson's attitude is not one of trying to force a particular way of doing business.
ITWeb: Lawson has consistently been the strongest in mid-market solutions. Does this remain your focus?
Lawson: Yes, but the last three to five years has seen us going for the upper-market as well as hanging on to our mid-market.
ITWeb: But aren't all top ERP vendors scrambling to get a slice of the mid-market as they see their space shrinking?
Lawson: Our edge is that we've always been in and understood the mid-market. We believe we have acquired a lot of knowledge of how to sell to and support the mid-market, which to some degree is different to the large market.
In the high-end market you get used to a different sales cycle and price-point. But we don't sell differently to the two market segments.
ITWeb: You have a product called Self-Evident Applications, and in general your software has a reputation of being easy to install and run, as opposed to some of your competitors. How important is ease of use?
Lawson: Just saying that it's extremely important would be underplaying it. We believe it's starting to become, and will absolutely be, the standard. The Web has changed the world, in that you will not tolerate a site telling you to spend two hours to learn how to use it. We have to be self-evident in order for you to use our product.
IT departments and suppliers of software notoriously haven't changed since the 1950s. It's a case of: You learn how to operate our software, you go to classes, you spend your time, and if we make changes, you've got to deal with them. But we believe the demands on a corporate IT infrastructure are going to be accelerating towards self-evident software. Assuming they know their business, our customers should be able to use our software without training.
ITWeb: Lawson was the first ERP vendor to recognise the importance of the Internet. What made you so visionary?
Lawson: The reason lies in the architecture of our software, in how it's built. It's object-oriented - we didn't use these names back then, but we architectured that way 15 years ago. We did this because we run on multiple platforms - Lawson has a three-tiered distributed object-based architecture.
If we could have made people understand those names and how important they were, we could have been the father of the object technology concepts, but the point is, when the Web came along, we were architectured for the Web. We did not really re-architect at a deep level. That's why we have a huge advantage over our competition.
ITWeb: Is the competition catching up?
Lawson: There are two things we don't think are very easy for them to do. Firstly, we don't believe they can change very quickly - to rewrite their base product completely from scratch in a different architectural sense is no cheap undertaking.
Secondly, we don't think they really understand it as much as we do. Because again, we are the ones who said we have to run on all the different platforms - not the platform owners, such as IBM, HP or Sun. We took [multiple platform support] very seriously. Likewise, on the database side, Lawson runs on Oracle, Sybase, Informix and DB2.
ITWeb: What about Microsoft SQL. Is it ready for the enterprise?
Lawson: Our software is ready for SQL, but the question is: Are the customers ready? SQL Server 7 is a huge advantage over version 6, although the proof is still in the pudding as you go upscale. We believe we can perform better than anybody at the NT SQL level, but the NT SQL server level is still not performing at the high-end as well as Unix is. It is a matter of time though because if it doesn't perform, the market will move to something that will.
The one thing about Lawson is we don't particularly bet on anybody. We force customers to make their own choices. They might ask: "Which technology do I buy to run your software?" And we tell them: "You've got your choices, you've got to choose."
ITWeb: Why do you need a South African subsidiary rather than being represented through a local company?
Lawson: We are responding to the needs of our clients- they need a global supplier that understands global issues.
ITWeb: What is your global goal? Are you going after the ERP giants?
Lawson: Yes and no. We know that we can compete with SAP and Baan on any basis other than manufacturing. We are the only ERP vendor that has no manufacturing component. Analysts are starting to give us more credit as an ERP vendor, but 75% of people still identify ERP with manufacturing.
Now if you are asking if our goal is to become larger in sales than SAP, then the answer is no. Perhaps it could happen and that would be great. What we are going after is business in certain niche areas - we want to dominate the ERP slice of the healthcare, retail and financial markets.
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