IBM invests in Kingdee of China (while everyone waits for Google to buy Salesforce)

While a lot of buzz has been generated about some Google-Salesforce announcement including speculations on Google acquiring Salesforce (and dismissals), the important news of the day seems to have been missed - IBM made a significant investment and acquired equity in Kingdee one of the local ERP vendors in China with global ambitions. Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will end up with 3.85% of Kingdee - an equal investment being made by Lehman Brothers.

I have previously written on some of the regional software vendors such as Ufida, Kingdee, Tally etc. and the fact that as India and China grow rapidly, the software consumption in those economies is expected to jump significantly. Gartner has made predictions on rise of atleast one disruptor in ERP from China/India.

So while Google-Salesforce may make for a great copy for industry press, they are missing out on something that may just be the beginning of an emerging trend- software leaders fighting for the future leadership in China/India (BRIC).

Let the real China games begin... ahead of the Olympics next year.

(Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of this page.)

Organic growth story is now just a story

Organic growth works for human beings and cows. Not so well for large enterprise software companies. After beating up on its competitor for pursuing an acquisition-led growth strategy, SAP failed to meet its numbers this quarter.

Message to Waldorf, Germany- let's leave organic to California's Yoga-loving Hybrid-driving meditation-praciticing vegans. For growth, you need to eat some beef.

On a more serious note, the two areas where SAP showed weakness may also be leading indicators:

North America: Is it possible that SAP is getting beat by its arch-rival Oracle?

Asia (outside Japan): SAP had made claims of making great inroads and betting on the emerging market economies. Here, the issue could be either local software companies or custom built software. In either case, it does not portend well for the SAP strategy.

(Another Infosys, India building: by reidmix)

It is my (very personal) opinion that the large enterprise vendors may have to look into acquiring companies that are focused on mid-market and/or emerging economies. It is nigh impossible to take your first-world overly complex software requiring massive infrastructure and compete with local vendors selling low-priced limited functionality software. In fact, some analysts have predicted that at least one large software vendor will emerge from India/China over the next few years on the global scene. Kingdee is one such aspirant that InfoWorld talks about here in "China's Kingdee wants to take on Oracle/SAP".

Jeff Nolan wrote an excellent piece "SAP, Oracle under the SOA, On-Demand gun" highlighting the issues facing enterprise software leaders. Vinnie Mirchandani (or Microchandani, his tech name) wrote on similar theme in "Oracle and the 29.2 factor". With the coming IPO of NetSuite, the focus will once again be on mid-market and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service).

(Disclaimer: As is the case with all my posts, this reflects my personal views and does not in any way reflect the opinions of my employer or anyone else. See profile for detailed disclaimer.)

Ever heard of UFIDA, KingDee, Tally?

Well, you may never have heard of these enterprise software vendors but they are the giants from China and India. KingDee and UFIDA are #1 and #3 vendors in China and Tally is the top local vendor in India. Gartner recently predicted that a large vendor will emerge from China and India over the next 5 years. These 3 could well be the favorites for that spot. Tally is the QuickBooks of India with ambitions in mid-market ERP.

These homegrown wonders have the advantage of deep knowledge of the local markets, ability to develop software that fits the unique infrastructure of these countries. For example, connectivity to the Internet is far from ubiquitous in India. These limitations box these vendors allowing them to innovate in a space that is unique and disconnected from the global enterprise software world. And believe it or not, this is actually an advantage (see The Innovation Sandbox by C.K. Prahlad) as it prevents easy co-option by global vendors. We have already seen this play out in the consumer internet world with the success of Baidu.

Race to the top?
(by Bruno Girin)

So while we all look to climb the ladder of features and architecture and race to take advantage of Web2.0 and SOA in the enterprise software universe, we are also increasingly distancing ourselves from a market that cares about simple software that meets the most basic needs, can run in a sometimes connected world and on previous generation computers. And this market at the bottom of the pyramid is probably many times larger than the top we are all running towards. What do you think?

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