Infor to use Microsoft’s technology for its ERP products

Infor will be counting on Microsoft’s technology for the new generation of its line of ERP products, according to the deal the firms declared.

While Microsoft and Infor Microsoft already had a partnership, the new statement takes the relationship much further. Microsoft's SharePoint product will function as a footing for "portal based, unified interfaces for all Infor applications," Infor announced in a statement. The seller will also use Microsoft's Silverlight RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform; Microsoft Reporting Services for BI (business intelligence); and Microsoft Single Sign-On for identity management. It has additionally named SQL Server and Windows Server as its "preferred" infrastructure components.

Privately held Infor is among the world's biggest ERP sellers after Oracle and SAP. It has grown through a long series of acquisitions, most significantly the 2006 deal for SSA Global.

The new Microsoft partnership will help Infor develop products quicker and settle its product, according to a statement.

In addition, using lots of Microsoft technology helps Infor position itself as an easy-to-migrate alternative choice to Redmond's own Dynamics family of ERP applications alongside help link ERP with desktop applications, declared 451 Group researcher China Martens through an email. A number of other manufacturing-oriented ERP sellers, like Consona and Epicor, also have products based totally on Microsoft, Martens added.

"Microsoft's picked up some manufacturing-focused technology, but not going as deep as some of the more manufacturing-focused ERP vendors," she claimed.

In another announcement, ION, a replacement set of software services for integrating information from Infor and other applications was announced by Infor. ION will be used to build analytics reports and that surface ERP data through the SharePoint platform, Infor declared.