IBM (NYSE:IBM), the global leader in middleware software market, recently announced an integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution for manufacturers in collaboration with Infor. The integrated hardware and software solution will help improve the profitability and responsiveness of manufacturers. Info is the fourth largest ERP software vendor in the world behind SAP (NYSE:SAP), Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). [1] IBM primarily competes with firms like HP (NYSE:HPQ), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Oracle. [2]
New Solution to Boost IBM’s System Sales
ERP is a huge market with estimated annual sales of $25 billion. Infor has quickly emerged as a major tier 2 player in the market through a number of acquisitions. [3]. The new integrated solution announced by IBM using Infor’s ERP software is based on the firm’s market-leading POWER7 family of systems and the i operating system. We believe this will likely provide a boost to IBM’s power system and OS sales.
We estimate Servers and OS together are worth just under 10% of our $199 Trefis price estimate for IBM. Our price estimate is just around 15% ahead of the market price.
Notes:- Manufacturers Gain Better Data Intelligence with Integrated ERP Platform from IBM and Infor, prnewswire.com [↩]
- ERP Market Share and Vendor Evaluation 2011, whatiserp.net [↩]
- Infor: “Big ERP is Dead”?, erp.com [↩]
