IBM and Infor, a business software maker, have announced an agreement for Infor to offer its enterprise application software through IBM’s public, private and hybrid SmartCloud services.
Infor offers enterprise software solutions for CRM, supply-chain management, enterprise asset management and more, which will now be available through IBM’s cloud offerings. Infor’s business application software serves more than 70,000 customers.
Many organizations are eager to leverage the advantages of cloud computing to run business-critical applications on the cloud, but may require around-the-clock customer service, security and high availability, as well as greater resiliency for mission-critical operations.
To address this, the two companies have agreed that Infor’s CRM, ERP, financial management, human resources, business intelligence and other offerings will be available on the IBM SmartCloud, which is optimized for mission-critical enterprise workloads. These include popular applications such as Infor LN, Infor M3, Lawson Financials and Infor HCM.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for Infor clients to extend the value of their industry-leading enterprise apps on IBM’s cloud with its built-in resiliency and redundancy to protect mission-critical operations,” Ali Shadman, senior vice president of Business Cloud and Upgrade/S at Infor, said in a statement. “We think it’s especially well-suited for clients who are looking for more enterprise-class cloud support and assurances.”
The new agreement, announced at Infor’s annual user conference, will provide clients with Infor’s software across the broadest range of systems—Windows, Linux, AIX, System i and z—on IBM’s open-standards-based SmartCloud portfolio, leveraging IBM’s global cloud footprint across five continents. Infor will offer its software portfolio as software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) through IBM’s public cloud and premium managed-cloud services, as well as IBM’s private-cloud solutions such as PureSystems and SmartCloud Orchestration, which tap OpenStack.
Many clients can benefit from running Infor’s software on IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ (SCE+), a managed infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud. IBM SCE+ is built with superior infrastructure resilience for cloud-enabled applications, leveraging IBM hardware and software. IBM developed SCE+ based on decades of hosting experience gained by being the world’s largest provider of IT sourcing services with more than 1,000 clients.
“Today’s agreement will help businesses looking to put the power of cloud at the fingertips of their line-of-business teams,” said Michael Healy, vice president, IBM Cloud Computing, in a statement. “Cloud is driving a massive transformation in the way users consume IT and the business innovation they deliver.”
IBM SmartCloud can help extend the life of an organization’s Infor software investments by enabling an upgrade of legacy apps to current versions via the cloud. The service is expected to be available starting May 1, 2013.
Complementing previously announced joint efforts with companies like AT&T and SAP, this is one more example of IBM teaming up with a leading name in enterprise IT to strengthen its cloud business, which posted a 70 percent gain in revenue in the latest quarter.
The momentum of IBM’s cloud business is driven by the fact that many organizations are eager to leverage the advantages of cloud computing to run business-critical applications on the cloud, but may require around-the-clock customer service, security and high availability, as well as greater resiliency for mission-critical operations. These clients don’t fit the one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf approach of other cloud providers.