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CONTENTS

  • NEW QAD PARTNER PORTAL………………………….. 4
  • TRAINING NEWS 4

Ø  e-Learning 4

Ø  Automation Solution Business Demo for Automotive 5

Ø  Upcomming trainings & exams in Europe 5

  • PRODUCT / MATERIALS ANNOUNCEMENT 5

Ø  Lithuanian Internationalization Extension 2.0 5

Ø  QAD Excelerator 1.4 is now available 5

Ø  QAD DSCP 2016 6

Ø  QAD Document Library 6

Ø  QAD’s videos 6

  • SALES & MARKETING PRODUCTIVITY NEWS 6

Ø  Cloud Company of the Year? QAD 6

Ø  China Speeding Towards the Cloud 7

Ø  Keep Up with Internationalization 7

Ø  Learning About Automation Solutions in The Netherlands 7

Ø  Excellent QAD Executive Insight: Why the Cloud Now 8

  • COMPETITIVE BITS 8

Ø  Epicor Up for Sale Again 8

Ø  Oracle Loses to HP for $3B, Moody Outlook on ORCL Negative 9

Ø  Apax Unloads Epicor on KKR 9

Ø  SAP Response to Nucleus Research 9

Ø  Microsoft Combines Cloud Offerings – Kind Of 10

Ø  A Paradox? Oracle Lays off Hundreds to Boost Cloud Sales 10

Ø  Inforum 2016: Infor Update 10

Ø  SAPAnnouncesQ2-FY16 Results 11

Ø  Plex Discovers Microsoft Office and Azure 11

Ø  Oracle to Acquire NetSuite for $9.3B, Expands Cloud Footprint 11

Ø  Financial Issues? Plex Lays Off Entire Vertical Team 12

  • USEFUL LINKS 12
  • DEALS FROM PARTNERS 13

Ø  BERES Egeszsegtar Kft 13

Ø  ARVIBELAGRO 13

  • DEALS FROM THE WORLD 14

Ø  AVEXIS 14

Ø  OUTSET MEDICAL 14

Ø  APPLIED ACOUSTICS INTERNATIONAL 15

Ø  RENOLIT 15

Ø  APOTEX 16

Ø  LAERDAL 17

Ø  ELESA 18

Ø  LEAR CORPORATION 19

Ø  SADAFCO 20

  • NEW QAD PARTNER PORTAL…………………………..

QAD is proud to announce that a new Partner Portal is available on QAD website.

QAD Partner Portal is a place where you can find all the resources you need to be a successful QAD Partner.

QAD Web Account is required to access to the Partner Portal.

NEW Partner Portal: www.qad.com/partner-portal

  • TRAINING NEWS

Ø  e-Learning

QAD encourages using e-learning portal where you can find a lot of trainings available. QAD Web Account is required to access and register on Certification Exams and Trainings.

http://learning.qad.com

If you want to select Certification Exam or Training which will take place near to your area you have to select place in the search window:

Ø  Automation Solution Business Demo for Automotive

A full end-to-end Automation Solutions demo for Automotive is now available on Learning Center. Log in and search for "Automation Solutions Business Demo" or use below link:

gm1.geolearning.com/geonext/qad/coursesummary.CourseCatalog.geo

After this course the audience will understand basic functionality provided by Automation Solutions and how it helps to optimize the customer business processes. In this recording Brent Schooltz present Data Collection transactions for all banners: inbound, production and outbound, including Directed Put Away, EDL, various models of production replenishment, shipping and inbound receiving. Demo is geared towards Automotive customers, but covers multiple business process that are universal across various customer types.

Ø  Upcomming trainings & exams in Europe

Schiphol-Rijk The Netherlands
EE Financial Fundamentals / September 5 - 9
EE Financials Advanced / September 12 - 15
Q-Xtend / September 19 - 20
Wroclaw Poland
Certification Exam / September 21

If you are interested please enroll on Learning Center.

  • PRODUCT / MATERIALS ANNOUNCEMENT

Ø  Lithuanian Internationalization Extension 2.0

The Lithuania country package has been extended with 2 new legal output forms.

- The Accounting Note : the Lithuanian Republic Accounting Law clause 12, part 1 states that all accounting transactions and economic events need to be documented. The Accounting Note completes our solution to support this requirement

- Write-off statements are used to write-off stock. Those documents need to be filed and be available in case of an audit.

The Lithuania I19 package v2.0can be obtained from the Download Center and will later be made available for purchase on the QAD Store.

Ø  QAD Excelerator 1.4 is now available

QAD Excelerator provides seamless integration between QAD Enterprise Applications and Excel. It provides an easy to use mechanism for designing spreadsheets that can retrieve, view, and modify data in QAD Enterprise Applications. Data access is provided by QAD QXtend and updates can be performed using any of the APIs available in QAD QXtend.

QAD Excelerator provides support for structured CSV data import and can be used without a license during implementation to facilitate initial data load. If required, Excelerator can be used as part of the normal day-to-day business activities but a license must be purchased.

The QAD Excelerator 1.4 release adds support for Excel 2016 and fixes a number of product issues. Please refer to the release notes for a more detailed explanation of the new features.

Ø  QAD DSCP 2016

QAD DSCP 2016 (demand and supply chain planning) is now available. The 2016 release includes a variety of enhancements, including:

·  User Experience and Mobility: The DSCP 2016 web portal offers a refreshed HTML5 user experience supported by browsers and mobile devices based on Channel Islands design.

·  Preconfigured Solutions: Customers can improve their ROI by implementing rapidly with just the functionality that they need in the near term.

·  Best Practice Visualization: DSCP 2016 adds a new library of standard grids and graphs to support best practices for core DSCP processes.

·  New S&OP(Sales & Operations Planning) and IBP (Integrated Business Planning) best practice models.

·  Planning Algorithms: DSCP 2016 features optimized algorithms for distribution and production that take into account additional business constraints.

QAD DSCP 2016 is available to run on premise or in the QAD Cloud as QAD Cloud DSCP.

Ø  QAD Document Library

New Documentation

·  QAD Lithuania Internationalization Extension 2.0

·  QAD QXtend Excelerator 1.4

Ø  QAD’s videos

All QAD’s videos are available here: https://vimeo.com/qaderp

  • SALES & MARKETING PRODUCTIVITY NEWS

Ø  Cloud Company of the Year? QAD

On July 20, 2016 the Business Intelligence Group, which annually conducts theStratus Awardsfor cloud computing, announced that it namedQAD as Cloud Company of the Yearin the enterprise company category. QAD had come close previously to winning this award, named afinalist in 2015when QAD’s cloud integration partnerDell Boomi won.

What characteristics earned QAD the award?

·  Early and Reliable: QAD, compared to other established ERP peers, was early to the cloud, with the QAD Supplier Portal being offered via the cloud in 2003 and the first ERP in the cloud available in 2007. As a result of all that experience, QAD Cloud is proven, reliable and meets a long list of ISO, SSAE and other standards.

·  Full-featured and manufacturing-specific: QAD Cloud ERP, QAD’s flagship cloud application, is a fully-featured ERP designed to support most global discrete manufacturers, with special editions for the automotive and life sciences industry.

·  World-class availability: QAD built its own cloud management layer using IoT and big data technologies, resulting in more than 99.9% availability over the past year.

Read more...

Ø  China Speeding Towards the Cloud

To help Chinese customers understand more about QAD Cloud offerings, on July 15th QAD and Softspeed hosted a Cloud Customer User Day at the Shenzhen Shangri-La Hotel. 42 representatives from 20 companies attended. Mr. Kerry Ng, CEO of Softspeed, kicked off the event with a presentation called “Hello Cloud” that introduced QAD’s cloud products. We were then honored to have our customer from DongFeng Honda Parts share their direct experience with QAD Cloud. The lottery and dinner along with the great presentations all contributed to a successful event.

In related news, QADannounced that it has licensed partner Softspeed Consulting Groupas a distributor for QAD Cloud ERP in China.Softspeedis now the third authorized QAD Cloud ERP distributor and the first in China. Based in Hong Kong, with regional offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai, Softspeed is QAD’s largest partner in China and has sold QAD on premise solutions for 15 years. It services over 150 QAD customers in theautomotive, life sciences, high tech and industrial manufacturing segments. Softspeed will run and manage QAD Cloud ERP in its own data centers and provide related services. QAD audited Softspeed’s cloud capabilities to ensure Softspeed could deliver similar services levels as customers enjoy on the QAD Cloud.

Ø  Keep Up with Internationalization

QAD runs what we call the I19 program which is a dedicated, global program that tracks financial compliance requirements in areas such as taxes and financial reporting. QAD’s Danny DeValck runs the I19 program and every quarter Danny produces the Internationalization Journal, a newsletter distributed to Enterprise Edition customers. It reports on recent and upcoming Internationalization developments and how QAD is updating QAD EE to help customers meet evolving requirements.

The Internationalization Journal has become so popular, we decided to share it in EXCELLENCE. Clickhereto see the latest version and email Danny ith any questions.

Ø  Learning About Automation Solutions in The Netherlands

QAD hosted an in-depth seminar in The Netherlands on QAD Automation Solutions. Presenters included Astrid Rommens, Practice Director for Automation Solutions at QAD, and Jan Mulder, QAD business consultant.

QAD Automation Solutions, introduced at Explore 2015 and available last year on a limited basis, is now generally available. It offers shop floor data collection and label printing capabilities, and offers a gateway for IoT for manufacturers. To gain insight into potential use cases for QAD Automation Solutions and IoT, watch the replay of QAD President and FounderPam Lopker’s presentationat Explore 2016.

Read more...

Ø  Excellent QAD Executive Insight: Why the Cloud Now

Tony Winter - CTO,QAD

We are certainly proud of the 2016 Stratus Award for Cloud Company of the Year, but it is not the first and we hope it will not be the last award given to QAD about cloud. We have made serious investments and innovations in QAD Cloud, QAD Cloud ERP and our other cloud-based applications and services. We have re-architected our ERP driven by demand for the cloud, IoT and cloud era user experiences.

Why have we put so much effort into cloud? We are convinced that cloud offers a compelling alternative that improves business outcomes for many if not most of our customers. Many of the pro-cloud and anti-cloud arguments have been around for over a decade now – but the discussion has evolved and we believe in favor of the cloud. Consider the following facts that would have little or no meaning in 2006:

·  2017 will be QAD’s 10th year offering ERP in the cloud.

·  Today, we manage and support hundreds of customers and tens of thousands of users in the cloud, including ourselves; we are our own biggest user. Our recent availability has consistently exceeded 99.9%.

·  We have had a highly reliable record in terms of availability and performance. With our focus on continuous improvement and tight relationship with R&D (DevOps) our offering gets better by the day. We constantly monitor and tune the QAD Cloud, aided by big data analytics and IoT.

Read more...

  • COMPETITIVE BITS

Ø  Epicor Up for Sale Again


Epicor Software is looking for a new owner. According to theWall Street Journal, Epicor's CEO stated that Epicor’s private equity owners, Apax Partners, are once again looking for suitors. Apax put Epicor on the block just two years ago, reportedly turning down offers around $3B.

Epicor stopped publishing financial results in May, 2015. At that time, Epicor had nearly $1.3B in long term debt – more than its annual revenue. Given its historical struggles with profitability it is unlikely its debt overhang has been reduced significantly. The other ERP vendor with more long term debt than revenue is Infor.

Ø  Oracle Loses to HP for $3B, Moody Outlook on ORCL Negative


In a follow-up to recent C-Bits about Oracle’s legal embroilments, last week HPE was awarded $3B in damages due to Oracle’s breach of contract,see HPE wins $3bn in damages from Oraclefrom ComputerWeekly. In a related 2012 suit, Oracle was ordered to resume support for Itanium-based servers from HP. This follow-up suit specified the damages. Oracle will appeal.


This comes less than a month after another Oracle loss when acourt ruled that Google’s use of Java in its Android mobile operating system did not infringe Oracle’s copyright.


Perhaps related, Oracle priced $14B of new debt, see NASDAQ/Zack’s reportOracle Prices Bonds Worth $14B; Moody's Outlook Negative. Moody’s rated the debt A1, an above average rating, but Moody’s changed its outlook on Oracle from stable to negative, “due to concerns pertaining to increased debt balance, which Moody's expects to go beyond $50 billion with the aforementioned issuance of notes.”

Ø  Apax Unloads Epicor on KKR

Epicor, recently put up for sale after failing to find a buyer 2 years ago, has reportedly found a buyer. According to theWall Street Journal, an agreement between Apax Partners and KKR & Co., an American private equity firm, will see Epicor change hands for $3.3 billion.


KKRsharedthey had been eyeing established software companies for some time, and will buy Epicor for both the attractive price and growth prospects, particularly in the cloud. Uncertainty around Epicor still remains, however, as the acquisition could impact Epicor leadership, headcount, pricing and product development, all of which often change following private equity acquisitions. The deal is scheduled to close in late August.

Ø  SAP Response to Nucleus Research


SAP attempted to discredit thescathing report from Nucleus Researchshared last week, citing “a wide array of flaws” in the research methodology. SAP highlighted favorable coverage from other analysts and refused further comment. SAP’s response has not satisfied everyone, asthis articlefrom an SAP partner concedes that the Nucleus findings should worry SAP.


The author emphasizes that the strong anti-SAP opinions came from SAP references, not select unhappy customers, which strengthens the merit of the Nucleus findings. In addition, a major SAP user group declined to comment on the findings where a rebuttal would have helped SAP’s case. In summary, SAP's response has done little to counteract the results or impact of the report.

Ø  Microsoft Combines Cloud Offerings – Kind Of


Microsoft announcedDynamics 365, a “unified cloud product,” that combines app offerings available via the Microsoft Cloud that ostensibly lets customers choose from a menu of services including ERP and CRM. Microsoft also adds-in its Power BI and Cortana technologies to provide analytics and predictive capabilities. Microsoft is positioning the offering as an alternative to Salesforce.com primarily and has added a related app store.