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Technology Stocks : i2 Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (874)	11/5/1998 11:25:00 AM
From: cm	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2339

I Wish I Could Say It Was My Investment Savviness... But, the truth is, I plain got lucky. Just couldn't believe that the Street wouldn't eventually catch up with the substance of what ITWO is up to. And I think we are poised for even more good news in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the good wishes. Best Regards, c m

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (874)	11/6/1998 12:31:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 2339

First Albany initiates coverage of i2 with a 'BUY' rating. Melissa: For what it is worth. i2 Technologies ITWO FAC/Eqts Fst Albany » Buy

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (874)	11/11/1998 1:06:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 2339

ERP-Hell on Earth. (from computerworld)- I see money in SCM. Melissa and all: Just ran in to this article. ============================================= Life without users Maryfran Johnson Life without users would be so peaceful. That has to be what some ERP vendors are secretly thinking these days. Why? Because as more enterprise resource planning software goes live across our great land, the unpleasant truth is leaking out. Those wildly popular, tightly integrated business software systems aren't only complex and costly to install — they can be hell on earth to actually use. Once they slip from the highly trained hands of the experts and into the clumsy grasp of ordinary people such as business managers, salespeople or loading-dock workers, everybody gets a good slap of reality. ERP buyers can get blindsided by the amount of user training required. After the system goes live, calls to the help desk skyrocket. Worker productivity may take a powder. Your whole company is likely to be in an uproar for months as you force-fit your business processes into a new mold. Our front-page story in last week's issue detailing Hydro Agri North America's experience ["ERP user interfaces drive workers nuts"] was only the latest real-world example of how steep the downside of ERP packages such as SAP's R/3 can really be. The chore of navigating through six R/3 screens to enter data was slowing workers down and actually threatening the quality of customer service at the company's fertilizer stores in Canada. Similar scenarios have played out at companies with new installations of ERP applications from PeopleSoft, Baan, Oracle, J.D. Edwards and others. This is the politically incorrect part of the ERP Magical Mystery Tour — the part that vendors wish our readers would quit complaining about and Computerworld would quit writing about. Let's not dwell on those pesky ease-of-use issues. Let's focus on the shimmering promise of incredible business benefits, shall we? Well, no thanks. We'll keep writing about both sides of ERP and about the business clash of two contradictory trends. Users are clamoring for simplicity and ease of use. Vendors are delivering complexity and steeper learning curves. Somebody's got to keep pushing for some hard-core honesty from both sides. We cheerfully volunteer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (874)	11/11/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 2339

HEY - Melissa... check out the Siebel thread.... Shege is back! (you probably already know that Im about to mosey on over there) Re: whoever posted the ERP hell on earth article... I really wonder about articles like that - yes ERP is hard to use etc but the prior generation was no easier imo. I constantly heard complaints about ManMan etc. before we put our stuff in, and then after we went live, those same complaints shifted to the new packages. It might be that the new ERPs dont live up to expectations.... but even then, it has to do with the implementation. Example oracle ERP has a feature to invoice for products multiple times during the day - could be a money saver + assist in warehouse/shipping schedules. The old packages didnt have that option, ManMan had a batch pgm for invoicing you ran at night and then shipped everything the next day. So, the Oracle ERP feature could have been really good - but, it ended up no customers wanted it, why? Because SGI (for example) ran some queries and discovered that customers routinely change their mind during the day about what product they want to buy. Immediate shipping would have been very costly and resulted in a lot of RMAs. So no customer that I know of ended up actually implementing this feature. Maybe there were some high expectations regarding some ERP functionality but lots of stuff never materialized as workable in the business climate. Oh there I go rambling again whoops.