The comments from users at Lawson's Customer and User Exchange 2006 conference here last week came as the company unveiled the first piece of its Landmark ERP system.
The Landmark Strategic Sourcing application, introduced less than a month after Lawson brought out Version 9 of its application suite, aims to improve and automate the procurement process.
Lawson officials declined to disclose further delivery plans for the Landmark line, which will succeed Lawson 9.
The city government of Greensboro, N.C., plans to begin using the new Strategic Sourcing software this fall, several months after it installed the Lawson 9 financial and human resources software. The city was an early adopter of the Lawson 9 applications, which were officially introduced last month.
Chryste Hover, the municipality's director of ERP, said the decision to use Lawson 9 required that the city first install the IBM WebSphere-based Lawson System Foundation 9, which is also needed to run Landmark applications.
Hover said that the technology requirement entailed some work for the city's IT operation, since it had to swap out its Microsoft Internet Information Service Web server for WebSphere. Greensboro also had to upgrade its IBM AIX-based pSeries hardware and Oracle Corp. database software to support the new system, she said.
"You need to be on the cutting-edge, technologically, [to upgrade to Lawson 9]," Hover explained.
The technology requirements are causing Wilsons The Leather Experts Inc. in Brooklyn Park, Minn., to take "a wait-and-see attitude with Lawson 9.0 and Landmark," said Scott Christian, the retailer's director of business systems. Wilson is upgrading from Lawson 7 to Lawson 8 ERP software.
Christian said that the technology requirement for upgrading to the new versions entails "a significant change and one that I'm not sure will deliver tangible business benefits for Wilsons Leather at this time. I also believe there is a level of risk involved in making the change right now that we are not willing to accept."
After viewing demonstrations of the initial Landmark offering at the user conference, Chuck Kentfield, senior software engineer for human resources at Pacific Life Insurance Co. in Newport Beach, Calif., called it "a solid improvement in technology."
Kentfield said he expects to migrate from Version 9 to Landmark but can't set a timetable for that until Lawson discloses its delivery plans.
The Strategic Sourcing application has attracted the interest of Sandi Klos, business project manager for materials management at HealthPartners Medical Group and Clinics in St. Paul, Minn.
The health services provider currently runs Version 8 of Lawson's procurement, payroll and human resources applications. Klos said she expects HealthPartners to install Lawson System Foundation 9 by 2007.
Predrag Jakovljevic, an analyst at Montreal-based research firm Technology Evaluation Centers Inc., said user response to the significant architectural changes that are needed to use Landmark remains unclear.
Jakovljevic said the WebSphere requirement might not suit customers who are standardized around Windows-based products.