Hoping to capitalize on the expense of big bang software upgrades faced by many of its rivals, Baan NV has come out with a new range of component-based enterprise application software, under the name BaanSeries. Baan previewed its move to components back in November last year (CI No 3,289), following three years of talk about such a move. It says the new products are the result of a $100m, 1,000 developer-year investment. SAP AG has also begun splitting its own monolithic software up into components (CI No 3,232). Baan hopes to encourge its third party partners to contribute modules to the Series, so that customers can mix and match components to their own requirements. The move marks the end of Baan referring to its enterprise resource planning software under the old numerical release order, such as Baan IV, or Baan V – a name that is now replaced by the overall title BaanERP. To kick off the Series, Baan has unveiled the two cornerstone elements: the core BaanERP enterprise resource planning module, and DEM-SE, a dynamic enterprise modeler. BaanERP includes a re-write of Master Production Scheduling and Materials Requirement Planning applications into an extended enterprise planning suite, which has been designed to capitalize on advanced planning and scheduling applications such as Baan’s own BaanSync. Sales order and field service applications have been re-designed so that they integrate with customer front-end sales force automation systems, such as the one Baan acquired from Aurum Software Inc last year (CI No 3,161). And new tools, such as a Java-based browser interface and new forms management, have been added. Components are slotted together via Baan Object Interfaces, based on the Corba and DCOM object models. The dynamic enterprise modeling tool, DEM-SE adds such things as graphical navigation, business rules and models, and enhanced workflow tools. BaanERP and DEM-SE are now in beta, and will become available for early users in April, with general availability by June. Baan will help its partners build and adapt their products through its BaanWeb Consulting Alliance, which will offer migration tools, template and services.
