Economists may be declaring the recession an unpleasant memory, but Epicor Software Corp. CEO George Klaus isn’t ready to assume that growth for his enterprise applications company is just around the corner. In fact, Epicor’s business plan assumes significant growth won’t return to the enterprise software market before the second half of 2010.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Klaus told Managing Automation at the company’s recent Perspectives conference in Las Vegas, attended by about 1,000 customers. “But we’re going to put a conservative plan in place for next year, that’s for sure. And we’re not going to let our expenses get ahead of our revenue plan.”
Epicor, which earlier this year faced and at least temporarily sidestepped an unfriendly takeover offer from private equity firm Elliott Associates, doesn’t have the cash to mount any significant acquisition of its own, Klaus said.
Not that Epicor lacks opportunities to reverse a difficult third quarter in which the company’s license revenue fell 38.7% and overall revenue dropped 27.4%. Current bookings are strong, Klaus said, led by the company’s year-old Epicor 9 platform. So far, Klaus told customers at Perspectives, 60 customers have gone live on Epicor 9, and 590 are in the process of going live. The company expects to have 100 live Epicor 9 customers by year’s end.
Epicor 9, with stronger distribution functionality and a financial management module that better supports multi-plant, multi-warehouse companies with operations around the world, has enabled Epicor to compete more effectively for new customers outside the United States and for contracts from larger enterprises, Klaus said.
And Epicor plans to continue to enhance the Epicor 9 platform. Company officials demonstrated integration of Epicor 9 with Web 2.0 social networking tools, such as Twitter, as well as more extensive integration between Epicor 9 and smart devices such as the iPhone.
At the same time, Epicor officials provided a roadmap for upcoming new versions of Epicor 9. The next release, version 9.05, will arrive in the first quarter of 2010, said Chief Marketing Officer John Hiraoka. It will include embedded business analytics based on Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services, a new preventive maintenance module, and an enhanced quality assurance module.
A follow-on release, Epicor 9.1, is due 12 months to 18 months later featuring user interface improvements and new industry-specific templates.
And Epicor told customers that, like competitor SAP, it is working on a version of its ERP application that will be delivered to small business as a Web-based service. Epicor gave no time frame for the product, dubbed Express, which will be marketed mainly to manufacturers with less than $20 million in annual revenue.
Keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground, however, Klaus said he does not expect Express to significantly add to Epicor’s revenue next year.