As expected, Epicor Software Corp. yesterday unveiled a simplified version of its Epicor 9 ERP suite that will be delivered as an on-demand service for small manufacturers.
The Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition is available as a subscription-based service in two flavors, one for manufacturers that need to migrate data to the new system and one for those that do not. For manufacturers needing data migration, Express Edition carries an up-front implementation and configuration charge of $7,500 and a monthly subscription charge of $399 for the first user. The monthly subscription charge for additional users is less — for example, a manufacturer with five users would pay less than $800 monthly. The monthly fees are the same regardless of which version a customer chooses. The up-front charge for manufacturers not requiring data migration is $2,500.
Software maintenance, support, and upgrades are included in the subscription prices. The product is available initially in the United States and Canada; the company is now planning support in other locations.
With Manufacturing Express Edition, Epicor joins a host of ERP vendors testing the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Most recently, competitor Lawson Software launched a version of its M3 manufacturing applications running in Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform. SAP continues to roll out its Business ByDesign SaaS-based ERP package for small companies. And Plex Systems Inc. is targeting mid-sized manufacturers with its Plex Online SaaS offering.