It was not a surprise when, in spring 2007, enterprise applications provider Infor launched Open SOA, an initiative to retrofit the company’s ERP and other applications with a new services-oriented architecture-style middleware layer.
Infor’s most direct competitors had already taken similar steps to expand into SOA-flavored middleware. Oracle was beefing up its Fusion Middleware product line and would eventually acquire competitor BEA Systems. And SAP had launched NetWeaver, its collection of middleware products intended to help bring a services-oriented architecture to the company’s applications.
Infor promised that Open SOA, based, in part, on internally developed technologies and development tools, would gradually bring services-based integration to all of its applications along with a series of new stand-alone application components, enhanced inventory control, order entry, and other applications that would plug into existing Infor application suites, such as ERP LN and SyteLine. Open SOA would allow Infor customers to gradually adopt such enhanced functionality without the need to rip out existing systems, said Infor CEO Jim Schaper at the time.
Three years later, however, Infor’s middleware and integration strategies have taken a turn. Recently, the company said it has essentially canceled Open SOA. And, rather than developing its own middleware tools and technologies or relying on several middleware partners, including IBM, as it had in the past, Infor said Microsoft would become its primary infrastructure software partner. Infor said it would standardize on a wide range of Microsoft technologies, including the Silverlight graphical user interface tools, SharePoint portal tools, Microsoft’s SQL Server database platform, Microsoft Reporting Services for business intelligence and analytics, Microsoft Single Sign-On tools, and Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system.