J.D. Edwards offering ERP suite as hosted apps

DENVER - J.D. Edwards & Company last week began offering its enterprise resource planning suite as a hosted online application through UUNET, MCI WorldCom's Internet division.

Todd Huebsch, J.D. Edwards' director of business development, says the ERP firm is teaming with Deloitte Touche to help business customers set up J.D. Edwards' OneWorld applications for access over public or private networks.

The six OneWorld applications include financial reporting, manufacturing and project management. Pricing on the hosted version is determined on a case-by-case basis, and Huebsch declined to detail the savings a company might expect from choosing that route instead of buying.

Two years ago, J.D. Edwards worked out agreements with a handful of business partners, including IBM Global Services and Aristisoft, to let them provide the OneWorld suite as application service providers (ASP). Now J.D. Edwards is getting into the hosted application business because of predictions that the market will grow dramatically.

One company adopting the ASP way of life is Spyder Active Sports, a Boulder, Colo., maker of ski and sports apparel. Spyder calculates that it saves between $30,000 and $60,000 per year by outsourcing to Prentice, an ASP in Denver and a J.D. Edwards partner.

Kevin Smith, Spyder's IS manager, says the firm was careful in crafting a common understanding with Prentice about guaranteed uptime and that the company retains full control of its OneWorld data housed in Prentice's facility.

"In our contract, there's wording that says under no circumstances can they hold our data during any dispute," Smith notes. He adds that Spyder's employees are going to access the hosted financial application through a private T-1 line and the public Internet.

J.D. Edwards: www.jdedwards.com