Aras Corporate Blog

China, Taiwan, and Global Innovation!

MarcL — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:38:00 GMT

Last week Aras was launched in Greater China. The interest level in the Microsoft open approach for PLM and Quality management solutions is particularly high throughout the region. Businesses in Asia are increasingly recognizing the need for PLM solutions...(read more)

Innovation, Transformation, and the Open Approach

MarcL — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:35:00 GMT

Recently, I was asked by the Product Development & Management Association ( PDMA ) to present on our innovation and corporate transition to an open model. The PDMA was interested in hearing about our transition: What were the motivating factors? How...(read more)

Podcast: Microsoft Enterprise Open Source Rocks PLM

MarcL — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:03:00 GMT

Graham Bell at MCADCafé recently conducted a podcast interview with Aras president Peter Schroer to cover the market impact that the Aras Microsoft enterprise open source approach is having and how it works. Listen as Peter explains how companies are...(read more)

Open Source for the Rest of Us

Peter Schroer — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:51:00 GMT

The traditional Open Source projects are collaborations on infrastructure software (e.g. Linux operating system, JBOSS middleware, MySQL database), while the software applications needed to run a business are still tightly controlled, proprietary systems...(read more)

The World is Ready for Microsoft Open Source

Peter Schroer — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Microsoft community is beginning to participate in Open Source, and this is changing the nature of Open Source....(read more)

Micro-Applications for Business Process Management

Peter Schroer — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 18:48:00 GMT

A significant problem facing corporate IT today is the vast numbers of power-user and end-user developed business applications written in Notes, ColdFusion, MS-Access or Excel. Why do the end-users continue to build these micro-applications? Because the high costs and effort required to customize the IT supported major systems such as ERP, PDM and CRM, prevent IT from helping the users cope with the rapidly changing requirements for business process and data automation at the divisional or departmental level. The proliferation of micro-applications however is in direct conflict with IT’s goal of consolidating applications and reducing the number of software vendors, and is creating an ever increasing support and security problem.

Walk into any typical corporate setting and you will find that end-users and departmental IT groups have developed hundreds of “micro-applications”, each mission critical to that department, that are used to run the day to day business. The micro-applications are not well supported (i.e. backups, security, future customizations, and upgrades) and eventually all these applications fall back to corporate IT to support, creating a support nightmare. In a recent discussion with a corporate IT executive ($100B company) the current policy is to forbid development of the micro-applications. He admits though that many hundreds of department-level applications are running rogue throughout the organization outside of IT control and consequently not kept current with security best practices. When the SQL Slammer virus hit the Internet, numerous unsupported and un-patched micro-application databases at the company were impacted. These types of IT issues are repeatedly identified in articles and blogs like the ITtoolbox blog posting Is IT aware of the SAP users problems?

Because of the necessity to use enterprise software to achieve business goals, it is no longer possible (or perhaps even advisable) for Corp IT to prevent the development of these micro-applications. A change in strategy is needed. Corporate IT should provide a manageable, low cost framework for the local IT groups and power users to use to deploy the solutions they need, that achieves the supportability of a common platform, single logon, a consistent development style, and common SOA interface with the major corporate IT systems. While it is not possible to prevent the development of these micro-applications, it is advisable to provide a productive, supportable environment for these programmers.

I believe that you can’t stop the development of micro-applications, but with the right approach, you can control and channel it. The power and proliferation of the Microsoft technologies gives companies a common platform and Microsoft enterprise open source can provide a common SOA based option for micro-applications that is easy to work with while maintaining Corp IT standards for supportability.

Something to think about… what do you think?

Let’s Get Going

Peter Schroer — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 03:56:00 GMT

Welcome to the Aras Corporate Blog. We started this blog to share our thoughts, get your insights, and have some fun with the topic of enterprise software solutions. We all know a change has been needed for some time, yet no one has clearly identified the issues and been willing to put forth the alternative. Sometimes I find that it takes a little irreverence and humor to get to the true answers.

I founded Aras with the intent of providing companies with enterprise software solutions that change the rules. Businesses need software that works. Software that solves real business problems. Software that gets results.

It’s been clear for quite a while that people want enterprise solutions that are easy to use, easy to deploy, and easy to manage. And I knew that an alternative to the existing legacy systems on the market was required to achieve the necessary changes. I've seen too many projects by too many vendors that didn't meet customer needs and at the end of the day everyone suffers. The existing enterprise software vendors just don't have the motivation to make a fundamentally better product.

Aras is in business to provide customers with powerful enterprise software that's easy for the people that rely on it. Software that delivers results. We pride ourselves on being committed to our customers and on delivering results for you and your business.

Now, let's get going.

Peter Schroer
President & Founder, Aras Corporation