Infor Expands Cloud Services for Equipment Industry

On the heels of investing heavily in equipment industry software, business application software provider Infor has expanded its cloud services in the same sector. The New York City-based company’s new cloud offerings include services from IBM, NTT Data and Velocity Technology Solutions (News - Alert).

Infor serves more than 70,000 customers that utilize the company’s M3 suite of software, allowing them to monitor transactions throughout their organization (national or global), including manufacturing operations, supply chain activities, customer and supplier relationships, warehouse and distribution processes, and financial management – according to Ali Shadman, SVP of business cloud at Infor.

“The IBM (News - Alert) hybrid cloud platform, which is built on PureSystems with Power Systems technology, demonstrates the unique ability of IBM and its partners to offer a solid cloud foundation to enterprises seeking a platform for mission critical systems,” Shadman explained in a statement. “With M3 and IBM’s broad cloud products we are able to optimize workloads on IBM I, AIX, Windows and Linux platforms to provide the transactional performance and reliability of M3 coupled with open integration and collaboration of Infor ION and related products and technologies.”

In addition to the company’s expanded IBM offerings, NTT (News - Alert) DATA and Velocity, which provide hosted private cloud solutions and services for the Infor M3 product suite, have also developed new cloud offerings for M3 and support IBM PureSystems and Power Systems technology.

NTT Data’s manufacturing industry expertise and global cloud ecosystem allows the company to leverage Infor’s SaaS (News - Alert) capabilities with NTT Data’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) offerings, according to Mike Sarantopoulos, senior vice president of Cloud Advisory Services at NTT DATA.

“NTT Data Cloud Lifecycle Services supports the full service continuum for Infor customers, including consulting, migration, and management services,” he said.

Velocity has been serving Infor M3 equipment customers with managed application services and related project services, for a number of years.

“Infor M3 is a feature-rich solution, and delivering this software within the Velocity virtual private cloud extends the benefits of M3’s capabilities even further,” said Paul Cioni, senior vice president of service delivery at Velocity Technology Solutions. “This will save customers money, provide greater flexibility and make software upgrades and support much easier now and in the future.”

One of Infor’s focuses in the equipment industry is on Caterpillar, which has led to the creation of the Infor CAT Dealer Advisory Council. A number of CAT dealers have chosen M3 as their go-forward software solution, including Finning, PON, Bangla Cat, and Zahid Tractor and Heavy Machinery Company.