SAP to JDE

owcnc

Member
Hello List,

Have any of you had expereince of moving from SAP to JDE? If so could you please comment on the Pro and Cons? We are looking at acquiring a company that uses JDE and would like to dump SAP and go with JDE

Thanks
Robby P.

USA
 
Robby,

There's not a lot of companies going that direction. There are companies that are moving from JDE to SAP. Haven't heard of the opposite. It sounds like a new implimentation of JDE for that company is your move. The other way of doing it is to add them in to your existing implimentation, which would be a heck of a lot easier.

Gregg Larkin
Praxair North American System Admin
JDE CNC and Security, Websphere, Tidal, Princeton Softech
 
I have seen both from a technical perspective. I have had in-depth experience with JDE and some formal training with SAP in Basis Administration. I have installed JDE too many times to count. I have installed SAP but only for a test environment.

There are a lot of variables but generally speaking, anyone that installed SAP prior to 2005 was installing R/3. From an interface perspective, R/3 GUI was basically a screen-scrape product. SAP GUI is/was like JDE World with a green-screen screenscraper called Seagull Vision. My opinion is that screen-scraper products actually degrade the value of Windows clients rather than enhance. You get the pain of PCs without the advanced Windows interface (copy/paste/drag/drop/import/export/etc.). I am going to assume you are talking about an R/3 install of SAP.

Under the covers, R/3 runs ABAP Basis. ABAP Basis is similar to COBOL and CICS from a programming perspective. From a transaction processing perspective, the SAP R/3 kernel processing is very reliable. R/3 was more reliable than JDE at that time. JDE code is a combination of interpretive event rule code and C. My opinion is that JDE is a 4GL product and SAP R/3 is not. I have not seen the latest ABAP code and tools so I can't comment on MySAP 2004.

From a transaction processing perspective, the JDE and SAP kernel processing architecture seemed very similar to me.

The JDE kernel never had the reputation for being reliable. I think this was/is partly due to quality control issues at JDE and partly due to 1 important difference between JDE and SAP. JDE was an early adopter of web technolgies (starting in 1998). SAP did not really have a full-featured client until MySAP 2004 came out. MySAP 2004 introduced both a proprietary web architecture (forgot what it was called) and a J2EE web architecture. I would argue that, in that sense, JDE's architecture is several years ahead of MySAP.

Being ahead of the market with the web client, I am afraid, actually hurt JDE than helped. Larry Ellison shot off his mouth about killing JDE products and this made the lukewarm friends of JDE products put off the web architecture (and tech foundation ($$$)). Secondly, they forced everyone to go web. The reality is/was that the Windows client was very good for JDE customers relative to the web with 8.11. Web is great for occasional users (ie. not heads-down, data entry). The Windows client is really needed for heads-down data entry. With Citrix/TSE, there was not a better business system on the market.


I have heard many things about SAP from a functional/business perspective. I don't know enough to comment. I have discussed the merits and weaknesses with functional people but I would suggest there are probably others on this forum that could articulate those things.

Hope this helps.
 
[ QUOTE ]

Have any of you had expereince of moving from SAP to JDE? If so could you please comment on the Pro and Cons? We are looking at acquiring a company that uses JDE and would like to dump SAP and go with JDE


[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Robby

Yes - I talk to companies all the time that are migrating from one side to another - whether its from SAP to JDE or JDE to SAP.

SAP and JDE have both advantages and disadvantages. The largest advantage of SAP is the strength of the product in the market place - more customers run SAP than any other single ERP system out there, and its a little like the "IBM" of the ERP world. Because of this, there is a vast amount of functionality built into SAP - and a huge number of consultants and consulting companies ready to assist you in your implementation.

JDE on the other hand is the smallest player in the top 6 - if SAP owns 30% of the marketplace, JDE owns less than 1%. HOWEVER, it is supported by one of the largest software companies in the world - Oracle - who is substantially larger than SAP. The issue is that Oracle has many products to support and focus isn't as much on JDE as we would wish it to be.

SAP is very hardware Dependant. It requires almost 4-5 TIMES the hardware compared to JDE for the same functionality. Hardware companies (such as IBM) LOVE SAP for this very reason - if you look at the performance benchmarks of SAP compared to JDE, you'll tend to see that SAP has had to use a phenomenal amount of processing power to get to the same level of JDE.

JDE is technically more advanced than SAP - it is platform independent and client-server object oriented - so migrating JDE from one platform to another is simple and can be achieved quickly and easily. This platform independence does also incur performance issues, however - and you need a "CNC" person to correctly architect your technical design otherwise you will see extremely poor performance. SAP on the other hand is a lot easier to set up from a technical standpoint.

You're asking the JDE board which one they would pick, and naturally most here will pick JDE over SAP any day of the week. We're biased because we work with the JDE product and choose to do so over SAP. However, you will find more JDE consultants that have worked with SAP compared to SAP consultants that have worked with JDE, so its a little easier to get some sort of comparison.

I believe in the architecture of JDE EnterpriseOne - I think its still the strongest architecture out there, and can easily scale in excess of what SAP can handle. Oracle and Peoplesoft have injected vast amounts of functionality into the product - and the JDE product suite was already strong with Distribution and Manufacturing. Financials is Financials is Financials - they're all the same in that point.

Oracle can provide a list of companies that moved from SAP to JDE - those companies will provide really good references for you of their experience.

Most of the companies running from JDE to SAP today are doing so because they're concerned about the future of JDE. Most of those companies started running when Oracle bought Peoplesoft a couple of years back, and those companies believed that JDE was going to be dropped by Oracle. Those people are sorely wrong and it is obvious today that Oracle have poured more development time and money into JDE than even Peoplesoft did (and certainly more than JDE themselves did !).

JDE EnterpriseOne 9.0 is slated to be released within the next 18 months.
 
One really important thing - have matching consultants/Fully Functional
Employees - on both sides, when doing the migration.

Having the SAP Knowledge and the JDE Knowledge in teams, is extremely
valuable. There are not that many folks that can share both sides of, lets
say, HR/PR - consider bringing in an SAP person to shadow your E1 folk
during a conversion... that is, if your in-house folk are not fully
functional.

(db)




--
 
Hi ,
Although i am very new to JDE but i have 5 years of experience of SAP and SAGE . Currently I am not very impressed by JDE especially in HR , Payroll and General Systems Administration .
You can not compare JDE with SAP. SAP is far superior to JDE in every manner. JDE needs a lot of revamping so that the product can improve. May be they should start hiring EX SAP guys to bring in the product knowledge.
P.S. If someone JDE/Oracle is reading this i am open for offers..
wink.gif
 
Kamran,

Besides flaming an entire user community, what was your point? Functionally SAP and JDE have the same end goal. No one contests the point that they are VERY VERY different products. They are geared toward different market segments and have VERY different price structures. My company (number 284 in the fortune 500) spent the better part of a year analyzing JDE 8.12 vs dropping everything and going to SAP. Even though all of our global competitiors use SAP, we determined that migrating to 8.12 was the better path, FOR OUR COMPANY. So again I ask, what was the point of your post other than flamebait?

Respectfully yours,

Gregg
 
Listers,

Before, even his very third post to the JDEList, I believe that Kamran
just wore out his welcome...

Two years ago I moved a client from SAP to 8.10 - though it was 'different',
they agreed it was the right thing to do. Being different did not make it
unimpressive to the client. They were able to note that it was Flexible,
Supportable, Had KNOWLEDGEABLE Support, COST EFFECTIVE, streamlined and much
easier to use (from a Customer standpoint)...

They did not go back to SAP, btw.

Kam - you are very welcome to go back to the ranks TomorrowNow, if that is
your real desire. Don't come into our space, bash our product and
livelihood and claim the ignorance card (remember, you stated you are 'VERY
NEW to JDE".... When you understand JDE (or want to understand JDE), when
you have honor to the list and when you sold your soul to the grassroots of
the JDEList - Please, feel free to rejoing the ranks.

Sorry if I come across a little 'ruff!' in my response - I'm from out west;
my bark is not nearly as bad as my byte!

(db)



On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Kamran Ellahi <[email protected]>
wrote:



--
 
Congratulations Gentlemen,

I almost took the bait but Gregg got in there first and set the tone. Very professional reply from all, thanks for the example.

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On B ehalf Of DRBohner
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:46 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: SAP to JDE

Listers,

Before, even his very third post to the JDEList, I believe that Kamran
just wore out his welcome...

Two years ago I moved a client from SAP to 8.10 - though it was 'different' ,
they agreed it was the right thing to do. Being different did not make it
unimpressive to the client. They were able to note that it was Flexible,
Supportable, Had KNOWLEDGEABLE Support, COST EFFECTIVE, streamlined and muc h
easier to use (from a Customer standpoint)...

They did not go back to SAP, btw.

Kam - you are very welcome to go back to the ranks TomorrowNow, if that is
your real desire. Don't come into our space, bash our product and
livelihood and claim the ignorance card (remember, you stated you are 'VERY
NEW to JDE".... When you understand JDE (or want to understand JDE), when
you have honor to the list and when you sold your soul to the grassroots of
the JDEList - Please, feel free to rejoing the ranks.

Sorry if I come across a little 'ruff!' in my response - I'm from out west;
my bark is not nearly as bad as my byte!

(db)



On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Kamran Ellahi
wrote:



--

Daniel Bohner Independant E1 Developer | Consultant Member - iConsortium ww AS/400 - M$
 
Now why did this post simply make me say "oh no he di-int"...

Let the festivities begin....

Remember, don't be too hard with the upgradation you dish out on this post ya' all.
 
Has anyone else noticed lately a decline in the professionalism of some posters on the list?

I think it is one thing to have passionate technical debates on certain JDE features. It is a totally different thing when people bash Oracle and JDE as businesses. Lately the posts have been down-right un-professional. Seriously, Kamran, go to yahoo.com for that.

These kinds of posts are also not appreciated:
1. Posts demanding _immediate_ help with something (hire a consultant)
2. Posts demanding documentation available on the Oracle KG site (pay up like the rest of us and do some of your own research)
3. Posts demanding "answers to the interview questions" (need I say more)
 
"Declined ... something" implies that that "something" was higher before the last post, so it had where to decline from.
IMHO that was NOT the case - their "professionalism" was not higher. Neither were their skills, nor their number of posts.
They are in the ... how should I put that in their terms ... process of "Upgradationing" their common sense.
 
Adrian: I really would like to understand you but right now I have absolutely no idea what your sentences are saying.

The (lack of) professionalism to which I referred was in regard to Kamran (and other newbie's). It was not in reference to those that commmented about Kamran's post.
 
You know - I had a thought about this today (had a bad day and a lot of stress) - so I want to revamp my previously "/ignore" statement and instead contribute to the millions of SAP consultants that might view this thread in the future. Perhaps something good might come out of it.

First of all, its actually interesting that a "fringe" website dedicated to one of the smallest ERP solutions (JDE has <2% of the ERP marketshare) has actually garnered such a comment from a consultant who is in theory representing one of the largest ERP Solutions (>35% marketshare). Especially in a reply, that - to be honest - is against a thread that is a year old, when JDE was emerging from its "wilderness" time at Oracle (and TomorrowNow was stealing proprietary code for their parent)

Secondly, if he is "New" to JDE and has "lots of experience with SAP" - then obviously his customer or implementation partner has placed this individual on a project to convert SAP TO JDE - which is nice to know.

Another thing I noticed is that the only other post this individual has made on this website is in the JDE World area, maybe he's not implementing JDE EnterpriseOne ? If so, then he obviously has no clue about the differences in the product.

Ok, so let us assume that he IS working with EnterpriseOne - and, lets assume, he's a non-technical person (because he admits he works in HR, Payroll and "general system admin"). Even more interesting is the fact he doesn't state what version of "JDE" he's running.

So, here is a retort.

1. JDE has core functionality in Financials, Distribution and Manufacturing. Payroll and HR do exist, although they really didn't become stable until after Peoplesoft had purchased JDE (ie, from 8.9 onwards) - and realistically most of the stability is in the 8.11 and 8.12 product in these areas. If you're running any version prior to that, then I agree, its not a very stable product. Note, therefore, that the product HAS been revamped - many times - over the past five years.

2. JDE is an object-orientated architecture. Data and Logic are treated as indeterminate objects, and can be moved around "magically" in the enterprise architecture to improve scalability and performance. The standalone "demo" of JDE is not a cut-down version for example, its the entire product with everything mapped locally. SAP on the other hand is very much host-centric, requires a huge hardware investment - and cannot be solely run on a single workstation.

3. JDE is platform independent. No other ERP system can truly state this. Even in the midst of production, it is possible to add additional logic servers, database servers and "map" logic and data onto these servers - even custom logic - without the users being impacted. A migration from AS/400 to SQL server or Oracle, for example, can be done with the simplest of ease - taking no more than a couple of days of testing and migration to achieve. Try doing that on SAP. Not only that, but support of a new database or platform is easy for JDE - the proprietary middleware is adaptable and is seperated from the business logic. Supporting Solaris, for example, took 4 weeks. Same with UDB. If there is demand for Apple OS-X as a platform, it would take 4 weeks for the company to support the platform. Its a future secure product.

4. The code is adaptable, AT RUNTIME. In effect, you have the ability to change process flows, workflow and adapt the business AT WILL. Changes to how a program should be used can be deployed with NO impact to production - additional business units, chart of accounts can all be modified live in a production environment if wished (obviously its important to test these changes first). Everything can be adapted to suit the business requirements first and foremost. SAP requires yet another "implementation" to do this.

5. Change the software to match the business. While SAP requires that the business changes to its "default" models - this is not necessary under JDE. In effect, this means that the software is totally adaptable to any companies process flow - no matter how horrible it might be ! Of course, its preferable to adapt certain models when a company implements - and JDE might not have been proficient in the past for providing such models - but EnterpriseOne can match ANY companies requirements.

6. You get the SAME toolset as the software company - together with ALL the sourcecode for all business logic. Obviously the code is proprietary, and I couldn't post the sourcecode to Sales Order Entry here, for example - but if you own JDE, you own the source. You can modify the code at will or create your own code with exactly the same toolset. SAP and other ERP solutions provide different tools for different tasks - but its not possible to change the default functionality easily. I could, if I wanted to, delete ALL my functional code and create my very own ERP functionality just using the toolset !

7. JDE code is 100% deployed to the web. Now, this is an interesting one. If you take a look at how the toolset works, you'll see there is a "form design aid" for example. In here, you'll develop your form and the logic behind the form - and when you deploy that form - it will instantly deploy both to a windows client and to a web server. The functionality is identical, just the interface is different. If JDE wanted to support a new type of GUI (for example, python) - then they change the "transmogrifier" and instantly add another GUI to their support. SAP has to come out with an entire release to support a different GUI.

8. Upgradeability. Because the business objects are written in a form that is version independent - upgrading to a new version is fast and relatively easy. In fact, the "tool" release (the code that customers DON'T get the source for - the middleware and presentation-generating logic) takes less than a day to adapt to. New databases, for example, can be supported in a very minor upgrade. Again, an entire release and a very lengthy "upgrade" is required with SAP and other products. In fact, customers can "pick and choose" what "flavor" of the product they want to upgrade to. Very powerful for the customers (but not great to try and support !)

Those are the points on top of my head. Its very VERY rare you EVER hear of a customer moving successfully from JDE to another ERP system. Once they get JDE, they stick to it. On the other hand, I've been involved (as you are currently) in many companies that have migrated FROM another ERP system (such as SAP) to JDE.

EnterpriseOne is technically the most advanced ERP system out there. Certainly the functionality might have had issues in certain areas - but over the past few years, this has been improved to the point where I see customers applying very few customizations to go live.

JDE is revamped EVERY DAY. There are improvements to functionality in the system - bug fixes, performance improvements - that are released, literally, EVERY day. Today, for example, more than 30 changes have been released for certain products. Whether a company needs to implement those changes is another matter.

Lastly, I know for a fact that JDE/Oracle employees cannot answer on a public forum such as this - but I do know that many senior JDE/Oracle personnel keep "tabs" on customers viewpoints by reading these threads. I also know they have been known to sue people who have gone "over the line" with comments on public forums. Based on your two comments, I don't believe that Oracle are ever going to be interested in hiring you - unless you become more adaptable (but then again, you ARE an SAP "consultant")......

SAP is losing its marketplace to Oracle and JDE.

Fact.

SAP also have no plans in "acquiring" software companies.

Fact.

Methinks that Oracle is winning the race. Why SHOULD Oracle acquire SAP ??
 
Jon,

That retort was so dang perfect!

Now, those comments about the list being a bit of a binge of flavorless
responses - suck it up; Jon just one-upped most of us!

(db)




--
 
I understood whose lack of professionalism you were referring to.
I was addressing Kamran & Co, too
tongue.gif
 
I think things have gotten a little better in the meantime.
It was just a rough patch, I suppose.
_____________________________________________
Dumitru from Clarvision
 
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