Decision Analytics. Integrating Lawson with the real world.
The LawsonGuru Letter
The LawsonGuru Letter, brought to you by Decision Analytics

Click here to forward to a colleague

February 2005

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter providing provocative commentary on issues important to the Lawson Software community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by-and is solely the opinion of-John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com. For subscription information, see the bottom of this message.

The LawsonGuru Letter is not affiliated with Lawson Software.
In this issue:
1. Guest Spot: Using VNC with Lawson
2. Lawson's Road Ahead: Smooth Ride or Rocky Terrain?
3. Reporting, Part 9: LRS-What's in a Name?
4. Worthwhile Reading
5. Lawson Tips & Tricks

A hearty "welcome back!" to Alex Tsekhansky from AIC.  Alex is sharing another Guest Spot article with us (and will be joining us again in a couple of months!).  Enjoy your "15 minutes of fame" by submitting your own Guest Spot article-email it to me at mailto:letter-editor@lawsonguru.com.

A couple of notes on "Lawson's Road Ahead" and the ever-changing ERP landscape.  This is probably one of the toughest articles I've ever had to write.  I've actually been working on this one for a couple of months.  No sooner had I completed what I thought would be the final version when some news item would catch my eye, and I'd realize that the picture had changed yet again.  This happened again a couple of days ago, when SAP announced their acquisition of TomorrowNow, a third-party PeopleSoft maintenance/support firm (see http://www.sap.com/company/press/press.epx?PressID=3715).  This move is sure to make SAP a formidable competitor in the bid for PeopleSoft converts.  This is also a difficult article because it might be interpreted that I'm "Lawson-bashing", which hopefully you'll understand is not the case.  I'm simply trying to make the case that this will be a very interesting (and likely very rough) couple of years for Lawson.  That's not "Lawson-bashing", that's facing reality.
1. Guest Spot: Using VNC with Lawson
 (by Alex Tsekhansky, Analysts International)

I’ve been working with Lawson software products for a long time and have performed numerous installations. Recently I’ve noticed that to install Lawson’s newer products on UNIX you must have X-Windows software. Also, on Windows, some Lawson installation routines, especially related to the installation or upgrade of the environment, do not work over a Remote Terminal Services session. You must have remote control console software to perform such installs.

Until recently I’ve used various commercial products to resolve those problems. From a technology point of view UNIX presents some challenge, because X-Windows requires a connection initiated on the Lawson server back to client PC running X-Windows server software. I used commercial product called Hummingbird Exceed, as well as XFREE software, which is contained in a CYGWIN freeware suite, with good results. The usual problems, however, are bandwidth and security. X-Windows connections do not perform well over dial-up, and, in case of a high-speed connection, client firewalls must allow the Lawson server to connect to the “outside” computer on the internet (or over VPN if I am connected to Lawson that way).

I came across a free VNC software (one incarnation of which can be downloaded from here http://www.realvnc.com), and realized it has an interesting feature. It is possible to run this VNC server on UNIX with a “self-contained virtual” X-Windows server, and connect to it in a PCANYWHERE-like fashion. VNC client software is one very small program (one .EXE file) that does not require installation. Such setup on UNIX has the following interesting characteristics:
  1. It does not require any outgoing connections. Incoming connections go to one port that you can choose while starting VNC.
     
  2. X-Windows session will be always active (meaning all processing will be going in this X-Windows window – even if you’re disconnected from the server). That makes it ideal for programs like lasetup, appinstall, delprod etc, which you can run now without a fear that connection between your PC and a server breaks, and GEN database may become corrupted.
     
  3. Screen refreshed will be going in PCANYWHERE-like manner (meaning not all screen changes will be transferred to the client, which makes it workable over dial-up connections).


  4. You do not have to have the server running an X-Windows console. Since all X-Windows services are virtual, VNC will make its own instance of the X-Windows client and server. You do, however, need X-Windows libraries installed on the UNIX server. They are installed by default in all major UNIXes made by HP, SUN and IBM.


  5. You can share a session between multiple users, if desired. So, it can be used as a “training tool”.


  6. You can use cut/copy/paste between VNC window and your Windows desktop applications. That makes copying of text files easy.


  7. VNC now has Java viewers, so sessions do not even require proprietary client software.

The screen resolution for X-Windows window is settable on the UNIX side. The software has very small footprint, and does not have to be run by “root”. When connected, you will have the same privileges as the user who ran the programs that appear in the X-Windows window.

You’re required to have Java 1.4.x (I prefer 1.4.2) on the UNIX server to run it. However if you download Java from SUN web site, you can install it into a directory of your choice. You do not need to be ROOT to install Java this way. Such Java installation will not interfere with any other Java installations used by Lawson, which still requires Java 1.3.1 for many tasks.

Setting Up VNC on UNIX

My recent installation of VNC was done on SUN Solaris 8. I installed Java in /home/at/jdk/j2sdk1.4.2_06. I downloaded the VNC archive from the www.realvnc.com web site, and untar’d it into a separate directory. I then ran ./vncinstall, which copied a few executable files into a directory that I specified. You must assign 777 permissions to two directories - /tmp/.X11-pipe and /tmp/.X11-unix. This task may need to be done as root.

In the new directory you need to run ./vncpasswd. It will ask you for a password to be used for VNC connections. The free version of VNC does not use UNIX users, so this password should be kept secret, and known only to VNC users.

Most VNC configuration files are located in the $HOME/.vnc directory. The encrypted password is saved in the $HOME/.vnc/passwd file.

I use the following script to start VNC client and server on UNIX:

#!/usr/bin/ksh
#
# VNC start

JAVA_HOME=/home/at/jdk/j2sdk1.4.2_06
PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME PATH

nohup ./vncserver :4 -name Integration -geometry 1024x768 -depth 8 -cc 3 -rfbport=9999 > integration.out 2>&1 &

The “-geometry” switch defines the resolution (in pixels) of the virtual X-Windows session. The “-rfbport” defines a TCP port number that the VNC server will listen on for incoming connections. The “-depth” defines number of colors (less colors will mean lesser bandwidth requirements). Since VNC started in nohup, I can disconnect from my window where I started VNC.

On startup, VNC runs the script $HOME/.vnc/xstartup
I use the following script:

#!/bin/sh

[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
nohup xsetroot -solid grey
nohup vncconfig -iconic &
nohup xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
nohup twm &

It runs XTERM window in the VNC session with 24x80 text by default as well as some XWindows tools.

After that you can run VNC client and specify host name and port number as described in documentation.

VNC for Windows

VNC software also exists for Windows platform, and it can run either as an application, or as a service. Consider it a free multi-user PCANYWHERE replacement. Note, however, that it does not support file transfer by default, like PCANYWHERE does. It needs to be installed by the member of the Administrators group, but the installation process can take place in the Remote Terminal session. On Windows, only one instance of VNC can be running at a time.

Other Sources for VNC

Commercial versions of VNC, or some other free ones (not developed by Real VNC) have some additional features – such as file transfer, remote printing, user authentication using OS accounts, active-directory-based security, screen scaling, data stream encryption etc. Other VNC flavors include UltraVNC – www.ultravnc.com, TightVNC - www.tightvnc.com, etc. Some others can be found here http://faq.gotomyvnc.com/fom-serve/cache/113.html.

All of them support basic VNC functionality. Some may require their own client for additional features (such as file transfer).

2. Lawson’s Road Ahead: Smooth Ride or Rocky Terrain?

It’s certainly been an interesting few months for anyone involved with Lawson, ERP and software in general. Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft is becoming a reality, and Lawson is trying to woo the defectors (which is good news for Lawson’s iSeries clients—but more on that in a moment).

Naturally, everyone wants to know what all this means for Lawson. First, though, let’s look at a few of Lawson’s own recent news items.

1. Jay Coughlan offered the first of his 100-day updates on Lawson’s 1000-day journey to remake the business software industry (see http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=129966&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=643201). For those of you who bothered to read this, it was a real snoozer. The big result of the first 100 days? A reorganization, which is of course marketing-speak for layoffs; this leads us to Lawson’s next news topic.

2. Lawson announced plans to lay off 75 more people (see http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2004/12/06/daily52.html). This is actually a multi-part story. If you‘ve closely followed Lawson’s press releases and financial results announcements, you’ve noticed that there are actually multiple sets of layoffs: 100 were to be laid off, as announced in September, then 75 more were identified in November to be laid off. In addition, Lawson is “continuing to evaluate other cost reduction opportunities that may result in additional charges in the second quarter ending Nov. 30, 2004, and during the remainder of fiscal 2005.”

Lawson’s Financial Picture

So, it sounds like more layoffs are possible. What I’ve heard is to expect a layoff of 30-40 non-billable services consultants by the end of Lawson’s 3rd quarter, which ends in February 2005. Some of these layoffs were certainly to be expected. When Lawson chose to rely upon only itself and only two of its partners for the recent v8 technology upgrade cycle, Lawson had to hire a lot of consultants who—now that the upgrades are complete—are presumably sitting idle. Of course, it’s the other earlier layoffs that have me most worried, since a lot of them were in development. By cutting developers, Lawson is waving a big red flag. Cut the basis for your company (remember—it all starts with developers), and the rest of the company will eventually follow.

By becoming a public company, Lawson is now “playing to the Street”, where every move is scrutinized for its effect on quarterly earnings. It’s no longer only about long-term growth. The stock analysts have long thought of Lawson as too fat, and they’d like to see them lean and mean. The shareholders (at least those who have not cashed out via options) are obviously getting restless. Lawson’s stock price is still less than half of its original $14/share IPO price. But don’t interpret their performance on Wall Street as operational success or failure. Their balance sheet and cash position are both pretty strong. True, Lawson is very focused on the short term--all public companies are. I did some quick research on Lawson's operating expenses compared to some others:

    R&D SMGA*
  LWSN 18% 43%
  MSFT  21% 36%
  ORCL  13% 26%
  PSFT  20% 35%
  *SMGA = Sales & Mktg/Gen & Admin

What stands out is that while Lawson is in-line on R&D spending, they’re still over-spending on sales & marketing. Perhaps that's just the price of being the underdog?

The New ERP Landscape

And, underdog they are. Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft (coupled with PeopleSoft’s previous acquisition of J.D. Edwards) consolidates the ERP industry into three big players: SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft. Microsoft you say? Hey, Microsoft now owns Great Plains, Solomon, and Navision. And, they’re about to release a new version of their Office Small Business Accounting (see http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/smallbusiness/accounting/overview.mspx). All three vendors are clearly top-tier providers, with brand-name recognition. While Lawson doesn’t like it (and they never want to admit it), they’re still in the second-tier. Lawson simply doesn’t have the marketing money or the name recognition to effectively compete against these three titans, each of whom also happen to own their own “plumbing” (i.e. database, middleware, etc.) in addition to their business applications.

SAP and Oracle are obviously vying for the top-tier, and Microsoft is coming up from the bottom? What should Lawson do? Own the middle of course! I would much rather have a slew of Fortune 1000 (or smaller) clients than to have a single Fortune 50 client. Should Lawson consider a price point reduction? After all, they are now in a category unto themselves, so do they have to adjust their prices to match?


Oracle is notorious for its disdain towards its clients (although I think it’s largely undeserved, as it’s more a reflection of Larry Ellison’s arrogance than Oracle as a company). What can Lawson do? Satisfy its own customers before worrying about getting new ones. Stop trying to “win the big one”, and take care of the customers it already has. We all know it’s easier to sell to an existing customer than to lose one and have to replace it.

Ever seen an SAP solution map? It can be sold broadly as a solution for everything, without really specializing in anything. What can Lawson do? Create, enhance and continue to serve its own niche markets. Which—by the way—Lawson does pretty well now, but are they targeting the wrong niches? Where is Lawson’s strength and where are they focused? Healthcare and public sector are tough markets to play in, notorious for not having any capital to spend on software. On a hospital-by-hospital basis, the margins are too small for them to compete. But own the whole sector, and you’re positioned to compete. The key player to watch here is Siemens, whose own Soarian Financials may very well end up competing against (or perhaps even replacing) Lawson as the preferred financial software in Siemens’ product offering.

What about IBM?

A number of people have suggested Lawson as a potential acquisition for IBM. I don’t think so, given that IBM has publicly stated that it has no interest in the application market. And, honestly, what value is Lawson to IBM anyway? It’s not like Lawson really owns a market, has any leading-edge technology advantage, or could get IBM into accounts they don’t already have. When IBM swallowed PwC’s consulting practice, they became a service delivery organization–why would they want to limit themselves to one application?

Lawson’s Response

So, what’s the upshot of the Oracle deal on Lawson? Well, it depends on whether or not Oracle can persuade the PeopleSoft clients to stick around. If Oracle does indeed kill off the PeopleSoft brand (even though they’ve promised support through 2013), it forces those clients to migrate to Oracle’s applications or make the switch a different ERP.

How is Lawson responding to this? By preemptively targeting the Peoplesoft base—specifically the iSeries (call them “legacy J.D.Edwards”) clients (see http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=129966&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=663228). How many of these clients can Lawson convert? Your guess is as good as mine. But Oracle is obviously going to try to retain them. Microsoft and SAP are also vying for them (SAP is offering them a discount based on 75% of their original purchase), so I wouldn’t count on too many becoming Lawson clients.

But the good news is that, regardless of the outcome, existing Lawson iSeries clients win as well. As part of its pitch, Lawson has announced the availability of the 8.1 applications on iSeries by the end of the year (see http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=129966&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=663073). Yup, you heard that correct—the long-promised version parity is about to become a reality for the iSeries clients!

Look to CUE for Clues

This year’s CUE could be a make-or-break opportunity for Lawson; it’s a total failure unless Lawson shows us it can compete:

  • Lawson has continued to say is that taking PeopleSoft out of the game will be better for Lawson. They’ve claimed that PeopleSoft was their #1 competitor, and Oracle their #2. Well, who’s that competitor now? Sounds like a much bigger #1! Will the theme be "Welcome all you PeopleSoft converts, here’s what we have to offer..."?


  • Is the promise of “8.1 for iSeries” close to reality, or is it just vaporware? If Lawson doesn’t demonstrate at least something for the iSeries, I’d be very wary.


  • Lawson should be ready to unveil plenty of new technology streaming out of their offshore development interests. I'm expecting new technology; because after all, that was the point, right? What new technologies and products can be presented to woo the PeopleSoft customer?


  • Lawson's annual business has traditionally been reflected at CUE. The great shows of the ‘90s heydays are over. Each year there have been fewer and fewer vendor booths and less and less interest. Take a hard look at the vendor participation. What would you expect to see?


  • What kind of show can we expect with all the staff reductions? Will there be fewer presentations or just larger rooms? Will it be the usual vendor love-fest, or rather a fustigation of Lawson?

Summary

We’re definitely at another fork in the Lawson road. Is Lawson blazing yet another new trail? Or is this the beginning of the end for Lawson? Send me your thoughts at mailto:letter-comments@lawsonguru.com.

3. Reporting, Part 9: LRS-What’s in a name?

Here’s an interesting question I received recently from a reader:

“I've been reading back thru some of the LawsonGuru Letter issues; specifically the reporting series. What's the difference between Lawson Enterprise Reporting, Lawson Reporting Services, and Lawson Reporting Suite? Is it that Enterprise Reporting specifically uses Crystal Enterprise (CE)? If you already run Crystal Enterprise, does LRS lay right on top? I don't get it.”

Unfortunately, Lawson hasn’t done a very good job educating the community about the product differences; a problem which has been exacerbated by using the LRS acronym for both Lawson Reporting Services as well as Lawson Reporting Suite.

Lawson Reporting Services and Crystal Enterprise (CE) are separate products, with overlapping functionality. You don't need (or probably want) both. LRS doesn't use CE. It uses a bundled piece of Crystal--specifically the Crystal run-time rendering engine, but it should not be confused with CE.

Lawson Enterprise Reporting
Lawson Enterprise Reporting is a server-based product which is really just a re-branding of CE (Lawson ships you CE along with an "integration pack" that 1) makes CE loosely integrated with Portal (i.e. CE sessions run "inside" portal), 2) re-skins CE to give it the same colors as Lawson Portal, and 3) redirects any CE report drill-around calls to open the drill-around in portal rather than in a separate browser window.

Reports are developed using the Crystal Designer, and published to the CE Server. Enterprise Reporting also includes the Lawson OLEDB Provider and the Lawson Query Builder, which provides an "awareness" into Lawson's data-dictionary, and applies Lawson security. The OLEDB Provider is installed on both the Crystal Server and any desktops on which the Crystal Designer is installed.

Lawson Reporting Services
Lawson Reporting Services (LRS) is the "next generation" of Enterprise Reporting (I don't think Lawson will even sell you Enterprise Reporting anymore). LRS replaces CE as the server software, and Lawson runs the report (which is still a Crystal report!) using an embedded copy of the Crystal engine. Reports are still developed using the Crystal Designer, but are published to the LRS server. LRS also includes the Lawson OLEDB Provider; the OLEDB Provider is installed on both the LRS server and any desktops on which the Crystal Designer is installed.

Lawson Reporting Suite
Lawson Reporting Suite (often also abbreviated as LRS) is a superset of Lawson Reporting Services, and also includes SmartNotification, ProcessFlow Professional, and Scorecards/Analytics.

Crystal Reports Designer
To develop reporting content using Crystal Reports—for deployment on either CE or LRS—you still need to purchase one or more licenses for Crystal Designer. You can either purchase them separately from Crystal/Business Objects, or a Crystal reseller. I believe you can also purchase them from Lawson.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- QUOTE OF THE ISSUE –

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

- Douglas Adams
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. Worthwhile Reading

A First Look: Peer Into the Future of Windows
Microsoft hopes tightly integrated Windows servers will ease the complexity of managing an enterprise.
Windows Server System Magazine, December 2004
http://www.ftponline.com/wss/2004_12/magazine/features/druest/

The Silver Lining In SOX
Use Sarbanes-Oxley financial compliance initiatives to justify automation, eliminate spreadsheets and develop process consistency.
Intelligent Enterprise, January 2005
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=56200373

More Space and More Time
Improvements in Oracle tablespace management features mean more free space.
Oracle Magazine, January/February 2005
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/05-jan/o15dba.html

Testing the Top Line
Analyzing a company's sources of revenue can bring insights into growth.
CFO Magazine, October 2004
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3219980

Albright On Communication, Information And Negotiation
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shares her secrets for persuading people even tougher than Larry Ellison to do what you want.
CIO Magazine, January 15, 2005
http://www.cio.com/archive/011505/communication.html
 
5. Lawson Tips & Tricks
Share your tips. Send them to mailto:letter-tips@lawsonguru.com.

Use the 'bldsh' utility to learn more about how a Lawson program works

There are frequently times when I need to figure out what, how, and/or why a particular Lawson program is (or is not) working.  With more and more of Lawson's code residing in pdlib code libraries (and now with the system code-specific pdlib directories in the 8.1 applications), it's often difficult to find the code within the base PD code. 

So, what I do is use the 'bldsh' utililty to generate the full COBOL .cbl file, and then look at the resulting .cbl file:

$ bldsh <productline> <systemcode> <programcode>

For example:

$ bldsh TRAIN803 AP AP210

will create:

$LAWDIR/train803/apsrc/AP210.cbl

To learn more about how Lawson's generates a COBOL program and how it actually gets executed, see the tip "How does Lawson execute program logic?" in the March 2003 LawsonGuru Letter at http://www.danalytics.com/guru/letter/archive/2003-03.htm.

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter providing provocative commentary on issues important to the Lawson Software community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by--and is solely the opinion of--John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com.

To subscribe, visit http://www.danalytics.com/guru/letter/
Copyright © 2005, Decision Analytics. All rights reserved.
Please share The LawsonGuru Letter in whole or in part as long as copyright and attribution are always included.
Decision Analytics is an independent consultancy, focusing on Lawson technical projects, and specializing in customization/modification, data conversion, and integration/interfaces. Please visit http://www.danalytics.com for more information.
Decision Analytics. Integrating Lawson with the Real World.