Enterprise software analyst Josh Greenbaum has a colourful way to describe Infor, the biggest application software company you’ve probably never heard of: “They are the Frankenstein’s laboratory for literally hundreds of products.”
More than 70 acquisitions have turned Infor into the world’s third biggest applications company – and left it with the mother of all integration challenges. Now, in Charles Phillips, former co-president of Oracle, it has secured the services of a CEO with big-time experience in handling this kind of situation.
Majority owner Golden Gate Capital got the ball rolling when it founded a predecessor company to Infor back in 2002. This has since become the vehicle for an ambitious private equity roll-up in the software industry, with deals like the $1bn purchase of Geac Computer and $1.6bn acquisition of SSA.
Infor claims to have revenue of nearly $2bn but, as a private company, does not publish detailed financials. Outgoing CEO Jim Schaper (who will remain chairman) told me on Monday that it had done “better than most” during a challenging recession – though “quite frankly, not as good as a couple” (no names needed there.)
Phillips’ challenge will be to raise Infor’s profile and make it more than the sum of its Frankenstein-laboratory parts. January is scheduled to bring what he describes as “a new skin” for the the company’s many apps, with a common user interface and tools like business intelligence.
And, with 70,000 global customers, there ought to be plenty of scope for cross-selling. With that many accounts to call on, there’s a high probability “your next customer is already an existing customer,” says Phillips.
This is where his track record could be telling. After a spate of acquisitions that left Oracle with a disparate set of products, points out Greenbaum, Phillips’ main contribution was to “pull together a really comprehensive story that the field sales force could take out and sell.”
If he can get the sales machine working in the same way at Infor, then you can bet that Golden Gate will be looking to take the company public as soon as it decently can.
And what of the new rivalry with former boss Larry Ellison? Phillips says he spoke to the Oracle CEO in recent weeks to discuss his next move, and that Ellison “agreed it was the best of the alternatives.”
Left unsaid, in this cryptic comment, are what other options Phillips might have been considering. Joining Léo Apotheker at HP, perhaps?
