CHICAGO, June 25, 2002 — Today at the Retail Systems 2002 Conference & Exposition, Microsoft Corp. announced it has formed a strategic relationship with JDA Software Group Inc., a global leader in delivering integrated software and professional services for the retail demand chain, to jointly develop and market one of the first Microsoft®
.NET-enabled suites of applications for the retail, wholesale and consumer packaged goods industries.
Under the agreement, the two companies have established a broad-based, long-term relationship for marketing, sales, business development and technical initiatives that will benefit new and existing customers, while delivering excellent business value.
JDA, which chose Microsoft after a yearlong evaluation of different platforms, will make .NET its preferred environment for creating new and porting existing JDA Portfolio applications, using Visual Studio®
.NET and the .NET Framework. The relationship will not only result in new go-to-market strategies for both organizations, it will also enhance collaboration efforts on the technology platform upon which JDA develops and deploys its solutions.
“We are delighted that JDA has chosen the .NET Framework and tools as its strategic platform and believe that JDA will be a valuable solutions partner in helping us further the .NET vision,” said Jan de Jong, general manager of the Retail Industry Solutions Group at Microsoft. “This relationship is compelling in that it combines JDA’s leadership and influence among the world’s leading retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers with Microsoft’s proven ability to initiate industry innovation and seamlessly connect stakeholders throughout the value chain. The relationship also promises to usher in a new era in the provision of enterprise-scale business capabilities that deliver the benefits of Web services to the global marketplace.”
“JDA has established leadership in the retail and collaboration markets by maximizing the return on investment for our customers and maintaining a long-term perspective on technology trends,” said Jim Armstrong, CEO of JDA Software. “Today, the technology choices our customers face are more challenging than ever. Our decision to adopt the Microsoft platform is based on our firm belief that we will be able to deliver more functional and usable applications in less time and at the lowest overall cost of ownership. These capabilities will help ensure the continued success of our customers and, in turn, JDA.”
Meijer Expects to Reap Benefits of Alliance
One retailer foreseeing the business value that this strategic relationship will deliver is Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Meijer Inc. Meijer selected JDA as its strategic retail solutions partner in 2001, and is currently implementing the JDA Portfolio host merchandising, strategic planning, space management and other core systems to support its grocery and mass merchandise superstores. Because Meijer is also embracing the Microsoft platform for several of its technology initiatives, it is expecting to derive significant value from the relationship.
“The relationship between JDA and Microsoft exemplifies what Meijer expects from its strategic partners, which is to work together to provide the best retail solutions,” said Dennis Post, vice president of solution development, information technology and services at Meijer. “The relationship enables them to create value for our guests.”
Evolutionary Approach Brings High ROI to Customers
Microsoft and JDA are working collaboratively to deliver in the third quarter of 2002 new and enhanced solutions, written in Visual Studio .NET, the leading development toolset. Of greatest interest to many enterprise retailers is a new version of JDA’s client/server host merchandising product, Portfolio Merchandise Management. Microsoft is providing JDA with extensive technical and development support to assist in the migration of Portfolio Merchandise Management to the .NET Platform.
With many of its applications already running on a Microsoft platform, JDA will optimize its new solutions for the latest server products from Microsoft to give customers the best possible experience. The new .NET solutions will make use of XML Web services to provide integration with existing JDA products, including those running on other platforms. The result will be a seamless sharing of data.
The use of .NET also will deliver to JDA customers the latest advanced technologies for security management. JDA will be able to provide highly specific security control and implement powerful authentication, authorization and cryptographic routines.
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