Also known as on-demand or hosted applications, SaaS is changing how companies pay for, implement, and run their software applications. Perhaps most importantly, SaaS is accelerating companies' return on investment, enabling them to make automation enhancements even in the face of internal IT resource constraints, and making it possible to solve business problems in much shorter time spans.

The Web-based delivery model, supported by a service-oriented architecture, enables more laser-focused deployments. Rather than an enterprise having to roll out an entire application, SaaS can enable a slice of functionality to be deployed to ease a specific business pain or support a unique business process for selective product categories, customers, or channels.

Unlike traditional applications, which are paid for upfront and installed inside your company, SaaS applications are hosted at the vendor or hosting provider and are paid for through a monthly subscription model.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Sourcing and Procurement
Financial Management
Product Design and Lifecycle Management

Study results show that across all these application areas, companies are attracted to SaaS because they want to deploy applications with fewer IT resources and achieve a faster time to value for their technology investments.

Aberdeen benchmark data in the supply chain management and procurement and sourcing areas finds that about three times more enterprises report that their SaaS solutions outperform their on-premise applications in availability and uptime than under perform.

CIOs are adopting an IT portfolio approach of investing internal IT resources on business differentiating areas, with the goal of using external technology experts (Infor) for non-core processes. Also weighing into their decision is that with SaaS, if the application doesn't work or employees don't use it as much as expected, there is a much easier - and less costly - exit strategy, so the total project risk is much lower. According to a recent Aberdeen report, leading CIOs are proactively going to their business units and suggesting areas that should be automated using SaaS

The emergence of 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to approximately 17.2 billion gigabytes of RAM. 64-bit processors calculate tasks such as factorials of large figures at least two times faster than working in 32-bit environments. 64-bit architecture indisputably makes working with large data sets in applications and large databases easier. Speed is not the only factor to consider in a comparison of 32-bit and 64-bit processors. Applications such as multi-tasking, stress testing, and clustering are more suited to a 64-bit architecture. Operating systems reserve portions of process address space for O/S use, effectively reducing the total address space available for mapping memory for user programs. For instance, Windows XP O/S components are mapped into each processor's address space typically leaving only 2 GB address space available, even if the computer has 4 GB of RAM. This restriction is not present in 64-bit operating systems. Programs can benefit greatly from 64-bit registers and effectively execute 3 to 5 times faster on 64-bit than on 32-bit.

Infor ERP Syteline is built on a proven, reliable, well-supported and dynamic platform: Microsoft .NET technology.

.NET is the Microsoft Web services strategy to connect information, people, systems, and devices through software. Integrated across the Microsoft platform, .NET technology provides the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions with Web services. .NET-connected solutions enable businesses to integrate their systems more rapidly and in a more agile manner and help them to realize the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.

" Web services ″ is an approach that helps a business connect with its customers, partners, and employees; help the business work more efficiently with its partners and suppliers; and unlock information so it can flow to every employee who needs it. Infor Open SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) is Infor's implementation of Web Services for interoperability, innovation, and evolution across all product lines. With Infor Open SOA, customers can easily add, change, upgrade, or modify solutions as their business requirements change. By enabling our proven, business-specific solutions to plug into our customers' ecosystems, we make it possible to leverage the benefits of a service-oriented architecture without the disruption of having to replacing an entire IT infrastructure.

Infor Open SOA software technology enables our customers to introduce new functionality and technology in a cost-effective, evolutionary way when the time is right for them. As an integral part of the Infor solution offering, there is no additional cost for Infor Open SOA and no need to undergo a major software re-implementation in order to take advantage of SOA business benefits.