Lawson says it has the size and product range to appeal to more mid-market firms

Eleven months to the day after announcing their plans to merge, mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendors Lawson and Intentia finally begin operating as one company today.

The tortuous transatlantic acquisition process, which required regulatory approval from both US and Swedish authorities, ended last week when well over 90 percent of Intentia's shareholders accepted Lawson's offer for newly-issued shares of Lawson stock.

Lawson said the deal elevates it into a genuinely global software provider, extending its presence into the manufacturing and distribution industries served by Intentia and bolstering its customer base to 4,000 organisations in 40 countries. Lawson chief executive Harry Debes added in a statement that the scale of the new organisation would allow it to establish itself as the " preferred" ERP provider for mid-market firms.

Teresa Jones of analyst firm Butler Group agreed the deal would boost Lawson's profile. "Increasingly we see customers rank supplier's financial viability as a major factor in purchasing decisions, sometimes even above [software] functionality," she explained. "A lot of customers will only consider vendors from the [largest] top five suppliers, and in that respect this deal should make customers feel more comfortable about choosing Lawson as they are getting a big vendor with a big customer base and big development resources."

The two companies are painting the deal is a genuine merger and have announced a new executive board and product portfolio combining staff and products from both vendors.

Lawson’s Debes will head the enlarged firm, and Intentia chief executive Betrand Sciard will serve as his chief operating officer. Intentia executives Jim Anderson and Guenther Tolkmit will also take places on the Lawson board.

The two vendors' portfolios have been rebranded. Intentia's software for " make, move, maintain" industries, such as apparel, food and beverage, and distribution, has been relabeled Lawson M3, while Lawson's service-sector-focused software will be presented under the banner Lawson S3. Both product lines are already built on Java-based technology and will fit into Lawson's Landmark initiative to develop service oriented architecture (SOA)-enabled applications, the company said in a statement.

Jones predicted the merged firm would take the opportunity cross-sell to both sets of customers. "The two companies were quite different in terms of the regional and vertical markets they address so I'd expect quite a bit of cross-selling," she said.

Lawson confirmed cross-selling initiatives are already planned. Lawson will target former Intentia customers with its human capital management suite, while offering Intentia's enterprise asset management software to existing Lawson customers in the healthcare, government and retail sectors.