IFS reveals mobile app ambitions

The software firm aims to tailor its ERP, supply chain management, and project-planning apps for a wide range of mobile devices

ERP software specialist IFS has pledged to expand its support for mobile workforces by better tailoring its business apps to run on mobile devices.

Speaking exclusively to IT Week, IFS' UK managing director Paul Massey said the company's focus on verticals with large mobile workforces such as construction, distribution and maintenance services meant that it was seeing increased demand for ERP, supply chain management, and project planning applications that are compatible with a wide range of mobile devices.

"We have had the technology to support our functionality on a mobile client for some time, but the question is which functionality do you push out [to mobile devices]… and what is the best way to display those apps on a mobile screen?" he said. "We'll see more examples of companies using this functionality over the next 12 months and we are evolving the extent to which they can use just certain parts of an application on mobile devices."

He added that this ability to tailor certain parts of an application to suit mobile devices would particularly appeal to IFS' core construction, maintenance services and distribution verticals, where workers increasingly require that specific areas of functionality, such as time sheets or inventory management tools, are available on their handheld devices.

Massey also downplayed concerns that as one of the few remaining independent software vendors in an ERP market increasingly dominated by SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, IFS is a prime acquisition target.

He argued that with the company’s main shareholders committed to remaining independent and the vendor focused on several fast-growing verticals, such as construction and distribution, "there are a few factors that make the possibility of [the company being taken over] less likely than you might imagine ".

Massey added that the company's business model also made a hostile takeover unlikely. "Licence revenues and services are a bigger proportion of our revenue than maintenance," he explained. "So if anyone bought the company to kill the products and exploit the maintenance stream they would kill the main revenue stream."