Waterloo Managed Software Services Ltd. (WatServ) will be the latest Canadian company offering enterprises hosting for Microsoft’s Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in the cloud, it announced June 16.
“Right now in the marketplace customers are telling me that cash is king,” said Tom Doerner, president of WatServ, based in Waterloo, Ont. “Businesses are telling us today that they don’t have an IT department and they don’t want to build one.” Typically, that means a shift to the cloud, where enterprises can save costs on IT infrastructure and skilled staff.
“In the last economic collapse, there were people fleeing to the cloud,” Doerner said, and WatServ was able to capitalize on that. “In the last downturn we benefited tremendously,” he said, and now, that desire for cost savings has remained.
WatServ is part of a three-way partnership with Microsoft Canada and San Mateo, Calif.-based partner Tectura Corp., which will be responsible for helping businesses determine their needs for Microsoft’s cloud-based Dynamics ERP software. “They (Tectura) will meet with the customer and their implementation will determine what exactly is required,” Doerner said.
“We have a bundled solution where you can come to any of us three and get a bundled cost,” added Rich McJannet, Tectura’s regional director for Canada. “We trust the uptime and supportability of WatServ,” McJannet said. “Also, they have expertise with Dynamics ERP that other people don’t have,” he added.
WatServ’s services include infrastructure-as-a-service, the supporting software-as-a-service, facilities for hosting the data and managed IT services. The company has three offerings with different levels of service depending on what the business requires, including the lower-end Silver Lining, the mid-level Cloud 9 and the most comprehensive Private Cloud Plus solutions.
One of WatServ’s major advantages and a reason Tectura has partnered with it, is their data centre locations both in Canada and the U.S., McJannet said. Due in part to the U.S. Patriot Act and general concerns around where companies’ data is “going,” many enterprises feel more comfortable knowing their data lives closer to home, he explained. “Three or four years ago, it wasn’t easy,” McJannet said.
Like many other cloud offerings, ERP solutions will be offered as a subscription, per user, per month price, which Doerner said is “what the CFOs have been asking for.” “We are quite confident we can do simple ones in three weeks,” Doerner said, meaning an implementation for a mid-sized company.
It’s not just new customers, either, Doerner pointed out, since when existing customers’ ERP solutions need an upgrade, they will often switch over to a cloud-based solution. “This is just an avalanche of activity,” Doerner said.
Tectura also has many existing customers ask whether shifting their ERP solutions to the cloud is the right way to go, and McJannet typically tells them it is. But his opinion differed slightly from Doerner’s in that he said the shift to the cloud is slightly slower in Canada than other parts of the world, especially the United States. “Canada tends to be more conservative,” in terms of technology, he said.
It’s similar to the housing market, he said—some people are adamant about buying and owning their property, while many think it’s smarter to rent. “What’s right for one family isn’t for another,” he said. “There’s certainly a lot of questions around it. I think it’s just a mindset change.”