REPOST: Amazon Reportedly Working on 3D Smartphone with Eyeball Control Interface

Doug Aamoth of TIME discusses the possibility of e-commerce giant Amazon releasing a glasses-free 3D smartphone.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon is working on “a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for 3-D images without glasses.” This rumor comes to us courtesy of “people familiar with the company’s plans,” according to the Journal.

Whether true or not, it shouldn’t come as an earth shattering surprise that Amazon might be working on some sort of smartphone — the company has found success in hardware devices such as its Kindle e-book readers and Kindle Fire tablets. Oh, and speculation about an Amazon smartphone has been going on since what seems like the day after the first Kindle Fire tablet was introduced (see here, here and here, for starters).

However, to tout glasses-free 3D in 2013 as a major feature of a smartphone seems downright insane. We saw a handful of glasses-free 3D smartphones trickle out a few years ago, consumers yawned, and now — surprise, surprise – we don’t hear much about glasses-free 3D smartphones.
The Journal‘s description of this miraculous glasses-free 3D technology certainly sounds impressive — especially the bit about being able to navigate stuff with your eyeballs:


One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for 3-D images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said.

But a somewhat less enthusiastic gadget user *might* read into that as a gimmick paired with a second gimmick. If the phone itself is cool and the gimmick-plus-gimmick 3D thing turns out to be a nonessential added feature, so be it. Actually, what the hell: make it the main feature and promote it heavily. I want to see what happens.

The Journal also reports that Amazon is working on a second smartphone, along with “an audio-only streaming device.” The audio device would make sense given Amazon’s ownership of Audible.com; another smartphone without the 3D stuff would make sense just in case — just in case — nobody buys the rumored 3D version with the fancy eyeball control features.

The Journal adds, “Though Amazon has goals of releasing some of these devices in coming months, these people cautioned that some or all of the devices could be shelved because of performance, financial or other concerns.” Translation: it’s quite possible that I just wrote all this for nothing and you read all this for nothing. At least we have each other.

Charles Phillips is the CEO of Infor, a leader in business software and services.  Visit the company's website to learn more about its products.

How SONIC Spokane delivered fast the coneys

Image source: northcoastdriveins.com

“America’s Drive-In,” SONIC has been giving 43 states the taste of efficiency in service from its carhops on roller skates, and of “carnival-like” explosion in the mouth with its classic fares of hamburgers and french fries, as well as hotdogs and coneys. Its rocketing success, however, is not a giveaway in the starter kit for opening branches. So when it opened in Spokane, Washington, the fast-casual food place was met with certain business challenges.

Management worried about handling operations with a seamless, integrated system. Owners were hard-pressed to obtain and track sales and labor rates as they occur. Personnel waited to be asked for areas and service issues they can identify. Long story shortened, Infor had to intervene. Always industry- and company-specific, the solutions it wrought were accommodating to the business being put up, and flexible in incorporating the client’s feature requests into the software it introduced: the Infor SmartSeries Point-of-Sale (POS) Systems.


Image source: toptenreviews.com

Since POS targeted food service operators, it’s been built to run smoothly even as minor tweaking, glitches, and significant reconfiguration arose. As attested to by Preston Hawkins, owner of the Spokane franchise, Infor is a company that concerns itself with client-related rough spots. Meanwhile, in the first 87 days of the restaurant, it earned a record of $1 million in revenues, a first in all SONIC drive-ins.

For the franchise, POS has enhanced prep statuses to improve kitchen management, strategized addition of orders to existing ones, sped up identification of stations in need of help for order preps, made problems detectable by areas to keep the flow of stall and drive-through service fluid, and provided management with immediate access to sales and labor particulars. Mr. Hawkins and the store manager, Selina Harner, are appreciative of the software solution.

See the case study for this branch here.


Image source: phoenixsmoothjazzblog.com

Under Charles Phillips’ mandate, Infor has been developing software solutions that work specifically for its targets. See how it’s done here.

Why attend Inforum 2013?

Video source: youtube.com/inforvideo

Great minds do think alike, but in the age of travel and globalization, they sometimes have to come together in order to achieve this. The gathering of like-minded professionals is one of the best ways to witness innovation, solve problems, and generally determine where the industry is headed. Such gatherings exist for every industry, and for social enterprise, that event is called Inforum.

Inforum is an annual gathering of CRM leader Infor’s customers, employees, partners, and potential clients. Designed for the sharing of ideas and innovation, Inforum educates all members and investors on the state of the enterprise software industry and provides insight on what can be expected. In a world that is increasingly dependent on virtual social interaction, events like Inforum are necessary in determining when one is on the right path. Employees can get a bigger picture of where their career is headed and business owners can learn how to prepare and hop on board.


Image source: guidetechnologies.com

Whether a start-up professional looking for ideas about where to take his business, or an industry expert looking to engage in insightful conversation with equally versed individuals, Inforum is the event to attend. There, attendees will benefit from firsthand information provided by experienced senior management officials, enterprise software experts, and speakers across different industries. www.inforum2013.com has the complete catalog of the conference and sessions.

Inforum 2012 was attended by over 5,000 participants from over 40 countries. This year’s event is expected to be bigger. Get more information about Infor, its services, and its success from CEO Charles Phillips via this website.


Image source: guidetechnologies.com

Whose idea was the touchscreen, anyway?

Image source: trueinternetworld.net

Once a prop in science fiction films, the touchscreen is one of the greatest milestones in the history of screen display technology. This remarkable display system allows a user to manipulate information in real time with the mere touch of a finger on the screen. The touchscreen is a leap from what display screens used to be, and still continues to evolve in size and resolution capabilities.

General Motors may have been the first major corporation to invest in and publicly make use of the touchscreen. In the 1980s, the automobile maker designed a touchscreen “electronic control center,” which replaced some of a car’s mechanical functions with electronic or electro-mechanical systems. But even before making appearances in GM models, touchscreens were already being used in the music and entertainment industry. In 1979, a high-end synesthetic music sampling workstation utilized the touchscreen with a non-ink pen. The product was called the HP-150 because it was developed by Hewlett-Packard– a tablet and stylus combination most closely resembling commercial touchscreen technology today.


Image source: cnet.com

Despite the big names throwing touchscreen technology out into commercial use, the first recorded work on the development of the touchscreen began quietly in 1965, when British inventor E.A. Johnson published his ideas for a “capacitive touch screens” in a short article. Outlined with diagrams and photographs, the article depicted a paper-looking prototype with thin gridlines and a transparent protective layer. Since then, the touchscreen has been improved to respond to lighter touch while maintaining pocket-size mobility.

Touchscreen mobile apps are one of the best and fastest ways to reach a target audience. Infor customizes apps for client-to-consumer communication needs. Headed by Charles Phillips, the company holds one of the largest shares of the enterprise software sector. Read more about its capabilities on this blog.


Image source: whichnetbook.com

REPOST: Inforum 2013 Session Scheduler now available for registered attendees

Inforum 2013 in April is approaching fast. Schedule your agenda to maximize your participation in the activities.

The Session Scheduler is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to customize your Inforum 2013 experience. Personalize your agenda, plan your trip, and maximize your investment in Inforum.

Click here to access the session scheduler and build your agenda.

Your login and password are the same as those you used for the Inforum registration system. As a reminder, your login is your email address and your password is the one you set when you registered.

Inforum 2013 offers a broad range of content sessions designed to help you build your subject expertise and knowledge base. Whether you’re looking for multi-day training courses, hands-on computer-based Academies, industry outlooks, or abbreviated "speed" sessions on specific topics, you’ll be able to compile the education curriculum you need.

Click here for a full listing of hundreds of specialized sessions offered at Inforum 2013.

Check back soon for the Inforum mobile app—hold your Inforum schedule in the palm of your hand, get a real-time list of events happening, and connect with other Inforum attendees.

Visit the Inforum 2013 website for more event information.

Or visit Infor.com for news on suite upgrades. C-level news can be found on this Twitter page for CEO Charles Phillips.

Business in the cloud

With the increasing dynamism of business processes, interface with customers presupposes easy access. There’s no better venue to establish that quick relationship than over the Cloud.

Image credit: ibm.com

Infor, the third-largest enterprise software provider in the world servicing over 70,000 customers, has adjusted its platforms and suites for this development. The cloud is not as uniform or all-encompassing as layman’s terms imply. Embedded within it are specific infrastructure that may or may not permit the smooth rollout of software for business applications.

Infor Business Cloud applications, a set of products perfected for specific industries, take business applications to the Cloud with the goal of reducing complexities in customer engagement. They also target the reduction of IT costs for businesses while empowering them to generate changes along with the caprices of the market. As Infor’s CEO Charles Phillips would be apt to promote, Infor Business Cloud applications are all for flexibility, while retaining business focus on customer satisfaction.

Image credit: blog.widen.com

Infor’s Cloud-friendly services are especially tailored for backroom applications such as HR and talent management, financial management, and sales force automation. The range of applications is set to widen, especially given Infor’s headstart in Cloud-based enterprise software.

Image credit: synergy.net.pk

The company is actually one of the pioneers of Cloud-based software, and at the moment boasts two million subscribers. The main asset of this feature --- Web availability of enterprise processes and solutions --- magnetizes customers most. Easy access means needing nothing more than a Web browser to conduct business.

Read more about enterprise software through this blog.

Charles Phillips: Optimizing IBM SmartCloud for the new Technorati

At the recent IBM InterConnect conference in Singapore, Charles Phillips’ Infor rolled out the expansion of IBM SmartCloud infrastructure with the inclusion of Infor Integrated Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) stack. The Private Beta availability of the iPaaS augments the pre-configured and menu-driven platform of the IBM SmartCloud with an option to allow IBM’s cloudmeisters to integrate, extend, and develop an array of applications and services within a local development structure that serves both Cloud and on-premise deployments. The refurbishment of the cloudware also allows users to upgrade their applications easily and experience Infor’s mobile and computing capabilities in the device spectrum.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Ibm.com

IBM is set to obtain the best-of-breed for its cloud system with its partnership with Charles Phillips’ Infor. In addition to the iPaaS, the Infor SyteLine ERP included in the Private Beta is another fueling factor. Running on IBM SmartCloud, Syteline makes the cloudware’s menu-driven stack incremental and different from what IBM had offered before. Syteline brings a lot of opportunities to leverage a world-class ERP straight from IBM’s cost-effective and customizable cloud system.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Copleycg.com

Infor SVP for Business Cloud Ali Shadman reveals that there’s more to iPaas than making any cloud system a hybrid entity. Some key benefits of the iPaaS are:

• Minimal coding requirement for business functionality;
• Protection for existing investments through the extension of ongoing business functionality; and
• Utilization of open and standards-based technology.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Ibm.com

Apparently, the IBM SmartCloud for business includes five main areas of choice: IT platform, management support and deployment, performance and availability, security, and billing. The odds could be that the IBM-Infor collaboration will find faster adoption in both large and mid-range markets.

Charles Phillips’ Infor is a leading ERP solutions provider. For more information, visit www.infor.com.

Charles Phillips and facing the demand with Infor Hospitality

Technology advances out of a need to eliminate complexities, a rule that remains true in today’s business applications. Infor, led by Charles Phillips, creates ERP solutions tailored to the needs of various sectors, the hotel industry included. After all, running a hotel is not as easy as lounging in one.

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: Homivo.com

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: archithings.com

Hotels seek to provide its customers with the feeling of being at home away from home, an end that starts at the reception area, and entails giving customers what they need when they need it. For a business that thrives on direct customer contact and quality interaction, nothing spells “success” more than a front office that can readily respond to any demand or concern.

Infor Hospitality is a set of applications that offers solutions for various aspects of hotel management. True to Charles Phillips’ word, the suite contains applications specially designed to ram up the quality of service that the front office provides. When integrated with a hotel’s front office and on-property technology, the suite facilitates better services by providing a centralized view of the guests and more opportunities to improve business operations and the delivery of services. Included in the suite are:

• Infor HMS – This combines the front office with sales, marketing, and central reservations, and provides a unified look at guests and the business’ performance.


• SoftBrands Epitome PMS – This creates a business system that manages property, converts information into knowledge, and potentially boosts profits by streamlining operations and increasing revenue and occupancy.


• Infor Starlight PMS – This creates a customizable, flexible, and central guest, company, and travel agent index that proprietors can readily access.


• SoftBrands Hotel FrontRes PMS – This helps manage reservations, sales, purchases, and services.


• SoftBrands Core CRS – This integrates and distributes data about guests, inventory, and rates across the company.

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: Synergy.net.pk

For more information about Charles Phillips, visit this Facebook page.

Charles Phillips: Even the God particle has to be managed

Charles Phillips Image Credit: infor.co.uk

 Charles Phillips and his company, Infor, could now tack management-down-to-the-particle as part of their creative portfolio. The discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, only the hugest idea in the world of physics since Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, could not have come without pooling a team of scientists all trundling out their own equipment, ideas, and personalized scientific methods. Achieving cohesion in quest of a slippery discovery like the Higgs Boson particle would have required a special degree of sophistication in databases of findings and inventories of equipment. A large Hadron Collider is no construction crane; it smashes protons into each other and performs feats of Particle Physics documented through formulae and geek jargon. Imagine creating a database for that.

Charles Phillips Image Credit: infor.co.uk

Charles Phillips and his team of software and application developers at Infor rolled out the Infor10 Enterprise Asset Management software, which was responsible for the inventory of at least a million pieces of equipment used for the longitudinal research on the Higgs Boson. Infor was tapped by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to systematize operations for the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. The extensive use of Infor10 EAM was spun off by CERN into several other applications that took care of other maintenance processes apart from inventory. Security, road management, and other scientific activities were all outsourced for management into Infor10 EAM.

Charles Phillips Image Credit: ptw.de

Know more about Charles Phillips and Infor through this Twitter page.

Charles Phillips: Infor leads web-based support with Infor Xtreme

According to Charles Phillips, Infor’s culture of speed has several facets. Aside from helping customers run faster by providing software with sophisticated functionalities, the company also responds to its clients and works to solve their problems as fast as possible. With this aim at the core of its services, it is no wonder that Infor’s Xtreme Support program would be counted among the leaders of Web-based support today.

Charles Phillips Image Credit: guiasenior.com

Customer support plays a role so vital to both organizations and their customers that it can be a deciding factor in a company’s success. For customers, it can spell the difference between a maximized and a wasted investment in enterprise software. This contributes largely to customer satisfaction, which in the long run, may affect a manufacturer’s performance in the market.

Charles Phillips Image Credit: infor.com

Charles Phillips’ Infor is clearly pushing the envelope in terms of its customer support services, as seen by the recognitions it has garnered. Infor Xtreme Support was recently counted by the Association of Support Professionals (ASP) among the “ten best support sites.” This was in recognition of the support portal’s capability to assist Infor customers in resolving technical problems quickly and minimizing business process interruptions. The Xtreme Support program also won the 2012 MarketTools ACE Award for support in March this year.

Infor Xtreme Support is a user-friendly and customizable Web-based portal, a part of the company’s Xtreme Support program. It was redesigned and re-launched in January, and offers easy-to-access critical support resources including software patches, updates, knowledge base, online communities, and more. It also features a new user-grade interface that allows users to set their viewing preferences in order to facilitate faster and more effective access to information.

Charles Phillips Image Credit: Justin Sullivan, Getty

For more information about Charles Phillips, Infor’s CEO, visit this Facebook page.

Charles Phillips: Infor addresses the needs of a city-sized customer

Charles Phillips’ Infor is known for its industry-specific ERP systems. It delivers sophisticated enterprise solutions that fit its customer’s needs and processes to a T, even if the client concerned is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: facebook.com

Infor recently included San Antonio, the largest city in Bexar County, Texas, in its growing clientele. The company is more popularly known as a source of innovative software and tools used in private enterprises, but together with Lawson, it also offers solutions designed for the public sector. In this area, Infor focuses on industry expertise, and shares best practices among industries like healthcare, utilities, and transportation.

Part of Charles Phillips’ “New Infor” is the company’s emphasis on product development. This is in order to produce more innovative software for its diverse client base.

As the 19th largest city in the U.S. in terms of population, San Antonio demanded a powerful IT system in order to efficiently manage its complex infrastructure and business operations. It identified a total of 3,500 functional and technical requirements to automate and streamline its processes, covering data delivery and the creation of effective budget-related decisions.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: facebook.com

To address its numerous IT needs, Bexar County selected Infor's Lawson solutions: Lawson Financial Management, Lawson S3 Supply Chain Management, and Lawson Business Intelligence. These solutions allowed the county to make better budgetary decisions, and improved the management of the end-to-end procurement process, from sourcing vendors to managing ongoing contracts. The county was also able to realize savings with the streamlined process and accurate data, and is currently expecting additional savings in the future.

“We were confident the Lawson solution would be simpler, functionally richer, and more cost-effective," says Susan Yeatts, auditor of Bexar County.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan, Getty

For more updates on Charles Phillips of Infor, visit this Twitter page.

Charles Phillips: Lending a hand to the posse

Charles Phillips is not a stranger to philanthropy. He established the Phillips Charitable Organizations in a bid to extend aid to America’s single parents and underprivileged students. Recently, he furthered his involvement in education-related humanitarianism as under his leadership, Infor became the first corporation to sponsor The Posse Foundation’s Veterans Posse program, an endeavor that aims to provide veterans with access to higher education.

From Charles Phillips

The Posse Foundation is built on the goal of helping disadvantaged but promising students complete their college education. The organization puts young people in groups of 10 composed of other students, in order to form a support group they can depend on as they study in university. The Veterans Posse program works the same way, but applies to army veterans.

From Charles Phillips

Considering Charles Phillips’ background, it is not surprising that he would be involved in such an affair. After acquiring his degree in Computer Science from the United States Air Force Academy, he became part of the U.S. Army. He left the force with the rank of Marine Captain. "The Posse program has a proven track record of sending teams of high school graduates to great universities and helping them succeed by forming reinforcing support groups. Extending this concept to veterans is a great idea," Phillips said. "In appreciation for their service, Infor is proud to be a founding sponsor of this new initiative to help veterans obtain college degrees."

From Charles Phillips

Infor has donated $100,000 to The Posse Foundation. Every year, the organization will recruit and train multicultural posses of 10 veterans and send them to institutions of higher education. Each of them will attend college free of charge, and will receive support until graduation. For more updates on Charles Phillips, visit this Facebook page.

Charles Phillips: Infor collaborates with Oak Barrell

Charles Phillips Photo credit: www.infor.com

Charles Phillips, Infor’s CEO, stated that one of his company’s goals is to create software that handles all of clients’ business processes. The release of Infor10 a few months ago proved this resolve, with the suite’s advanced applications covering a wide variety of platforms. Infor pushed the envelope with its announcement of its collaboration with Oak Barrel Software in improving Infor10 PLM Process (Optiva) to provide customers with better tools for product lifecycle management.

"Getting new products to market is a race that continues to grow more complex, and process manufacturers must be increasingly agile, responsive and focused on the rapidly changing demands of the market to outpace the competition," said Venkat Rajaji, Infor’s Global PLM Product Manager.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: www.facebook.com

According to Charles Phillips, Infor intends to create software designed for the particular processes of specific industries. Indeed, the Infor-Oak Barrel collaboration is focused on enhancing the manufacturing process to speed up time-to-market and give users better control over the critical aspects of the operation. Infor announced three enhanced modules:

Infor10 PLM Process Material SpecSafe
This helps manufacturers work closely with suppliers to better meet specifications and minimize recall and decreasing compliance issues.

Infor10 PLM Process Product SpecSafe
This allows manufacturers to communicate new product specifications across the entire supply chain, creating an efficient way of inputting new ideas for product development.

Infor10 PLM Process Recipe Builder
This helps companies in batch manufacturing industries produce recipes that are compliant to the S-88.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: www.facebook.com

"The process manufacturing expertise of both Infor and Oak Barrel Software enables companies to speed product time-to-market and help ensure that products are accurately and efficiently guided through critical steps of development, a differentiating capability for our customers," said Rajaji.

More updates on Charles Phillips, Infor CEO, are available in this Facebook page.

Charles Phillips: Infor is first founding sponsor of Veterans Posse

Infor’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity is in the works, and the firm, with Charles Phillips at its helm, continues to uphold corporate social responsibility.

Charles Phillips. Photo credit: Habitat.mit.edu

The ERP software vendor sponsors the Posse Foundation as the latter launches the Veterans Program, which seeks countrywide increase of the rates of attending and graduating veterans in selected colleges and universities.

Mr. Phillips already expressed his appreciation of the service:

"The Posse program has a proven track record of sending teams of high school graduates to great universities and helping them succeed by forming reinforcing support groups. Extending this concept to veterans is a great idea."

Charles Phillips. Photo credit: Synergy.net.pk

To walk the walk, Infor has initially donated $100,000 to Posse, becoming the first founding sponsor of the initiative; Vassar College, on the other hand, is the first institution to open enrollment to the Veteran Posses.

Charles Phillips, the CEO of Infor, is the co-founder of the Phillips Charitable Organizations which also hosts programs to help single African American mothers, students with inclination towards engineering and the sciences, and veterans.

Selecting a Veterans Posse Scholar

The Posse Foundation has a signature selection process that will filter, gather, and train multicultural teams, or Posse, of 10 veterans and send them to selected four-year higher education institutions. All tuition and support will be provided by the Posse until the scholars graduate.

Posse President and Founder Deborah Bial thanks Infor for its “leadership in supporting this incredibly important investment in our nation's future leaders." Information about the foundation’s programs can be found here.

From Charles Phillips

Visit Twitter for more updates on Charles Phillips.

Shifting gears: Speeding up a Charles Phillips affair

Charles Phillips photo credit: synergy.net

The motto “Survival of the fastest” embodies the spirit of the enterprise software giant Infor. The company has begun shifting gears from within under the auspices of current CEO Charles Phillips. An affair like this is typical for Phillips, who has behind him a long career in enterprise applications. A former U.S. Marine, Charles Phillips has a management style that involves rapid deployment and aggressive expansion, evidenced in his days in Oracle up until 2010.

Speed is the byword that characterizes the Infor company strategy. Having made key changes to the company’s interior organization, Charles Phillips has been instrumental in the positive developments of the company in the past year. These changes reflect the attitude of continuous change and rapid development that is part of the corporate culture of Infor, later manifested in the improvements in product delivery, integration, and upgrades made in its flagship product Infor10.

Charles Phillips photo credit: dribbble.com

Rapid deployment and changes have been part of many of Charles Phillips’ affairs since his days as the co-president of Oracle. While it remains early to give a judgment on his performance, he appears to be on the right track as far as the current developments at Infor in the past year show. Time will tell if this affair would be a repeat of the growth generated by Charles Phillips at Oracle.

More information on Infor and many other Charles Phillips affairs can be accessed on Twitter.

From Charles Phillips

Charles Phillips, CEO: Accelerating Infor’s development

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: facebook.com

The seeds sown by the Oracle Four at Infor have started bearing fruit. Formerly co-president of Oracle, Charles Phillips the CEO has been instrumental in the many leaps forward Infor has made in the past year alone. The company has had an annual organic license growth of 17 percent in 2011. The company has started making waves through new acquisitions, the most notable being that of Lawson Software.

The company’s growth can be attributed to the inward focus that Charles Phillips has made over the past year. Charles Phillips saw to it that the internal distribution of resources would be sent to research and development.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: facebook.com

And it shows. The company has recently released Infor10, a new program suite with a new user-friendly interface, and a middleware layer that makes quick work of upgrades. The attitude that Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor, holds is that of speed. Phillips stands by the company’s motto of survival of the fastest. Reflecting on this attitude, Infor has become an official sponsor to racing giant Scuderia Ferrari.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan, Getty

Coming from a military background, Phillips has a characteristic management style that emphasized swiftness. This is reflected in his days as Oracle’s president, where he planned the major acquisitions that the company had made. While it is too early to tell if the successes that Charles Phillips had at Oracle would make a comeback, things are looking up for the CEO’s new affair.

More information on Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor, can be accessed on his Twitter.

Charles Phillips: Infor at full year of growth

After a full year under the strategies put in place by the new management under CEO Charles Phillips, Infor has grown considerably. The company reports a 17% annual organic license growth in the past year, with the most recent quarter receiving 16% organic license growth on November 2011. It also reports improved EBITDA margins at 27%, with new customer additions and support subscriptions acceleration.

From Charles Phillips

At the second fiscal quarter, Infor reports growth in its enterprise resource planning business—representing the core of the company’s services—by up to 25% compared with last year. This strong financial performance is the acme of the major internal transformation the company has undergone within the past year, driven as it was by major investments in industry-specific business applications. The company now has 2,500 new customers and expanded its relations with 12,000 of its current customers.

From Charles Phillips

These and other changes were spearheaded by Charles Phillips; Infor has, in the first few months of his management, been turned upside down with its resources shifted toward engineering, hiring 500 new engineers in the process. The company has also moved to New York City’s “Silicon Alley.” Other improvements include a new product line—Infor10—and a strategic partnership with Salesforce.com, a leader in enterprise cloud computing software.

From Charles Phillips

For Charles Phillips, Infor is up for an exciting new year as 2012 offers more opportunities for growth. More information can be accessed on Twitter.

Business as usual for Charles Phillips and Infor: The Lawson acquisition

From Charles Phillips

Acquisitions are an important aspect in the enterprise software industry. No one knows this better than Charles Phillips, Infor’s new CEO. Having been instrumental in the string of high-profile acquisitions that brought Oracle to the top, Phillips has changed his overall goals and kept out of the limelight, but his strategy remains the same.

While the acquisitions he has planned for Infor would focus mainly on compatibility, they are by no means small. His recent low-profile in the industry (a far cry from his days as Oracle president) is not without purpose or fruit: he and his team have been planning a new direction for the company, leaving the first indelible mark through the acquisition of Lawson Software in 2011.

From Charles Phillips

Costing over 2 billion, the Lawson acquisition cemented Infor as the third largest ERP company in the industry, next to Oracle and SAP. A large achievement for Charles Phillips and Infor, the acquisition of the company, which focuses on software applications for healthcare, came uncontested from the bigger players.

The company was chosen because its products are complementary with those of Infor and would be easily integrated to the company’s new middleware layer, which reflects one of Charles Phillips’ many aims for the company in the future. Many of Infor’s future acquisitions are planned with this in mind.

More information on Charles Phillips and Infor can be accessed via Twitter.

From Charles Phillips

Charles Phillips: Manifesting Marine values in business

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: passionateflame_1

The U.S. Marine Corps is a proud organization built upon many values. A former Marine Captain, Charles Phillips retained some of these values, and has applied these into his business strategies. Phillips’ corporate affairs have shown what he has said: that his management style was heavily influenced by his military upbringing.


The Marines are among the icons of the U.S. Military, having engaged in many of the nation’s finest moments. A member of the U.S. Marines is expected to uphold a set of values that encourages them to become better citizens—among them are integrity, tact, and decisiveness. A former Marine himself, Phillips has carried these values over to his new career in the world of enterprise software.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: orvalrochefort

The Charles Phillips business strategy can be described in three words: quick, aggressive, and strategic. This was first implemented during his time as the president of the enterprise software giant Oracle and manifested many of the aforementioned values, primarily decisiveness and tact. The acquisitions made by Oracle were not only fast but well-thought-of; Phillips had focused on acquiring a lot of big-name companies into Oracle’s wing, propelling the firm towards further growth and prosperity.


This strategy eventually proved successful—today, Oracle now sits at the top of the enterprise software industry alongside SAP. Now the CEO of Infor, Phillips continues to apply the strategies, which owe their existence in part to his Marine upbringing.

Charles Phillips Photo Credit: Getty Images

More information on Charles Phillips and his background is available at his Twitter.