Lawson Announces Full-Function ERP on Amazon Web Services Infrastructure

Flexible computing capacity - Complete off-premise management - Includes subscription pricing for cloud services offerings - New way to test software before buying

ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN - News) today announced that starting in May 2010 it will offer its core Lawson Enterprise Management Systems and Lawson Talent Management suite powered by the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) infrastructure. The products will be included in the Lawson External Cloud Services offering, which is part of the company’s new Lawson Cloud Services portfolio.

Lawson External Cloud Services is ideal for midsize companies and organizations looking for a more affordable, flexible and agile deployment option for full-function enterprise software. By using Amazon EC2, Lawson can provide the benefits of full-function enterprise software faster than ever before. In addition, the security, reliability and massive computing capacity of Amazon EC2 can provide Lawson’s customers with a world-class, yet highly affordable infrastructure.

Lawson External Cloud Services also features Lawson Test Drive, which begins to change the way Lawson demonstrates its products and how customers purchase ERP software. Lawson Test Drive allows Lawson customers to test real products for up to 14 days using their own business processes and data before committing to the actual software purchase. Lawson Test Drive increases enterprise customers’ confidence that a demonstrated product will match the eventual installed product. Lawson Test Drive is being launched with two of Lawson’s newest, most innovative products: Lawson S3-directed Lawson Smart Office and Lawson Enterprise Search.

“Lawson External Cloud Services can help make the customer’s total ERP experience simpler, faster and better,” said Jeff Comport, Lawson senior vice president of product management. “We are making it easier for our customers to license, use, keep current, and even pay for Lawson full-function enterprise software. This should be great news for CFOs and CIOs who worry about lengthy and complex on-premise installations, the cost and inefficiency of their data centers, the best way to allocate IT staff, and the complexity and difficulty of maintaining software versions and upgrades.”

“Amazon Web Services is excited to be working with Lawson Software to provide a new class of applications to our joint customers,” said Terry Wise, director of partner relations for Amazon Web Services (AWS). “By leveraging AWS’ highly scalable computing infrastructure, organizations can requisition compute power, storage, and other application services in the cloud, paying for only what they use. Customers now have more choice and ways to leverage enterprise class software from Lawson on the AWS cloud.”

Lawson External Cloud Services can automate the provisioning or set up of additional software instances, meaning that organizations can configure their environment capacity to meet peak transactional demands or to increase system size to accommodate users brought on, for example, by an acquisition or merger. Customers can also request temporary instances to test a new system before going live or even prototype new business processes to determine potential business impact.

A subscription pricing option is also available for customers who choose to run new Lawson products available through Lawson External Cloud Services offerings on AWS. Lawson Flexible Subscription also allows the customer to convert the subscription license to a perpetual license at the end of the subscription contract. Customers can choose the deployment model and licensing option that best meets their needs and budgets, and Lawson will host, manage and maintain the software for customers using AWS.

Lawson External Cloud Services features three Lawson flagship product lines – Lawson S3 Enterprise Management System, Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System and Lawson Talent Management. Lawson Talent Management is focused on human resource organizations, providing them with valuable insight into workforce data. It helps organizations and employees derive greater value through performance management and performance reviews by delivering actionable information about employees linked directly to business strategies.

“This offering includes financial, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, procurement and other core processes. These are not the lightweight versions you find from niche vendors or the one-size-fits-all offerings from other providers. It’s the same software our customers can deploy in their own data centers but now can be placed off-premise and run and accessed from anywhere in the world on AWS,” said Comport.

By using AWS, Lawson is able to offer its customers ownership and control of their software. Lawson customers share Amazon EC2 infrastructure to drive down costs but are not forced to share their software with other customers. Lawson External Cloud Services will allow customers to choose a level of customization that best meets their needs. This flexibility preserves what is unique to a customer’s business or organization. AWS offers Lawson computing capacity that scales to Lawson’s overall demand and, as a result, customers pay only for what they use.

“Our customers aren’t commodities. They want their software for their business and not some vanilla commodity software offering,” said Comport. “Commodity software may be good for the vendor but not necessarily the customer. Our customers want to choose the software, deployment option and maintenance schedule best for their business. Advances in cloud computing, virtualization technology and the automation of IT administrative tasks now make it possible for us to cost effectively deliver and manage single-instance ownership and make it affordable for our customers. This is an evolution of enterprise software deployments.”

Scott County, a Lawson customer located near Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minn., is among the first Lawson customers to move to Amazon EC2. Scott County, hosted by Lawson Managed Services since 2007, has directed Lawson to place its S3 applications on AWS for disaster recovery purposes. “Our testing has shown it to be safe, reliable and secure and Lawson made the move to AWS simple and easy,” said Kevin Ellsworth, chief financial officer at Scott County. “We consider ourselves pioneers in virtualization and once we understood the benefits of having Lawson host our disaster recovery on AWS, we asked ourselves: ‘why wouldn’t we do this?’ This helps us maximize our returns on our technology investments.”

About Lawson Software

Lawson Software provides software and service solutions to 4,500 customers in healthcare, equipment service management and rental, fashion, food & beverage, manufacturing & distribution, public sector (United States), service industries, and strategic human capital management across 40 countries. Lawson Software is a global provider of enterprise software, services and support to customers primarily in three sectors: services, trade and manufacturing/distribution. Lawson’s solutions include Enterprise Performance Management, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, Enterprise Asset Management and industry-tailored applications. Lawson solutions assist customers in simplifying their businesses or organizations by helping them streamline processes, reduce costs and enhance business or operational performance. Lawson is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and has offices around the world. Visit Lawson online at www.lawson.com. For Lawson’s listing on the First North exchange in Sweden, Remium AB is acting as the Certified Adviser.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in uncertainties in the software industry; uncertainties as to when and whether the conditions for the recognition of deferred revenue will be satisfied; increased competition; general economic conditions; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; continuation of the global credit crisis; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks; pandemics, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company's targeted industries and other risk factors listed in the company's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawson assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release.

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