Lawson Software adds ERP app customisation and BI software store

Lawson Software has announced major upgrades to its enterprise resource planning and business intelligence software, including easier customisation and development of applications and an online marketplace for add-on software.

A new analytic application builder, dubbed ViewPoint, lets customers build their own dashboards, pulling in multiple information databases and displaying the results in a format they prefer.

Support for the easy addition of collaborative working tools, like discussion boards, is also included.

"ViewPoint blends the user productivity aspects of Lawson Smart Office with the analytic capabilities of Lawson Business Intelligence, while helping to simplify and enhance the overall user experience," said Lee Kilmer, director of product management for Lawson.

"Users can easily collaborate with others in the organisation, which helps bring more meaning and context to data and reports. All of this can help lead to more effective use of data, better decisions and cost savings."

Customisation has been extended further with Mashup Designer, a tool to allow users to build their own miniature applications. This is currently available to users of Lawson's M3 enterprise management system, but will be rolled out to other platforms later in the year.

Finally the company has started Lawson Marketplace, an application store with over 180 applications for use with its software. All the software currently available in the store is developed by Lawson, but the company is looking for partners to develop applications for sale in the future.

"Think of this in terms of the consumer-oriented online application stores that we've all become accustomed to using," said Matthew Allbee, product director for Lawson.

"The items available for purchase help address some of the very specific day-to-day activities of a software user and present better ways of doing things. Many are low-cost or even free and can be downloaded and used right away."