The blogsphere is awash with visions of the death of the press release.
Many of SAP’s press releases are not exactly gorgeous, hold- on- your- seat reading, but this one from Infor?
Jim Schaper, Infor CEO, Issues Statement on SAP Strategy for Mid-Market
ATLANTA, January 24 /CNW/ – Today SAP issued a press release announcingits strategy to pursue the mid-market. Jim Schaper, CEO of Infor, a leading global provider of enterprise software solutions, issued the following statement in response.
“One has to wonder if SAP truly understands the mid-market or whether this strategy is solely an effort to detract attention from the slowing growth of their Fortune 500 base. Medium-sized customers do not want all-in-one products that need massive customization efforts to address their line of business. That approach is a relic of the past, when ERP implementations were akin to corporate open heart surgery. Infor has built a strong growing company on delivering solutions with industry experience already built in. The bottomline is that customers want more functionality, less complexity and the lowesttotal cost of ownership. That is not the plan we see from SAP.”
Infor Facts:
— Created in 2002; $2.1 billion USD revenue; 8,100 employees
— Infor has more enterprise software customers than SAP — 70,000
— Infor’s business model fills a void in the market by providing
customers, through acquisition and innovation, with proven, business-specific solutions.
— Business specific functionality and best practices are alreadybuilt-in to Infor’s solutions which speeds implementation and lowers totalcost of ownership.
— Industry experts recognize Infor for its lowest total cost of
ownership and business-specific experience
For further information: Wunderkind Public Relations Media Contact:
Justin Siefert, 404-601-3660 ext. 113 jsiefert@wunderkindpr.com
Buyers out there. Does this make you want to buy their stuff?
Vendorprisey 
It makes me at least want to make the call. BTW – don’t get me going on SAP PRs – we’ll be here forever -:)
PR isn’t for buyers – it’s for the media. A better question to ask is “Is this relevant and newsworthy?” Relevant? Yes. Newsworthy? No.
Another question: “Is this useful to a writer or publication?” No. No publication is going to print all the self-promotion in the stats given there. And, given the slant, I doubt that quote would be used either – except in blogs talking about it :-).
Finally – a quick comment about the “death” stuff on PR. All the changes proposed in the “social media PR” are simply suggestions to leverage new technology and platforms available to communicate. That, I would argue, is good. Making it easy for the media to talk about you is the key. If using so called “social media” makes it easy, then any intelligent organization would try to use it.
I hate the hype around the term “social media pr,” but the goal is on target.
Scoble misses that in his rant. And even recommends a “social media” as a better idea. Huh?
John
nice to see you back..
Thomas