The following final touches of the new management are apparently what made the long awaited quantum leap possible:

A new product development philosophy for J.D. Edwards 5, allowing the product to be enhanced incrementally without necessarily requiring customers to update all modules and products at once, and including a stringent software Quality Assessment (QA) process that brings requirements analysis and QA planning much sooner in the development cycle. J.D. Edwards 5 covers the entire suite of products that the company has developed or acquired so far, and going forward, each product grouping will be independently enhanced to meet the demands of customers, while also breaking the applications down into smaller modules should allow customers to purchase what they need when they need them, which is in tune with the current buying market. Despite a depressed economy, enterprises still need to upgrade and enhance those applications required to support collaborative processes for internal users and external trading partners, yet they must be able to prove a speedy return on the investment (ROI). This has proven to be crucial in selling additional functionality into the installed base, but it also gives J.D. Edwards' sales reps "multiple entry points" into new accounts.

* Combined with the above comes the unified brand name and totally refurbished marketing, including a common look and feel to previously disparate literature for an unwieldy myriad of different product names, and more effective communications to the market and press/analysts, all that have greatly lacked in the past.

* Focus on its traditional vertical markets while foraying into new markets that build on the company's known strengths in financials/manufacturing/distribution, such as Real Estate and Construction/Development, and staying away from markets that are the strongholds of some fierce competitors (e.g., SAP, PeopleSoft, or Lawson) and would only dilute efforts, like Federal Government, Healthcare, and Retail.