This is yet another example of what difference a year can make, and of a vendor taking advantage of a given second chance. A year ago, J.D. Edwards was in a rather self-loathing mood amid sagging sales, massive layoffs and restructuring, and with rumors of a possible buyout abounding as well, all making existing customers quite concerned and potential ones extremely leery (see J.D. Edwards' QUEST To End Its String Of Pyrrhic Victories). Worse than that, there was a lingering general feeling that the company had long been unable to articulate a product strategy that was well-attuned with the market needs/trends. The appointment of the new Chairman and CEO Bob Dutkowsky, from the hindsight, after less than a year at the helm (J.D. Edwards' CEO Retires Again; This Time For Good?), appears to be just what the doctor had ordered, resembling to a degree a feat of the current PeopleSoft's CEO, Craig Conway. Bringing an outsider (even if he/she comes with a pedigree of the closest partner, IBM) at a helm of a company which had forever jealously guarded that position only for its dynasty ranks will have helped bring a new prospective on how to further satisfy the customers, and will have allayed sluggishness and a not invented here' mentality that typically comes along with ruling too familiar a territory for far too long.

Let's face it, J.D. Edwards is not stampeding like a raging bull amid the bad economy, but the new management team has at least attained many positive changes (including instilling a winning attitude) by leveraging a proven product and its congenial, albeit often ineffective and anemic organization in last few years, and by fathoming how to deliver pragmatic value to a born-again-loyal installed base and to the prospective fertile "midrange to mid-cap" target market, which consists of enterprises that are loath to any radical changes to their business practices, but are rather inclined to improving their businesses incrementally by adding additional functions around their core ERP investment.

First of all, Dutkowsky's natural initial focus on the company's improved financial performance, sales execution and continuation of products portfolio integration will have addressed the following two important issues: 1) the common perception of the troubled company, and 2) the difficulty of regaining confidence. To that end, important operational areas, like pipeline management, cash flow increase, collections/days of sales outstanding (DSO) reduction, margin improvements, etc., have all been improving, while increasing sales to the installed base, expanding the services business, and enhancing the company's market visibility has been happening as well.

While the new CEO has indisputably produced quick results and has boosted the company's posture (albeit he still has remaining work cut out for him), it would be unfair not to give credit to the former CEO for paving the way at least in part. McVaney not only co-founded J.D. Edwards, but he also navigated it through an Odyssey-like transition from solely the IBM AS/400 (now iSeries) platform to UNIX and Windows NT while keeping most customers committed and arguably content. This is in contrast to the experience of many contemporary AS/400-only ERP competitors, with some like SSA and JBA being fatally wounded in the process. McVaney, often disparaged by his counterparts and Wall Street pundits for his unsophisticated but effective managerial style, never managed to create a real software powerhouse though, other than a legacy of honest rather than glitzy competitiveness.