I would be willing to wager a fair amount of shekels that during the course of your time on Earth, you’ve come across individuals who pride themselves on knowing quite a bit about a myriad of topics, almost to the point of frustration caused by your own self-inequities. Scientists refer to these people as those with perspicacious inclinations, but I prefer to use the street term, “know-it-all.” My dream, on most nights, is to have an arena filled with these know-it-alls and I get on the mic and just scream, “maybe you don’t know everything!” But I digress, we’re here to speak on an innovative tech company that even know-it-alls probably haven’t heard of, but we could all benefit from paying attention to, given that they have over 17,000 employees and close to 10,000 customers in more than 100 countries worldwide.
For those of us with a cybernetic finger on the pulse of the tech sector, you may already know which company I’m talking about, but for all others, I’m referring to Infor, a New York-based enterprise software company, known for its preeminence in the business cloud software game. There is something mind-blowing about new technology that leaves generations, old and new, in sheer awe, and nothing is more earth-shattering than cloud computing. To put it into perspective, personal computers haven’t been around for very long, and yet, the tech industry has exploded with new technology at an impressive pace for the last two decades. Consider your home computer. Most likely, it has a hard drive with storage capacity measured in “gigabyte” or “terabyte.” When you upload a photo or any file, its broken down into tiny pieces of digital code called “bytes.” With cloud computing, consumers can store personal data on servers that allow access from any computer in the world. Gone are the days where information can only be stored and accessed from one terminal.
It is amid this amazing feat of modern technology that Infor has found much of its success. The Company today announced that it had entered into an agreement to receive a $1.5 billion investment from shareholders Koch Equity Development, LLC (KED) and Golden Gate Capital. In the official press release regarding the announcement of the investment, Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor, said, “Koch and Golden Capital have been phenomenal partners for Infor, and all of our 17,300 employees are excited about this milestone as we prepare for the next stage of growth.” Now, some of you may be thinking, what is Infor doing that warranted them such a substantial investment? Given that cloud computing is a hotbed of exciting startups testing out new approaches to improve software and the cloud, as a whole, it would seem that Infor is just another cloud software company.
“What makes its approach to enterprise software unique is that rather than building software and attempting to customize it for the unique [customer] needs, Infor takes an industry-based approach that incorporates both subtle and material capabilities to address specific industry needs that more generic ERP tools aren’t capable of out of the box.”
–Daniel Newman, Principal Analyst, Futurum Research
Newman’s sentiment regarding Infor represents an industry-wide perspective that the Company truly is at the top of their craft solely because they are thinking outside of the box. For companies seeking ERP and other enterprise asset management tools, Infor’s platform was designed to be utilized by any company, without the need for nuanced customization. Predicated on the company’s current attention in the space right now, several analysts believe that, should Infor go public with an IPO, their valuation could be in the neighborhood of $60 billion, representing the largest tech IPO ever for an NYC tech company, if it actually took place.
