J.D. Edwards
Encyclopedia
J.D. Edwards World Solution Company or JD Edwards, abbreviated JDE, was an Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) software company
. Products included World for IBM
AS/400 minicomputer
s (the users using a computer terminal or terminal emulator
), OneWorld for CNC architecture
(a client–server fat client
), and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (a web-based
thin client
). The company was founded March 1977 in Denver, Colorado
by Jack Thompson, C.T.P. "Chuck" Hintze, Dan Gregory, and Ed McVaney. It was purchased by PeopleSoft, Inc.
in 2003.
PeopleSoft, in turn, was purchased by Oracle Corporation
in 2005, and Oracle continues to sell and support EnterpriseOne and World ERP software line.
at the University of Nebraska, and in 1964 was employed by Western Electric, then by Peat Marwick
, and moved to Denver, Colorado
in 1968, and later became a partner at Alexander Grant where he hired Jack Thompson and Dan Gregory. Around that time he was coming to the realization that, in his words, "The culture of a public accounting firm is the antithesis of developing software. The idea of spending time on something that you’re not getting paid for—software development—I just could not stomach that." McVaney felt that accounting clients did not understand what was required for software development, and decided to start his own firm.
"JD Edwards" was founded in 1977 by Thompson, Gregory, and McVaney; the company's name drawn from the initials "J" for Jack, "D" for Dan, and "Edwards" for "Ed". McVaney took a salary cut from $44,000 to $36,000 to ensure initial funding. Start-up clients included McCoy Sales, a wholesale distribution company in Denver, Colorado, and Cincinnati Milacron, a maker of machine tools. The business received a $75,000 contract to develop wholesale distribution system software and a $50,000 contract with the Colorado Highway Department to develop governmental and construction cost accounting systems. The first international client was Shell Oil Company
in Cameroon
, Africa
. Gregory flew to Shell Oil to install the company's first international, multi-national, multi-currency client software system.
, whose typical clients were much smaller than the American Fortune 500
firms. McVaney and his company developed what would be called Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) software in response to that business requirement.
and /36
, focusing from the mid-1980s on System/38
minicomputers, then switching to the AS/400 when it became available. The company initially focused on developing the accounting software needed by their clients. World was server-centric; the users would operate an IBM computer terminal or "green-screen". (Later, users would run terminal emulator
software on their personal computers).
As an ERP system, JD Edwards World comprises three basic areas of expertise: functional/business analyst
, programmer
/software developer
, and CNC
/system administration. Over time, these three roles developed the product into a full featured enterprise resource planning
, or ERP system. By late 1996, JD Edwards delivered to its customers the result of a major corporate initiative: the software was now ported to platform-independent client–server systems.
and a distributed computing
model replacing the old server-centric model. The architecture JD Edwards had developed for this newer technology, called Configurable Network Computing
or CNC, transparently shielded business applications from the servers that ran those same applications, the databases in which the data was stored, and the underlying operating system and hardware.
By first quarter 1998, JD Edwards had 26 OneWorld customers and was moving its medium-sized customers to the new client–server flavor of ERP. By second quarter 1998, JDE had 48 customers, and by 2001, the company had more than 600 customers using OneWorld, a fourfold increase over 2000.
The company became publicly listed on September 24, 1997, with vice-president Doug Massingill being promoted to Chief Executive Officer
, at an initial price of $23 per share, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol JDEC. By 1998, JD Edwards revenue was in excess of $934.0 million and McVaney decided to retire.
. After a delaying the upgrade for one year and refusing all requests by marketing for what he felt was a premature release, in the fall of 2000 JD Edwards released version B7333, now rebranded as OneWorld Xe.
Despite press skepticism, Xe proved to be the most stable release to date and went a long way towards restoring customer confidence. McVaney retired again in January 2002, although remaining a director, and Robert Dutkowsky from Teradyne
was appointed as the new president and CEO.
, in which the user accesses the JD Edwards software through their web browser, was introduced in 2001. This web-based client was robust enough for customer use and was given application version number 8.10 in 2005. Initial issues with release 8.11 in 2005 lead to a quick service pack to version 8.11 SP1, salvaging the reputation of that product. By 2006, version 8.12 was announced. Throughout the application releases, new releases of system/foundation code called Tools Releases were announced, moving from Tools Release versions 8.94 to 8.95. Tools Releases 8.96, along with the application's upgrade to version 8.12, saw the replacement of the older, often unstable proprietary object specifications (also called "specs") with a new XML-based system, proving to be much more reliable. Tools Release 8.97 shipped a new web service
layer allowing the JD Edwards software to communicate with third-party systems.
, a former competitor of JD Edwards, would acquire JD Edwards. The takeover was completed in July. OneWorld was added to PeopleSoft’s software line, along with PeopleSoft's flagship product Enterprise, and was renamed EnterpriseOne.
Within days of the PeopleSoft announcement, Oracle Corporation
mounted a hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft. Although the first attempts to purchase the company were rebuffed by the PeopleSoft board of directors, by December 2004 the board decided to accept Oracle's offer. The final purchase went through in January 2005; Oracle now owned both PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. Most JD Edwards customers, employees, and industry analysts predicted Oracle would kill the JD Edwards products. While Oracle retired the PeopleSoft brand, it saw a position for JDE in the medium-sized company space that was not filled with either its e-Business Suite or its newly acquired PeopleSoft Enterprise product.
Shortly after Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft and JD Edwards in 2005, Oracle announced the development of a new product called Oracle Fusion Applications
. Fusion was designed to co-exist or replace JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World, as well as Oracle eBusiness Applications Suite and other products acquired by Oracle, and was finally released in September 2010.
education with business management skills. JD Edwards' founder and M.I.T. graduate Hintze (died September 1996) had also donated more than $28 million to the advancement and development of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...
(ERP) software company
Company
A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...
. Products included World for IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
AS/400 minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s (the users using a computer terminal or terminal emulator
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
), OneWorld for CNC architecture
Configurable Network Computing
Configurable Network Computing or CNC is JD Edwards's client–server proprietary architecture and methodology that implements its highly-scalable enterprise-wide business solutions software that can run on a wide variety of hardware, operating systems and hardware platforms...
(a client–server fat client
Fat client
A fat client is a computer in client–server architecture or networks that typically provides rich functionality independent of the central server...
), and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (a web-based
Web application
A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
thin client
Thin client
A thin client is a computer or a computer program which depends heavily on some other computer to fulfill its traditional computational roles. This stands in contrast to the traditional fat client, a computer designed to take on these roles by itself...
). The company was founded March 1977 in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
by Jack Thompson, C.T.P. "Chuck" Hintze, Dan Gregory, and Ed McVaney. It was purchased by PeopleSoft, Inc.
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human Resource Management Systems , Financial Management Solutions , Supply Chain and customer relationship management software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large...
in 2003.
PeopleSoft, in turn, was purchased by Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
in 2005, and Oracle continues to sell and support EnterpriseOne and World ERP software line.
Formation
Ed McVaney originally trained as an engineerEngineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
at the University of Nebraska, and in 1964 was employed by Western Electric, then by Peat Marwick
KPMG
KPMG is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, Ernst & Young and PwC. Its global headquarters is located in Amstelveen, Netherlands....
, and moved to Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
in 1968, and later became a partner at Alexander Grant where he hired Jack Thompson and Dan Gregory. Around that time he was coming to the realization that, in his words, "The culture of a public accounting firm is the antithesis of developing software. The idea of spending time on something that you’re not getting paid for—software development—I just could not stomach that." McVaney felt that accounting clients did not understand what was required for software development, and decided to start his own firm.
"JD Edwards" was founded in 1977 by Thompson, Gregory, and McVaney; the company's name drawn from the initials "J" for Jack, "D" for Dan, and "Edwards" for "Ed". McVaney took a salary cut from $44,000 to $36,000 to ensure initial funding. Start-up clients included McCoy Sales, a wholesale distribution company in Denver, Colorado, and Cincinnati Milacron, a maker of machine tools. The business received a $75,000 contract to develop wholesale distribution system software and a $50,000 contract with the Colorado Highway Department to develop governmental and construction cost accounting systems. The first international client was Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. The head office in the U.S. is in Houston, Texas...
in Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Gregory flew to Shell Oil to install the company's first international, multi-national, multi-currency client software system.
Enterprise Resource Planning concept developed
As the majority of JD Edwards's customers were medium-sized companies, clients did not have large scale software implementations. There was a basic business need for all accounting to be tightly integrated. As McVaney would explain in 2002, integrated systems were created precisely because "you can’t go into a moderate-sized company and just put in a payroll. You have to put in a payroll and job cost, general ledger, inventory, fixed assets and the whole thing. SAP had the same advantage that JD Edwards had because we worked on smaller companies, we were forced to see the whole broad picture." This requirement was relevant to both JDE clients in the USA and Europe and their European competitor SAPSAP AG
SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...
, whose typical clients were much smaller than the American Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
firms. McVaney and his company developed what would be called Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...
(ERP) software in response to that business requirement.
World ERP System launched
The software was called JD Edwards WorldSoftware, popularly called World. Development began with the System/34System/34
The IBM System/34 was a minicomputer marketed by IBM beginning in 1978. It was a multi-user, multi-tasking successor to the single-user System/32. Most notably, it included two very different processors, one based on System/32 and the second based on older System/3. Like the System/32 and the...
and /36
System/36
The IBM System/36 was a minicomputer marketed by IBM from 1983 to 2000. It was a multi-user, multi-tasking successor to the System/34. Like the System/34 and the older System/32, the System/36 was primarily programmed in the RPG II language...
, focusing from the mid-1980s on System/38
System/38
The System/38 was a midrange computer server platform manufactured and sold by the IBM Corporation. The system offered a number of innovative features, and was the brainchild of IBM engineer Dr. Frank Soltis...
minicomputers, then switching to the AS/400 when it became available. The company initially focused on developing the accounting software needed by their clients. World was server-centric; the users would operate an IBM computer terminal or "green-screen". (Later, users would run terminal emulator
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
software on their personal computers).
As an ERP system, JD Edwards World comprises three basic areas of expertise: functional/business analyst
Business analyst
A Business Analyst analyzes the organization and design of businesses, government departments, and non-profit organizations; BAs also assess business models and their integration with technology.-Levels:...
, programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
/software developer
Software developer
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...
, and CNC
Configurable Network Computing
Configurable Network Computing or CNC is JD Edwards's client–server proprietary architecture and methodology that implements its highly-scalable enterprise-wide business solutions software that can run on a wide variety of hardware, operating systems and hardware platforms...
/system administration. Over time, these three roles developed the product into a full featured enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...
, or ERP system. By late 1996, JD Edwards delivered to its customers the result of a major corporate initiative: the software was now ported to platform-independent client–server systems.
OneWorld ERP System launched
It was branded JD Edwards OneWorld, an entirely new product with a graphical user interfaceGraphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
and a distributed computing
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
model replacing the old server-centric model. The architecture JD Edwards had developed for this newer technology, called Configurable Network Computing
Configurable Network Computing
Configurable Network Computing or CNC is JD Edwards's client–server proprietary architecture and methodology that implements its highly-scalable enterprise-wide business solutions software that can run on a wide variety of hardware, operating systems and hardware platforms...
or CNC, transparently shielded business applications from the servers that ran those same applications, the databases in which the data was stored, and the underlying operating system and hardware.
By first quarter 1998, JD Edwards had 26 OneWorld customers and was moving its medium-sized customers to the new client–server flavor of ERP. By second quarter 1998, JDE had 48 customers, and by 2001, the company had more than 600 customers using OneWorld, a fourfold increase over 2000.
The company became publicly listed on September 24, 1997, with vice-president Doug Massingill being promoted to Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
, at an initial price of $23 per share, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol JDEC. By 1998, JD Edwards revenue was in excess of $934.0 million and McVaney decided to retire.
Quality control issues with OneWorld begin to surface
Within a year of the release of OneWorld, customers and industry analysts were discussing serious reliability, unpredictability and other bug-related issues. In user group meetings, these issues were raised with JDE management. So serious were these major quality issues with OneWorld that customers began to raise the possibility of class-action lawsuits, leading to McVaney's return from retirement as CEO. At an internal meeting in 2000, McVaney said he had decided to "wait however long it took to have OneWorld 100% reliable" and had thus delayed the release of a new version of OneWorld because he "wasn't going to let it go out on the street until it was "ready for prime time." McVaney also encouraged customer feedback by supporting an independent JD Edwards user group called Quest InternationalQuest International Users Group
Quest International Users Group is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting users of JD Edwards and PeopleSoft applications. It is an Oracle User Group....
. After a delaying the upgrade for one year and refusing all requests by marketing for what he felt was a premature release, in the fall of 2000 JD Edwards released version B7333, now rebranded as OneWorld Xe.
Despite press skepticism, Xe proved to be the most stable release to date and went a long way towards restoring customer confidence. McVaney retired again in January 2002, although remaining a director, and Robert Dutkowsky from Teradyne
Teradyne
Teradyne , a US company, is a supplier of automatic test equipment . The company's divisions Semiconductor Test and Systems Test Group, are organized by the products they develop and deliver.-History:...
was appointed as the new president and CEO.
Web-based client, continued product evolution, and EnterpriseOne
After the release of Xe, the product began to go through more broad change and several new versions. A new web-based clientWeb application
A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
, in which the user accesses the JD Edwards software through their web browser, was introduced in 2001. This web-based client was robust enough for customer use and was given application version number 8.10 in 2005. Initial issues with release 8.11 in 2005 lead to a quick service pack to version 8.11 SP1, salvaging the reputation of that product. By 2006, version 8.12 was announced. Throughout the application releases, new releases of system/foundation code called Tools Releases were announced, moving from Tools Release versions 8.94 to 8.95. Tools Releases 8.96, along with the application's upgrade to version 8.12, saw the replacement of the older, often unstable proprietary object specifications (also called "specs") with a new XML-based system, proving to be much more reliable. Tools Release 8.97 shipped a new web service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
layer allowing the JD Edwards software to communicate with third-party systems.
Changes of ownership
In June 2003, the JD Edwards board agreed to an offer in which PeopleSoftPeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human Resource Management Systems , Financial Management Solutions , Supply Chain and customer relationship management software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large...
, a former competitor of JD Edwards, would acquire JD Edwards. The takeover was completed in July. OneWorld was added to PeopleSoft’s software line, along with PeopleSoft's flagship product Enterprise, and was renamed EnterpriseOne.
Within days of the PeopleSoft announcement, Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
mounted a hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft. Although the first attempts to purchase the company were rebuffed by the PeopleSoft board of directors, by December 2004 the board decided to accept Oracle's offer. The final purchase went through in January 2005; Oracle now owned both PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. Most JD Edwards customers, employees, and industry analysts predicted Oracle would kill the JD Edwards products. While Oracle retired the PeopleSoft brand, it saw a position for JDE in the medium-sized company space that was not filled with either its e-Business Suite or its newly acquired PeopleSoft Enterprise product.
Current software
Oracle's JD Edwards products are currently known as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World. Oracle announced that JD Edwards support would continue indefinitely. Support for the older releases such as the Xe product were to expire by 2013, spurring the acceptance of upgrades to newer application releases. The latest offering of EnterpriseOne is application version 9.0 Update 2 on Tools Release 8.98 Update 4, and World with A9.2.Shortly after Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft and JD Edwards in 2005, Oracle announced the development of a new product called Oracle Fusion Applications
Oracle Fusion Applications
Oracle Fusion Applications are a portfolio of software products including Financials, Human capital management, Customer relationship management, Supply chain management, Procurement, Governance, and Project portfolio management. The software suite was developed by Oracle Corporation...
. Fusion was designed to co-exist or replace JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World, as well as Oracle eBusiness Applications Suite and other products acquired by Oracle, and was finally released in September 2010.
JD Edwards' founders other activities
In May 1998, Ed McVaney donated more than $32 million to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to establish the JD Edwards Honors Program. This program is charged with educating the next generation of business professionals by combining computer scienceComputer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
education with business management skills. JD Edwards' founder and M.I.T. graduate Hintze (died September 1996) had also donated more than $28 million to the advancement and development of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
See also
- Oracle CorporationOracle CorporationOracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
- The parent corporation that acquired JD Edwards and PeopleSoft in 2004 - Configurable Network ComputingConfigurable Network ComputingConfigurable Network Computing or CNC is JD Edwards's client–server proprietary architecture and methodology that implements its highly-scalable enterprise-wide business solutions software that can run on a wide variety of hardware, operating systems and hardware platforms...
- JD Edwards' CNC architecture allowing heterogeneous systems combining mixed hardware, operating systems and back-end databases to work together seamlessly. - C. Edward McVaneyC. Edward McVaneyC. Edward McVaney was the co-founder and former CEO of the JD Edwards Corporation, a pioneering Enterprise Resource Planning company purchased by PeopleSoft in 2002. PeopleSoft, in turn was purchased by Oracle Corporation in January 2005.-Early life:McVaney was born in Omaha, Nebraska, December...
External links
- JD Edwards on the Oracle Website
- http://www.cwhonors.org/archives/histories/McVaney.pdf Transcript of a Computerworld Honors Program oral history video interview with Ed McVaney by Daniel S. Morrow at his home, the McVaney Ranch, in Colorado, 2002
- http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=63023 Free LinkedIn group hosting many discussions around JD Edwards ERP
- http://www.jdedwardsblog.com - Blog for the JD Edwards community
- http://www.jdedwardsse.org - Southeastern JD Edwards User Group
- http://www.jdedwardsma.org - Mid-Atlantic JD Edwards User Group
- http://jdedwards.ukoug.org/ - UK JD Edwards User Group
- http://www.j4jde.com/ - Italian JD Edwards User Group
Further reading
- Allen Jacot, Joseph Miller, Michael Jacot and John Stern. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: The Complete Reference (2009) McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071598731.