Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems

This document was revised on 26 March 2012. The document you are viewing is the corrected version. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.

Gartner defines a warehouse management system (WMS) as a software application that manages the operations of a warehouse or distribution center (DC). WMS application functionality includes capabilities such as receiving, put-away, stock locator, inventory management, cycle counting, task interleaving, wave planning, order allocation, order picking, replenishment, packing, shipping, labor management and automated material-handling equipment interfaces (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions). Radio frequency (RF) systems, used in conjunction with bar codes and possibly RFID, provide the foundation of a WMS, delivering accurate information in real time. We include integrated functionality, such as voice picking, parcel manifesting, value-added services, light manufacturing/kitting and third-party logistics (3PL) billing, as components of a WMS evaluation. This is because many buyers now demand that these components be included in a large number of WMS engagements.

Source: Gartner (February 2012)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

@logistics Reply

@logistics Reply is part of the Reply group, a European-based company that provides a wide array of IT services. Reply has revenue of about €400 million, and focuses on consulting, system integration, application management and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. Reply offers services to multiple industries, with over half of its revenue in product-centric industries, such as manufacturing, telecommunications and high tech.

@logistics Reply has been in business for 15 years, and focuses on services and software applications in the area of supply chain execution (SCE) — most notably, WMS. It offers two WMS solutions: Click Reply and SideUp Reply. Click Reply is a Web-based solution that can be deployed on premises or hosted, while SideUp Reply is a software as a service (SaaS) WMS. @logistics Reply claims to have 300 named customers.

Strengths

• @logistics Reply has significant market presence in Europe, although it has some customers in other geographies.
• The vendor has broad industry coverage in 3PL, automotive, grocery and food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, telco, and fashion. The vendor is particularly strong in service parts logistics, with several notable customers.
• It offers both on-premises and SaaS WMS versions.
• Although @logistics Reply is a modest-size WMS provider, it is part of a much larger organization, with strong consulting and system integration capabilities.
• The company has some notable customers with complex warehouse environments.
• It offers capable core WMS capabilities.

Cautions

• @logistics Reply is primarily focused in Europe, but it is expanding into other geographies.
• WMS and packaged business applications are not the core business of parent organization Reply.
• The vendor is not as broad or proven in extended WMS capabilities, although its road map does include adding some of these capabilities, such as labor management.

Accellos

Accellos is a small but growing vendor of SCE products, including the Accellos One Warehouse solution. The company has largely grown through acquisition. In October 2006, it acquired Radio Beacon, which focused on providing WMS to the small and midsize business (SMB) market and selling through a global network of partners. The vendor has approximately $35 million in annual revenue and 160 employees, with customers all over the globe. It's headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with offices in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Gartner estimates that Accellos has over 1,500 WMS customers worldwide and integrations to several ERP applications, such as the complete Microsoft Dynamics suite; SAP Business One; and Sage ERP Accpac, Sage Pro ERP and Sage ERP MAS 500/200/90. It did not provide Gartner with customer references.

Strengths

• Accellos focuses on the needs of SMB WMS users, with an emphasis on providing ease of use, minimized time to value and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Accellos One Warehouse was designed specifically with SMBs in mind — it's not a solution designed for the high end of the market, with just some functionality disabled. Additionally, Accellos offers a product focused on large 3PL providers, with significant concentration in cold-storage public warehouses.
• The company has a well-established global network of selling partners that can deliver WMSs in markets where other vendors have minimal or no presence.
• It has partnerships with and integrations to popular SMB ERP solutions, such as Microsoft, Sage and SAP Business One.
• The vendor offers three editions of its One Warehouse solution, depending on client needs: the Collect Edition, aimed at entry-level users looking to replace paper processes with some wireless data capture; the Manage Edition, aimed at users that might want to start simple, but grow process sophistication in the future; and the Fulfill Edition, aimed at more sophisticated users.
• Accellos is a strong supplier in the SMB 3PL space, providing WMS and other application areas, such as transportation management.
• The company offers several SCE capabilities in addition to WMS — for example, automated data collection, dock-door scheduling, parcel shipping and transportation planning.

Cautions

• The vendor is small and could be an acquisition target. Although it sells globally, the bulk (90%) of its customers and resources are in North America.
• Companies considering Accellos outside North America should evaluate resource availability as much as functionality. However, the company has strategic partners in the U.K. and Australia that are capable of selling, implementing and supporting over 50 customers in those regions.
• Accellos One Warehouse is aimed at what Gartner refers to as Level 2 or lower warehouses (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions). Users with more sophisticated needs should rigorously test the vendor's ability to scale up.
• The company focuses principally on core WMS, with limited extended WMS capabilities.

Consafe Logistics

Consafe Logistics is a small WMS and mobility solution provider, headquartered in Lund, Sweden. The company is part of the JCE Group, which employs over 10,000 people and operates globally, with operations in Brazil, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. It has about 400 employees, and its WMS offering, Astro WMS, represents about 50% of its business. Although it has customers in 30 countries, the vendor focuses primarily in Northern Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Benelux and Poland), with growing potential in Eastern Europe. The vendor has broad industry coverage in retail/consumer goods, industrial, wholesale, food and beverage, and 3PL.

Strengths

• Consafe Logistics has a local market presence in Northern European markets, with implementation offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland and the U.K. The vendor is expanding through acquisitions in Eastern Europe.
• It has pioneered an innovative 3D visualization capability that exploits gaming technology for 3D visual analysis of activities occurring inside a warehouse. Although tabular representation of certain information, such as inventory location or work activities, is common in WMSs, the vendor's approach personifies the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words." Being able to represent certain information visually can help users quickly spot patterns that would be hard to glean from a spreadsheet of numbers.
• The vendor offers a unique adaptive task interleaving capability that self-adjusts work plans based on changing conditions in the warehouse.
• For its size, Consafe Logistics has some impressive customers in terms of company name recognition, complexity and sophistication of warehouse operations.
• The company offers an attractive and intuitive logistics dashboard for managing exceptions and metrics/key performance indicators (KPIs).
• There are emerging capabilities for warehouse control system/automation interfaces and mobility.

Cautions

• Consafe Logistics has limited implementation capabilities outside Northern and Eastern Europe.
• This is a small, regionally focused vendor. Although its parent is large and global, there is minimal synergy between the two.
• Consafe Logistics is evolving to service-oriented architecture (SOA), but does not yet have a zero-customization, model-driven architecture. Tailoring is done through table and parameter setting, and code customization.
• The vendor has no vision for fundamental WMS differentiation, which would likely result in market leadership. However, it continues to innovate specific tools like 3D visualization.

Deposco

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Deposco is a provider of cloud-based, SaaS supply chain management (SCM) solutions, with WMS its flagship offering. Deposco is a small, innovative vendor with a small, although growing, number of WMS customers. It works with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and 3PL providers, and has some intriguing implementations in nontraditional warehouse environments, such as hospitality and financial services/banking.

Strengths

• There is low TCO, due to cloud deployment and tools that aid implementation.
• The vendor offers a strong, adaptable architecture it calls Deposco eXpandable Platform (DXP), which allows users to adapt the behavior of the system.
• Multienterprise capabilities, called Deposco's Extended Enterprise, leverage the SaaS platform to allow customers to share information with trading partners.
• Deposco's reasonable core WMS capabilities suit minimally complex warehouse environments (Level 2) best. They're also well-suited for nontraditional warehouse environments, such as hospitality and financial/banking services.

Cautions

• The company is a small, emerging vendor.
• It has a limited number of customers today.
• There are limited resources, particularly in consulting and support, given its current size.
• Deposco offers minimal extended WMS capabilities.
• Although the vendor's pricing model offers very strong cost of ownership, this could impact its longer-term financial viability if it can't rapidly grow new customers.

eBizNET Solutions

eBizNET Solutions, headquartered in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, is a provider of a portfolio of supply chain solutions, including WMS; transportation management; port and cargo management; and reverse logistics, warranty and aftermarket solutions. Although the vendor sells direct, it is also the most aggressive in pursuing a partnership model. It is developing an ecosystem of partners, such as with NetSuite, where eBizNET is one of the integrated partner solutions available on the NetSuite platform, catering exclusively to NetSuite's customers. Although paper partnerships are not new in SCM, eBizNET has a well-formed Partner Enablement Program, where it shares with partners things such as a common vision, resources, knowledge on the products through various training programs, discussion forums and joint ventures. The vendor offers two levels of implementation services, due to the price sensitivity of SMB customers. It can do implementations remotely, which is less costly for customers, or on-site. The latter is a higher-priced implementation that uses its U.S.-based team and partner ecosystem. Customers can choose the delivery option based on their budgets.

Strengths

• For its size, eBizNET is very innovative in both its products and go-to-market strategies.
• Of the WMS specialists, it has the most robust strategy and track record in establishing and supporting an ecosystem of partners, such as NetSuite, SPS Commerce and others.
• The vendor offers multiple pricing options, depending on the needs of the customer, or what it calls "Pay as you Grow." There is a low starting price and very good TCO.
• The company is capable at the low end of the market, with solutions such as NetSuite WMS, and scalable to Level 3 warehouse environments.
• eBizNET offers primarily core WMS, with some extended capabilities — notably, yard and order management.
• Although it primarily provides SaaS solutions today, it can offer the same solution on-premises.
• It is particularly strong in aftermarket service logistics, with strong WMS capabilities, combined with its other offerings, such as reverse logistics.

Cautions

• The vendor is small, with fewer than 100 people on staff and roughly 60 current customers.
• Due, in part, to its ecosystem strategies, eBizNET is growing rapidly, which could stress its limited resources. However, the vendor is expanding its partner ecosystem to deliver implementation services.
• Although it has an intriguing implementation model, where upward of 70% of the implementation can be done remotely, this was identified as somewhat problematic for some reference customers, with timing and language barriers becoming issues.
• Support and consulting trail the software applications in process maturity and customer satisfaction, although no customers said this jeopardized their projects.
• Although primarily a strength, the vendor's aggressive pricing model could tax it financially if it is not managed properly.

Generix Group

Headquartered in France, Generix Group is the result of the merger of three software vendors: Generix, a vendor of the Generix Collaborative Enterprise software package and consulting services for intracompany flow integration; Influe, a vendor of integrated and collaborative B2B solutions, which was acquired in March 2007; and Infolog, a vendor of WMS, SCE and transport expertise, acquired in January 2008. Generix Group provides a portfolio of solutions, such as transportation management and replenishment management, in addition to WMS, which is the only offering covered in this research. It has over 320 WMS customers, with over 300 in Europe and most in France. The company has 580 employees and €68 million in revenue. About one- quarter of this revenue is in WMSs, with the majority coming from Europe.

Strengths

• Generix Group has a strong European presence, especially in France, with 95% of its customers based in Europe.
• The vendor is well-positioned in consumer goods and retail businesses, offering a portfolio of products that includes WMSs, point of sale (POS), electronic data interchange (EDI) and ERP for retail.
• Infolog WMS is a mature product with a notable customer base of over 350 customers.
• The vendor's WMS can handle the core WMS needs of complex warehouse operations, but it's undifferentiated in breadth and depth from the market's leaders. However, the vendor continues to add extended WMS capabilities, such as warehouse resource management and RFID.
• The same application is offered on multiple operating environments, including Windows, Unix, IBMi (previously called IBM iSeries), Oracle, IBM DB2 and SQL Server.
• The vendor now offers an on-demand version of WMS.

Cautions

• Generix Group has limited operations in North America. Although the product is mature, the technical architecture is dated, with much of the core WMS functionality still built in COBOL. The vendor is wrapping it with Web technologies, however, and is moving toward Java EE.
• This is not a zero-modification or model-driven architecture, although the vendor continues to enhance the technical architecture, with recent improvements in parameterization and workflow customization.
• Although Generix Group's parent offers a portfolio of solutions, it has not articulated or demonstrated a compelling vision for SCE convergence.

HighJump Software

HighJump Software, headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, is a midsize (over 300 employees) vendor of WMS, data collection, manufacturing execution, EDI and direct store delivery solutions. The vendor is owned by Battery Ventures, a private equity firm. The vendor has a history in SCE, starting first with automated data collection solutions, and later building a fully functional WMS in the late 1990s. The company claims over 4,500 total customers worldwide, most of which are direct store delivery and EDI, with about 350 WMS customers. The vendor generates over 50% of its revenue from its WMS customer base. Close to 80% of the vendor's business is in North America, with the remainder near equally divided between Europe, Latin America and Asia. HighJump primarily uses third-party partners for sales and support outside North America.

Strengths

• HighJump has a flexible, agile, adaptable and, where needed, highly customizable WMS product. This comes courtesy of the fourth-generation language (4GL)-like business process composition toolkit that supports the modification of core HighJump-delivered WMS capabilities, as well as the creation of new WMS business processes.
• If a customer requires it, the vendor's WMS is the most customizable of all the WMSs evaluated in this Magic Quadrant, which was validated by every customer reference as a key reason why the vendor was chosen.
• There is a strong Microsoft orientation to the product from a technology and business process platform (BPP) perspective.
• The vendor is pioneering a unique approach to packaging customer- and vendor-developed innovation that it calls App Station. It is analogous to the Apple App Store. Customers only need to take the innovations they want or need, and they are not burdened with the traditional, bloated applications of large suites.
• HighJump was one of the first mainstream WMS vendors to offer its WMS as a cloud service.
• Customer references continue to note the adaptability of the WMS product, as well as the vendor's flexibility and willingness to establish a partnership-type relationship.

Cautions

• HighJump has not yet systematically integrated a process/workflow modeling tool with its business process composition tools, although it does offer disconnected process models in Visio as documentation. However, this is on its product road map.
• The vendor's WMS offering is limited to the Microsoft operating system and tool deployments, but it can use the Oracle Database running Unix or Linux architecture.
• Although Battery Ventures provides HighJump with access to capital to make additional acquisitions, this also means a change in ownership is likely in the next few years, either through an initial public offering (IPO) or the company being acquired.
• The vendor does not have a compelling SCE convergence vision or strategy.
• The vendor's WMS is primarily a North American solution, although it does have some customers in other geographies.
• HighJump uses an indirect sales model for international sales and support.

Infor (Infor10 SCE)

Infor has a wide product portfolio comprising some best-of-breed and domain-focused suite products. Customers report that they are happy with the support and maintenance they receive. The vendor has made several acquisitions that included WMS solutions either directly or as part of a broader product offering. As a result, it now has multiple WMS offerings, some of which it actively sells, and others it no longer sells or only sells opportunistically. In this year's "Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems," we only look at the primary WMS that Infor actively markets today: Infor10 Supply Chain Execution (formerly included as Infor WM or Infor WM 4000/WM 9). In last year's Magic Quadrant, we also evaluated Infor WM 2000, which is a legacy product, with several decades of roots in the grocery business. However, this is not currently the go-forward WMS solution for Infor. Infor10 SCE is the next-generation WMS product, built on a contemporary SOA, but, presently, it is not as deep in some functions, such as WM 2000 for grocery companies. Infor10 Supply Chain Execution is a rewrite of the WM 4000 product on a modern architecture, with a Web UI. It now includes more than just WMS, such as transportation, yard management and other supply chain execution components. Infor has been stronger than many of the specialist WMS providers in selling outside North America. In the previous review period, 64% of its total WMS deals were international, with 49% in Asia/Pacific and 15% in EMEA. In terms of net new customers, the percentages were even higher, with 93% of new international customers (71% in Asia/Pacific and 22% in EMEA).

Strengths

• This offering represents Infor's strategic direction for WMSs. The vendor has an aggressive road map for additional functionality, since this is its centerpiece WMS product, representing a landing pad for WM Foursite, Infor WM 4000 and Infor WM 9.x customers.
• Infor10 SCE is a strong option for the company's midmarket ERP customers looking for a reasonable (Level 2/Level 3) WMS provided by a single vendor with global support capabilities.
• Compared to other WMS specialists, Infor has a higher percentage of new deals outside North America, with a strong global presence of direct and indirect sales and support. It has an edge in many emerging-market deals, which can be helpful in global rollouts.
• The vendor has a platform strategy for Infor10 SCE, and is pushing forward on an SCE convergence approach by moving capabilities, such as transportation, yard management and other extended WMS capabilities, onto a common technical platform.
• Infor is well-positioned to benefit from growth in emerging markets. Early success with the product in these areas indicates that the vendor is taking advantage of this trend.

Cautions

• Infor primarily sells its SCM offerings, including WMS, to its ERP installed base in mature markets, and opportunistically sells WMS as a stand-alone offering to non-Infor customers in these markets. However, it is successfully selling Infor10 Supply Chain Execution stand-alone in emerging markets.
• Infor10 Supply Chain Execution lacks the overall breadth and depth of WMS market leaders. It is a nondifferentiated product in complex Level 4 warehouse environments.
• Infor continues to struggle with higher-than-normal management turnover, which impacts strategic, tactical and execution continuity.
• The company is still positioned to exploit its global reach and become a force within the SMB WMS landscape, particularly in emerging markets. However, the vendor has yet to articulate well-structured, consistent and demonstrable strategies for exploiting this opportunity.

LogFire

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, LogFire is a vendor of cloud-based, SaaS WMSs. The founders and management team have deep roots in WMSs, having come from long stints at one of the perennial leaders in WMS. Because of the management team's past experience, LogFire is strongest in retail and apparel warehouse environments, although it is not limited to these markets. At first, the vendor offered warehouse and SCM consulting, and this expertise continued and benefited clients after it brought to market a packaged SaaS WMS.

Strengths

• Customer references called out strong customer intimacy, due to the vendor's WMS expertise and services.
• LogFire's leadership has long tenure and experience in the WMS marketplace.
• The company provides a strong offering for retail and apparel, which require strong, value-added service capabilities. However, the solution is not limited to these markets.
• The vendor provides a robust and adaptable technical architecture.
• For its size, LogFire offers its clients a well-defined and comprehensive portfolio of services.
• It has experience, growth and live implementations in Latin America.

Cautions

• The vendor is one of the smallest WMS vendors included in this year's "Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems."
• There are only a few implementations in the U.S., with most in Latin America. However, LogFire did open a sales and support operation in India in November 2011, which will provide sales in the Asia/Pacific region and 24/7 support to all customers.
• Although the vendor's pricing model offers a very strong cost of ownership today, this could impact its longer-term financial viability if it can't rapidly grow new customers.
• As it continues to grow, resources could become constrained.

Manhattan Associates (SCALE)

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Manhattan Associates offers a broad suite of SCM solutions that include WMS, transportation, distributed order management, supply chain planning (SCP), supplier enablement and others. The vendor has very deep roots in WMS that go back almost 20 years. It offers three distinct WMS offerings, targeted at different markets: WM for IBMi, which caters to customers that prefer the reliability and ease of operation of the IBMi platform; SCALE (previously Manhattan's WM for Windows), which is based on a Microsoft technical platform, and caters to the SMB and WMS markets in emerging geographies; and Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMOS), which caters to sophisticated warehouse environments. WMOS is the vendor's flagship WMS offering and is built on the vendor's SCOPE technical platform, which includes Manhattan's other supply chain solutions, such as transportation, distributed order management, replenishment and planning. Although the company has global operations, the majority of its business continues to come from North America and Western Europe. SCALE, however, is gaining some traction in emerging markets. Manhattan is inclined to drive innovation in-house, unlike many other WMS vendors that innovate and grow through acquisition. The vendor has made some acquisitions, with the most recent being over six years ago, but they tend to be early-stage offerings that are more easily redeveloped and integrated into Manhattan's solution portfolio. So far, the company is the only one that has staked its future on providing a single, common technical platform — SCOPE — which seamlessly integrates multiple SCM components, such as WMS, transportation management system (TMS), SCP, supplier enablement and distributed order management. In the Magic Quadrant evaluation model, certain characteristics, such as innovation, market understanding and vision, relate primarily to a vendor. For vendors with multiple WMS offerings like Manhattan, we weight these heaviest for the vendor's strategic WMS. This does not mean these are any less meaningful for the vendor's other products.

Strengths

• SCALE is Manhattan's primary WMS offering for SMBs and emerging geographies, although it is not limited to either.
• SCALE is a less expensive, as well as an intentionally less functionally broad and deep offering, compared to WMOS. SCALE focuses on simple to moderately complex facilities and logistics service provider (LSP) environments. It is a mature, stable and proven solution — the hallmarks of a solution in the Challengers quadrant, where Ability to Execute is paramount — which benefits from the vendor's broader SCE visions and strategies. Manhattan targets SCALE for independent Level 1 through low Level 3 warehouse environments, where usability, ease of use, implementation, and support, combined with lower cost of ownership, are critical criteria (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions).
• Sales volume for this solution accelerated in 2011.
• The vendor has a robust implementation methodology and consistent implementation support.
• This WMS offering leverages Microsoft's technology stack for ease of deployment and ease of use.
• This product offers certified integration to Microsoft Dynamics AX.

Cautions

• The vendor uses both direct and indirect sales channels, using partners for sales and implementation in smaller geographies. For some international markets, its strategy is to use indirect sales and implementation channels. Prospective users in these markets must validate partner capabilities and product considerations during evaluation.
• This solution is purpose-built for midsize or smaller warehouse operations. Although the functionality is solid and can handle up to moderately complex warehouse operations, the product is designed or intended for highly complex facilities.
• SCALE is built on the Microsoft .NET platform and focused on logistics execution. Companies interested in SCE convergence should look to the company's WMOS solution, which is part of the Manhattan SCOPE application portfolio.
• This product is well-suited for SMB-type logistics operations, while many of the vendor's other offerings are targeted at sophisticated and complex environments.

Manhattan Associates (WM for IBMi)

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Manhattan Associates offers a broad suite of SCM solutions that include WMS, transportation, distributed order management, SCP, supplier enablement and others. The vendor has very deep roots in WMS that go back almost 20 years. It offers three distinct WMS offerings targeted at different markets: WM for IBMi, which caters to customers that prefer the reliability and ease of operation of the IBMi platform; SCALE (previously Manhattan's WM for Windows), which is based on a Microsoft technical platform, and caters to the SMB and WMS markets in emerging geographies; and Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMOS), which caters to sophisticated warehouse environments. WMOS is the vendor's flagship WMS offering and is built on the vendor's SCOPE technical platform, which includes Manhattan's other supply chain solutions, such as transportation, distributed order management, replenishment and planning. Although the company has global operations, the majority of its business continues to come from North America and Western Europe. SCALE, however, is gaining notable traction in emerging markets. Manhattan is inclined to drive innovation in-house, unlike many other WMS vendors that innovate and grow through acquisition. The vendor has made some acquisitions, with the most recent being over six years ago, but they tend to be early-stage offerings that are more easily redeveloped and integrated into its solution portfolio. So far, the company is the only one that has staked its future on providing a single, common technical platform — SCOPE — which seamlessly integrates multiple SCM components, such as WMS, transportation management system (TMS), SCP, supplier enablement and distributed order management. In the Magic Quadrant evaluation model, certain characteristics, such as innovation, market understanding and vision, relate primarily to a vendor. For vendors with multiple WMS offerings like Manhattan, we weight these heaviest for the vendor's strategic WMS. This does not mean these are any less meaningful for the vendor's other products.

Strengths

• Manhattan Associates' WM for IBMi is a very mature, stable and proven product, with 20 years on the market.
• WM for IBMi is a functionally robust and proven WMS application, with a notable stable of long-tenured and quite complex WMS customers.
• Although the product is mature, the vendor continues to invest dedicated R&D in this version. It has built integrations to its other SCE offerings, such as labor management, slotting, transportation management and SCP.
• Customer references note the stability and scalability of the solution.
• It's the most robust and well-supported RPG/IBMi WMS available. It's primarily sold to retail and consumer goods, with a particular strength in apparel.

Cautions

• Manhattan Associates' WM for IBMi offering is developed in RPG/IBMi, and RPG expertise is becoming increasingly difficult to secure.
• For intraproduct integration (for example, WMS to TMS), the vendor leverages a variety of data communication methods that were chosen based on things like size of data payload or functionality, which is enabled by Manhattan's integration layer.
• WM for IBMi is not the strategic emphasis of Manhattan's WMOS.
• The traditional green-screen user interface (UI) is becoming less acceptable to users who are used to Windows and Web-based UIs.

Manhattan Associates (WMOS)

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Manhattan Associates offers a broad suite of SCM solutions that include WMS, transportation, distributed order management, SCP, supplier enablement and others. The vendor has very deep roots in WMS that go back almost 20 years. It offers three distinct WMS offerings, targeted at different markets: WM for IBMi, which caters to customers that prefer the reliability and ease of operation of the IBMi platform; SCALE (previously Manhattan's WM for Windows), which is based on a Microsoft technical platform, and caters to the SMB and WMS markets in emerging geographies; and Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMOS), which caters to sophisticated warehouse environments. WMOS is the vendor's flagship WMS offering and is built on the vendor's SCOPE technical platform, which includes Manhattan's other supply chain solutions, such as transportation, distributed order management, replenishment and planning. Although the company has global operations, the majority of its business continues to come from North America and Western Europe. SCALE, however, is gaining some traction in emerging markets. Manhattan is inclined to drive innovation in-house, unlike many other WMS vendors that innovate and grow through acquisition. The vendor has made some acquisitions, with the most recent being over six years ago, but they tend to be early-stage offerings that are more easily redeveloped and integrated into Manhattan's solution portfolio. So far, the company is the only one that has staked its future on providing a single, common technical platform — SCOPE — which seamlessly integrates multiple SCM components, such as WMS, transportation management system (TMS), SCP, supplier enablement and distributed order management. In the Magic Quadrant evaluation model, certain characteristics, such as innovation, market understanding and vision, relate primarily to a vendor. For vendors with multiple WMS offerings like Manhattan, we weight these heaviest for the vendor's strategic WMS. This does not mean these are any less meaningful for the vendor's other products.

Strengths

• The SCOPE technical platform seamlessly integrates WMOS with all the other newer SCM solutions the vendor offers, such as transportation, SCP, returns management, flow and distributed order management.
• WMOS offers industry-leading depth and breadth of both core and extended WMS capabilities.
• Manhattan has demonstrated a continued ability to bring innovation to its core WMS solutions, which augments WMS and extends SCE processes, such as adding returns management, distributed order management, mobile warehouse management and landed cost management.
• WMOS on SCOPE is now better-suited to support a zero-modification implementation in complex operations. It's approaching what Gartner refers to as a "model-driven application." It also offers tools for functional customization, using process modeling, workflow and scripting tools, as well as Web services to integrate with external solutions.
• Manhattan's WMOS is broadly used in WMS environments, from moderately complex to extremely complex, sophisticated and high-volume warehouse operations.
• The vendor is stable, and has conservative financial operations with reasonable earnings and cash reserves.
• It has a distinctively high win ratio in complex WMS deals where it competes.
• Manhattan is focused on organic, self-directed innovation. The vendor continues to bring to market self-developed and complementary components like returns, flow, cost to serve, distributed order management and a new mobile WMS capability called Manhattan Mobile (formerly called FieldScout).
• The company has a compelling vision for a next-generation SCE platform, which exploits emerging technologies and decision-making enhancements through the use of embedded analytics, and business activity monitoring (BAM) through the use of science and math.
• Now that WMOS is on the SCOPE platform, the company can deliver on its SCE convergence vision, which remains the most extensive of all the SCM suite vendors.
• Manhattan has established strategic relationships with select customers that have committed to its SCOPE platform. This is something not typical of best-of-breed software vendors that lack the C-level-executive clout of large-scale suite vendors.
• Customer references complimented Manhattan on its service and support, as well as the robustness of the methodologies it employs to support implementations, or what it calls MORE (Manhattan's Optimized Roadmap to Excellence).

Cautions

• Few existing WMOS customers that were live prior to the release of v.2010 have migrated to this version, so most references are new customers, with less long-term experience with the solution. Prospective customers should talk to both older and newer customers.
• Although one of the main advantages of SCOPE is having a common technical platform across multiple SCM components, the vendor has few examples of customers using more than one or two components.
• Manhattan lacks a broad or compelling vertical industry strategy beyond its historical strength in retail, apparel, consumer goods, wholesale distribution and 3PL.
• The majority of its revenue (currently over 75%) comes from North America.
• So far, the vendor is not offering alternative deployment models, such as cloud or SaaS.
• Today, the vendor lacks a consistent ability to exploit strategic partnerships that might dramatically help expand its presence or delivery capability.
• Exploiting model-driven applications will require new vendor and user skills during implementation to ensure that tailoring and personalization flow smoothly. Given the newness of this architecture, prospective clients must scrutinize and validate implementation plans and activities. They should also talk to early adopters.
• Warehouse management remains Manhattan's predominant business. Compared to the number of WMS users, the adoption of other SCOPE-based applications remains low, although user demand and implementation are growing. Furthermore, outside North America, there is inconsistent support for non-WMS, SCOPE-based applications, such as SCP or transportation.

Oracle (E-Business Suite WMS)

Oracle provides an expansive portfolio of business applications, in addition to its deep roots in operating technologies, such as database management systems. The company offers WMS capabilities in several of its solutions, such as Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle Retail (formerly Retek). There are also WMS capabilities provided as part of Oracle Warehouse Management, which is the product evaluated in this research.

Oracle Warehouse Management is a mature yet continuing-to-evolve offering, with over 600 customers worldwide, Gartner estimates. The solution now offers a choice in deployment approach. It can be provided as a seamlessly integrated extension to Oracle's E-Business Suite (EBS) for customers looking for an integrated ERP and WMS, or it can be deployed stand-alone in a distributed WMS environment. Although not part of this research, Oracle's other WMS offerings might be viable alternatives for customers looking for reasonable WMS capabilities integrated with either a strong midmarket ERP system or a suite of retail applications.

Strengths

• The company's WMS offering can be deployed and seamlessly integrated with EBS, since it's part of the core data and process model of the EBS product, or as a stand-alone WMS. This tight integration provides notable examples of SCE convergence, where processes can span from one area of EBS into warehouse management processes.
• The vendor's WMS is installed in a wide variety of industries. It is particularly well-represented in sectors not targeted aggressively by WMS leaders, such as aerospace and defense (A&D), industrial manufacturing, high tech, communications and life sciences, which, Gartner estimates, comprise over 50% of Oracle's customer base.
• Oracle continues to increase the breadth and depth of WMS functionality. There were consistent references from moderately complex warehouse environments, with the vendor now servicing an increasing number of Level 4 complexity warehouses.
• Although not specific to WMSs, Oracle offers a mobility solution it calls Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications (MSCA) that provides simplified RF/mobile-device-based transaction capabilities, such as receiving or picking. MSCA is not a full-blown WMS, but it can automate key functions in areas where a holistic WMS is not needed (for example, Level 1 warehouse environments).
• There is a strong use of current-generation Oracle technology, such as rule engines and flex fields, to simplify use. The combination of the Oracle Warehouse Management workflow and its rule engine makes the solution user-customizable and tailorable, thus approaching Gartner's definition of a model-driven and zero-customization WMS.
• Oracle has a global reach, and its WMS is deployable around the world more so than comparable best-of-breed WMSs.
• The vendor has a compelling vision for SCE convergence with process integration, as well as orchestration with transportation, manufacturing and product aftermarket service, such as depot repair.
• Oracle Warehouse Management provides a strong business intelligence (BI) offering, exploiting Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE). The vendor has a compelling vision, and is delivering supply chain performance management beyond individual application silos.
• Oracle Business Accelerators are available, which guide Q&A and expedite implementations.

Cautions

• Oracle is developing a next-generation product line, Oracle Fusion Applications, but it is unclear how it will impact the future direction of Oracle EBS, including Oracle Warehouse Management. However, any impact on the WMS from Oracle Fusion Applications' evolution will be several years in the future, at the earliest.
• The vendor is not yet a market leader in WMS functional depth or breadth, but it continues to add functionality to its WMS.
• Although Oracle's core WMS capabilities are nearing those of WMS market leaders, the vendor's value-added, extended WMS components are not yet extensive or mature. However, it continues to add functionality and some extended WMS capabilities, such as task planning, task interleaving and yard management.
• This product was not a common alternative for non-Oracle EBS users, since a key benefit of Oracle Warehouse Management was its seamless integration with ERP. However, the vendor can now offer WMS stand-alone on a separate instance from Oracle EBS.

RedPrairie (WM)

RedPrairie is a long-tenured provider of WMS and related supply chain and retail solutions. The company's roots in WMS go back two decades, and it has survived several technology life cycle changes — from minicomputer, to client/server and now open systems. The company is owned by private equity firm New Mountain Capital. RedPrairie has multiple WMS offerings, several of which are legacy products. There are two that somewhat overlap and are actively marketed today: RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher (formerly WM/R) and RedPrairie Warehouse Management (formerly WM/D, or Discrete WMS). The vendor offers a broad portfolio of applications, including WMS and multiple extended WMS components, as well as transportation management and retail management. Over the last several years, RedPrairie has primarily bought innovation through numerous acquisitions, enhancing its position in areas such as transportation with fleet management, as well as retail workforce management and store operations. Most recently, the vendor acquired an early pioneer in cloud-based WMSs, SmartTurn, but this offering has not been included or considered in this research.

Strengths

• RedPrairie Warehouse Management is in the Leaders quadrant because it offers industry-leading depth and breadth of both core and extended WMS capabilities.
• RedPrairie has a long track record of delivering WMS solutions for some of the most complex warehouse operations, combining strong WMS products and services to support the needs of demanding clients.
• Of the best-of-breed WMS providers, the vendor has the most comprehensive and well-defined industry vertical strategy. Its go-to-market and delivery strategies are based on industry.
• The vendor has an intriguing SCE convergence vision for retail-oriented and consumer-packaged-goods-oriented, end-to-end supply chain strategies that is focused on linking supply chain operations to in-store activities and demand signals. However, this remains unconventional and unproven at this point, although there are some customers adopting pieces of the vision.
• RedPrairie offers strong delivery of related products, such as labor management, transportation and performance management.
• Work order management supports lightweight manufacturing execution activities with capabilities such as performing complex multiline production scheduling, tracking component-level inventory attributes in a multilevel bill of materials (BOM), streamlining line setup and execution, and managing raw materials, including backflush and scrap.
• A component-based architecture gives the product flexibility, but it is not an SOA stack, model-driven application or business process management (BPM) tool.
• RedPrairie has strong application hosting infrastructure and experience, which allows users the flexibility to choose the application deployment strategy that best fits their needs, such as on premises, single-instance hosted or multitenant hosted. This also allows user flexibility to change deployment strategies in the future if business conditions change, such as bringing a previously hosted application in-house.

Cautions

• Customer references cited that the vendor has had some service and support challenges over the last two years.
• This WMS is not a model-driven application that supports user customization. Although the RedPrairie Warehouse Management technical architecture is acceptable and mature today, given the number of acquisitions and the breadth of its product portfolio, users must monitor the vendor's ability to modernize its applications.
• RedPrairie is evolving a platform vision and strategy, but this is several years from fruition, and thus unproven. Achieving this is impacted by its acquisitive nature.
• Although the vendor sells WMS into multiple industries, its primary overall business focus and extended solution strategies are principally targeted at consumer goods and retail.
• RedPrairie has grown through acquisition, and now has a portfolio of products, including multiple WMSs, some of which are relegated to a legacy support status and others that are redundant. The vendor's stated intention is to continue and accelerate acquisitions, which could result in future solution rationalization challenges. However, the vendor has no current intentions to acquire additional WMS offerings.
• The vendor has been very aggressive in selling new deals, often bundling multiple components to sweeten them. If users will utilize these components in a reasonable time frame, then this is acceptable. However, users must be cautious not to overbuy, making what appears to be a good deal not as favorable because of excessive shelfware.

RedPrairie (WM - Dispatcher)

RedPrairie is a long-tenured provider of WMS and related supply chain and retail solutions. The company's roots in WMS go back two decades, and it has survived several technology life cycle changes — from minicomputer, to client/server and now open systems. The company is owned by private equity firm New Mountain Capital. RedPrairie has multiple WMS offerings, several of which are legacy products. There are two that somewhat overlap and are actively marketed today: RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher (formerly WM/R) and RedPrairie Warehouse Management (formerly WM/D, or Discrete WMS). The vendor offers a broad portfolio of applications, including WMS and multiple extended WMS components, as well as transportation management and retail management. Over the last several years, RedPrairie has primarily bought innovation through numerous acquisitions, enhancing its position in areas such as transportation with fleet management, as well as retail workforce management and store operations. Most recently, the vendor acquired an early pioneer in cloud-based WMSs, SmartTurn, but this offering has not been included or considered in this research.

Strengths

• RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher is a functionally broad, deep and stable product for moderately complex warehouses.
• The vendor continues to win meaningful new business with this product, and continues to enhance its functional footprint to meet the vertical and geographic needs of the marketplace.
• This offering has a strong European presence, in addition to sales, implementation and support, for RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher, with local product development for Europe. It's also often sold internationally, where it's a good fit.
• RedPrairie continues to invest in adding functionality and updating the technical architecture of this offering.
• RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher has a strong presence at 3PL providers and LSPs in Europe.
• The vendor continues to increase integration with its other offerings, such as labor management, workforce management and transportation.

Cautions

• RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher is redundant to the vendor's flagship RedPrairie Warehouse Management product. It's not likely to represent the strategic WMS future for the company.
• RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher is primarily sold in Europe — notably, in the U.K. — while RedPrairie Warehouse Management is more pervasive in other geographies.
• Although RedPrairie continues to invest in this product, which will continue to be an important offering in the vendor's portfolio, RedPrairie Warehouse Management — Dispatcher will not be positioned as the strategic foundation for the vendor's future. This will most likely be RedPrairie Warehouse Management.
• The vendor's stated intention is to continue and accelerate acquisitions, which could result in future solution rationalization challenges. However, the vendor has no current intentions to acquire additional WMS offerings.

SAP (SCM EWM)

SAP continues to offer two distinct WMS solutions, but its primary focus going forward is on SCM EWM, its newest WMS offering, which is the solution evaluated here. SAP ERP Warehouse Management (ERP WM) is a very mature and extensively implemented WMS — Gartner estimates it has over 5,000 customers — but it is not the vendor's strategic WMS platform. This offering had been covered in previous Magic Quadrants, but because SAP now focuses new customer engagements primarily on SCM EWM, it is no longer covered.

SCM EWM was built from inception on SAP NetWeaver to take advantage of SOA and a model-driven architecture common to many of SAP's newest solutions. SCM EWM broadens and deepens the vendor's WMS functionality. Furthermore, SCM EWM is not a new application, since it has been commercially available for over six years now. Initially, demand and live implementations were limited. Over the last two years, however, SAP has been more aggressive in selling and implementing SCM EWM, as well as growing its ecosystem of partners. It now has over 100 named live customers, 200 deployments and over 100 implementations in progress.

Strengths

• SCM EWM represents the strategic direction of SAP's WMS vision and functionality.
• This product offers strong integration with SAP Business Suite and other components, such as transportation management, trade compliance, and environmental, health and safety (EH&S). SAP has global go-to-market and deployment capabilities, in addition to its experience. We estimate that the vendor currently has more than 20% of SCM EWM implementations in geographies other than North American and Western Europe. Some emerging markets where it has installs are Turkey, Brazil, China, Colombia, Russia, India, Philippines, Hungary, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
• The vendor offers a native material-handling control system (MHCS) called Material Flow System (MFS) that allows SCM EWM to directly connect to programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
• SAP has a large and growing ecosystem of implementation and consulting partners across the globe.
• The offering was designed to provide functionality for complex warehouses and increasingly broad capabilities, such as yard management, slotting and rearrangement, material flow solutions, and engineered labor standards.
• The vendor has a compelling vision for SCE convergence, based on its Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (ESOA). It reaches beyond transportation to include process integration, with areas such as manufacturing, order management, global trade and EH&S.

Cautions

• The TCO is higher than equivalent best-of-breed WMSs, largely due to implementation costs. The vendor is working to address this through what it calls Rapid Deployment solutions, which are fixed-price, fixed-scope and fixed-timeline service offerings, launched in 2011. They aim to decrease the time, effort, cost and risk of deploying SCM EWM.
• Although the product's core WMS capabilities are nearing the market leaders, the vendor continues to trail in functional depth, experience and deployments of extended WMS capabilities.
• SCM EWM was principally oriented toward finished goods distribution, not manufacturing warehouses, although the company is adding capabilities to address this. Customers confirm that ERP WM remains better-suited for manufacturing environments.
• SAP has a very large installed base for its legacy WMS, ERP WM. Although SCM EWM represents the future of WMS for the vendor, users will, at a minimum, face a migration to move to this product, which is not a pressing need for most ERP WM customers. The vendor is working on a Rapid Deployment solution for migration from ERP WM to SCM EWM, targeted for mid-2012.
• There have been many improvements in design over ERP WM, but SCM EWM is still a complex product. Although customization is enhanced by having several hundred enhancement spots (that is, user exits), they need to be used judiciously.

Softeon

In business for just over 10 years, Softeon, which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, is a small, privately owned vendor of SCE solutions. The vendor has a compelling value proposition that combines leading-edge SOA technology with rich WMS functionality. It also has a rapid development environment that allows the company to add new capabilities at a pace faster than many of its larger competitors.

Strengths

• Softeon offers a broad and deep suite of SCE capabilities centered on its strength in WMS, including core and extended WMS capabilities.
• The vendor's WMS is built on a strong and flexible SOA that has allowed it to rapidly introduce new capabilities.
• Although the product is not yet a truly zero-modification environment, the company offers tools, such as a strong rule engine, that allow for user tailoring without modification.
• For its size, it has some impressive customers in complex warehouse environments.
• The vendor has strong offshore development organizations, with over 350 engineers.
• It continues to exhibit agility as it pursues some unique opportunities in digital supply chain management (that is, the delivery of digital products) and what it currently calls WMS Lite, which is a cloud offering for SMBs.
• The vendor is pursuing a somewhat unique SCE convergence strategy, moving areas such as vendor-managed inventory, distributed order management and SCP on the same platform as WMS.
• Customers were extremely complimentary of the vendor as well as its solutions and services. For its size, it has a strong and well-documented solution delivery methodology, which it calls Iterative Solution Realization.

Cautions

• Since the vendor is small, and considering the strength of its product, it could be a takeover candidate.
• Because of its size, Softeon is focused primarily in North America from a sales and marketing perspective, although it is expanding into other geographies. Its large clients, however, are taking its solutions international. As a result, it has several international implementations live or in process.
• The vendor has limited resources — growth could tax it.
• Softeon's sales and marketing have been weak, and investment has been low, so its market presence is limited. However, the company sees this as an important area of investment over the next few years.

Snapfulfil

Snapfulfil is a recent offering in the U.S. from established U.K. WMS vendor Synergy Logistics. Formed in 1972, Synergy Logistics is a software company with a North American office, Synergy North America, which is based in Charleston, South Carolina. Synergy focuses on WMSs, with clients ranging from global organizations to SMBs. Synergy took 30-plus years of WMS experience and, in 2006, rebuilt its WMS offering, Snapfulfil, from the ground up, using the latest in Web-native technologies and deployment methodologies. Snapfulfil has been implemented by over 30 customers in under three years, and was launched in North America in early 2010.

Synergy's Snapfulfil has the most unique business model of vendors in this year's Magic Quadrant. While it would be considered an on-demand WMS, although not multitenant SaaS, the delivery model is more of a comprehensive managed service, and not simply a software deployment. Synergy staff actually performs the complete turnkey implementation for customers, and includes the RF hardware and implementation costs in the subscription fees. The customer doesn't pay anything until the software goes live (today, the average across customers is eight business weeks). Synergy wants the customer to get the system to value realization as quickly as possible, and is committed to a no-capital-expenditure delivery. The minimum contract is for one year, but the vendor will agree to longer terms. Synergy strives for satisfied customers that are eager to renew, since the annual renewable contract value is at the core of the business's value.

Strengths

• Unlike other SaaS WMSs, Snapfulfil is a mature WMS that is specifically architected to support the SaaS business model.
• It offers an adaptable architecture with a robust rule engine and high levels of configurability to support customers' specific requirements and to enable the vendor's unique rapid implementation methodology. Currently, the vendor does all the rule configuration for the customer as part of the subscription.
• The managed service and turnkey delivery model reduce implementation risk.
• Synergy is a mature WMS provider with long tenure and a contemporary SaaS offering.
• Hardware and implementation services are built into the subscription price.
• Synergy offers rapid implementation.

Cautions

• Customers are dependent on the vendor for configuration and rule changes. This places a premium on consulting and support resources, which could be taxed if the vendor grows too rapidly. However, this is not currently an issue expressed by customer references.
• There are a small number of employees — around 35.
• The vendor is just now establishing a presence in North America, and remains strongest in the U.K. and Europe. It currently has no intentions to expand into other geographies.
• Snapfulfil is not a true multitenant SaaS WMS. It offers an on-demand, single-instance-per-tenant delivery model.
• Synergy is strongest for core WMS, with some extended WMS capabilities.

Tecsys

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Tecsys is a small vendor of WMSs and related SCE capabilities. The company offers a broad portfolio of SCE capabilities. It has been in business for 27 years, with a large number of clients. For most of its history, it has focused on selling modest deals to small and midsize Canadian businesses. Over the last several years, however, it adapted and formalized its strategy to pursue more strategic initiatives with customers. Tecsys now offers highly differentiated solutions for healthcare and hospital integrated delivery networks (IDNs), as well as industrial and equipment dealers. The vendor is now growing its business more rapidly, in terms of the number of new deals and their size. Although a Canadian-based company, Tecsys' revenue is split about 50% Canada and 50% U.S., with growing revenue in the U.S. The vendor also has a mix of SMB and large customers, with 49% categorized as midsize to large organizations.

Strengths

• Tecsys has a very broad suite of SCE capabilities, including core and extended WMS, as well as many complementary capabilities.
• The vendor offers very differentiated capabilities, domain expertise and customer experience in healthcare SCM.
• It has differentiated capabilities for equipment dealers, with capabilities beyond WMS, such as support for walk-up orders.
• Tecsys has a differentiated vision, architecture and solution that allow users to exploit visual information to improve process execution. The vendor's Visual Logistics solution goes well beyond just adding pictures to textual data. Instead, it allows users to control through rules where visual information will add value, what visual information will improve the process, and for whom and when visual information is needed to make processes work more effectively.
• The company has a stable and mature consulting staff that offers specialized domain expertise in the markets where it's strongest. It goes beyond standard WMS implementation, providing business consulting on how to exploit its offerings in the emerging healthcare supply chain.
• For its size, Tecsys has developed a very well-thought-out and documented implementation methodology.

Cautions

• Although Tecsys has a large number of clients, the bulk are small Canadian distributors. Only fairly recently has the vendor successfully pursued larger, more strategic deals.
• Tecsys is a small public company, which makes it a candidate for change of ownership. However, with the Brereton family's ownership of more than 48% of the outstanding common shares, this makes a hostile takeover unlikely.
• The vendor sells exclusively in North America, although it does have international deployments.
• The company is growing, and given its size, it could have resource constraints in consulting and R&D. However, it continues to grow R&D, with over 10% growth in the last fiscal period.

Vendors Added or Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria or a change of focus by a vendor.

Added

• Deposco — We added Deposco because it has a compelling vision for next-generation SaaS WMSs.
• eBizNET Solutions — We added eBizNET because it has a compelling vision for next-generation SaaS WMSs.
• LogFire — We added LogFire because it has a compelling vision for next-generation SaaS WMSs.
• @logistics Reply — We added @logistics Reply because it is emerging out of Europe as a viable alternative for complex warehouses and is pursuing alternative delivery models, such as SaaS WMSs.
• Snapfulfil — We added Snapfulfil because it has a compelling vision for next-generation SaaS WMSs.

Dropped

Several vendors were dropped this year because the vendor is no longer actively selling this WMS version, or because the vendor failed to meet our inclusion criteria this year — notably, in sales or new customer growth:

• SAP (ERP WM/EWM) — We removed SAP ERP WM/EWM because it is not SAP's go-forward WMS platform.
• Sterling Commerce (IBM Sterling Warehouse Management System) — Sterling Commerce did not meet our inclusion criteria for number of new WMS customers in the previous 12 months.
• Aldata — Aldata did not meet our inclusion criteria for number of new WMS customers in the previous 12 months.
• CDC Software — CDC Software did not meet our inclusion criteria for number of new WMS customers in the previous 12 months.
• Infor (WM 2000) — We have removed Infor WM 2000 because it is not Infor's go-forward WMS platform.

To be included in the "Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems," a vendor must offer a credible WMS product and a vision for WMSs in at least moderately complex warehouse environments. The products must be active in the market, which means the vendors must actively market, sell, implement and support new customers, in addition to current users. They also must continue to develop functionality for this WMS offering. The vendor must provide references of live customers that are holistically using the version of the evaluated WMS solution.

Solutions must meet at least one of the following criteria for inclusion:

• Significant WMS market presence — There must be WMS license revenue of at least $20 million, or at least $10 million per year in SaaS WMS subscription revenue, with combined WMS license/subscription and service revenue of more than $30 million for the previous fiscal year (only license/subscription and services associated with packaged WMS implementations).
• Significant enterprise software presence — The vendor must have more than $500 million in enterprise application software license revenue (including non-WMS) in the previous fiscal year. This is because many end users are interested in the WMS offerings of the major suite vendors. The WMS component must be part of a suite that is active in the market and provides more than basic core WMS capabilities.
• Current WMS market momentum — The vendor must have sold and implemented at least 10 new-named customers on this WMS version in the last 12 months.
• Live customers — The vendor must have at least 25 live customer references that are holistically using the version of the WMS solution being evaluated.
• Major SCM suite vendor — The vendor must have at least $50 million in SCM software license revenue in the previous 12 months and sold at least 10 new-named customers on this WMS in the last 12 months. This is because many customers with significant investments in SCM suites would like to evaluate the capabilities of an integrated WMS product.
• Unique vision or presence — The vendor must have a unique and compelling vision for differentiation in the WMS market that Gartner believes needs to be highlighted to end users.

We have not included stand-alone, specialist, component providers of yard management, slotting, labor management, parcel manifesting, RF, voice, RFID or warehouse automation (see "Supply Chain Management Market and Vendor Guide, 2011"). We also do not cover material-handling and engineering firms that focus primarily on building complex, customized and automated warehouses, whether or not they offer a packaged WMS application, because these firms do not typically offer their WMSs to the market independent from their material-handling solutions. Furthermore, we do not evaluate specialized warehouse control systems (WCSs) or MHCSs that are the middleware between the WMS business application and the material-handling equipment. However, we do consider a WMS vendor if it offers a native WCS as part of its WMS offering. Because they are not relevant as stand-alone WMSs, we also do not evaluate every ERP or suite vendor's WMS capabilities, even though these might be well-suited to a particular customer's WMS needs (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions).

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

The WMS market is mature and remains highly competitive. Because of the intense transactional nature of warehousing systems, Gartner places a high value on an offering's depth and breadth of functionality. We evaluate the WMS products across a range of criteria, including technology and functionality, such as receiving, putaway, picking, shipping, replenishment, quality assurance (including value-added and light manufacturing), labor management, reporting, automation interfaces and voice technology, labeling and retail compliance, multitenant and multisite functionality, and returns functionality.

Although customer service and operations were important in Magic Quadrants for Warehouse Management Systems in previous years, they played an even stronger role this year. In talking with customers, Gartner found that a vendor's ability to provide the services and support necessary to effectively implement and exploit the WMS is increasingly important and a notable differentiator between various WMS providers. Service and support contribute to implementation success, as well as impact TCO.

There is considerable disparity in vendor size and the ability to deliver solutions on an ongoing basis. For this reason, Gartner places high importance on the overall viability of the business and the product. Considering the complex nature of a WMS, we give a high rating to customer experience. Because the most demanding users typically have extreme levels of process complexity, elevated processing volumes and a need for high throughput to enable peak productivity, Gartner places importance on a vendor's ability and experience in supporting complex warehouse environments. We don't fully believe a vendor has functionality and that it is usable until it is demonstrated to Gartner, and until users can verify the functionality is usable in the real world and of high design quality. Market responsiveness and track record also serve as good indicators of the vendor's ability to deliver value to users.

Sales execution and pricing, although important to a company's performance, don't represent the same indicators of the Ability to Execute as they might in other markets. Therefore, this factor has been given a low weighting. Pricing in the WMS market is inconsistent across deals and, to a large degree, arbitrary, based on the specific circumstances of an individual initiative.

Marketing execution has a low weighting because of the relatively small effect it has on vendor performance. Operations are important and differentiated across offerings in the WMS market, so it is given a high rating (see Table 1).

Source: Gartner (February 2012)

Completeness of Vision

Although the WMS market is mature, we anticipate considerable changes related to the technology and enhanced decision-support capabilities in areas such as performance management, event management, and work planning and optimization. The dramatic changes embodied in these market shifts will require considerable skills from vendors. Therefore, we place our highest emphasis in the market evaluation on the vendors' understanding of these market dynamics and their product strategies to support these offerings.

The vertical industry strategy remains a relevant factor for determining how well an offering is aligned with where the market is going and how well-suited a solution is for particular industry requirements. This is because the industry is moving toward requiring more vertical-specific functionality, such as capabilities for apparel distribution for hung goods, expanded multitenant capabilities for 3PLs, and forward and reverse logistics that are particular to retail and service parts supply chains. Geographic strategy is also increasingly important for maintaining a strong presence throughout the global market, especially since market growth is expected to be greater in emerging international markets.

Innovation is a critically important factor in the industry, even though core warehousing best practices have been well-established. Innovation and thought leadership played a much stronger role in this year's evaluations. Leading vendors continue to enhance core WMS with more investment in extended WMS, where a greater emphasis is placed on improving warehouse performance through decision support, analytics and optimization. Gartner continues to evaluate innovations in these practices. However, we also evaluate how a vendor is innovating with respect to SCE convergence, especially regarding the expanded role of integration and process orchestration with yard, dock, TMS and mobile assets, as well as vendor extensions into other SCE or SCP functional areas. Innovation is not exclusive to product functionality, and go-to-market and delivery originality are also notable sources of solution differentiation.

Historically, most WMS vendors had similar direct sales strategies. However, how vendors intend to address international expansion and pursue growth in the lower end of the WMS market are important considerations. New deployment models, indirect sales strategies, and unique delivery and pricing approaches are now more important considerations. Therefore, we have rated sales strategy as standard, although there are strategic differences (see Table 2).

Source: Gartner (February 2012)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

Leaders combine the uppermost characteristics of vision and thought leadership with sound Ability to Execute. Leaders in the WMS market are present in almost all major WMS deals, and they win a significant number of them. They have the broadest and deepest WMS offerings, with particular strengths beyond core, and proven solutions in emerging, extended WMS areas, such as labor management, work planning and optimization, slotting, returns management, yard management and dock scheduling, and value-added services. Their offerings must meet most mainstream warehousing requirements in complex warehouses without significant modifications, and a substantial number of high-quality implementations must be available to validate this. Leaders must anticipate where customer demands, markets and technology are moving, with strategies to support these emerging requirements ahead of actual customer demand. Leading vendors should have a coherent strategy to support users' business process platforms (BPPs) and SCE convergence. Leaders also invest in and have processes to exploit innovation, and they are normally the first to introduce new capabilities often years ahead of other vendors. Because Leaders are often well-established in leading-edge and complex user environments, they benefit from a user community that helps the vendor remain on the forefront of emerging needs.

Challengers

The critical characteristic of the Challengers is that they have capable, proven and mature products, with numerous live customers. They also have a consistent track record of successful implementation. Challengers' offerings often run some very large and complex warehousing facilities. These solutions are in use by a large number of individual enterprises supporting multiple warehouse operations worldwide. While vendors in this quadrant provide solid and established WMS solutions, they generally lack the overall thought leadership, innovation or compelling visions for next-generation WMSs that are exhibited by Leaders. These solutions are favored by buyers that favor Ability to Execute over Completeness of Vision. Vendors can have practical visions for these solutions and, more generally, SCE, but vision and thought leadership are typically not on par with solutions in the Leaders quadrant.

For vendors with multiple WMSs evaluated in this Magic Quadrant (for example, Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie), we chose to allocate higher overall marks to their strategic WMSs for criteria such as innovation and product strategy, even though these vendors' visions might also manifest in their products in the Challengers quadrant. In some cases, these are solutions that will remain very well-positioned in their respective markets, but this is not the strategic WMS for the vendor. Furthermore, as the newer platform products evolve and mature, the Challengers' offerings are more appropriate, where other factors, such as user desire to deploy on a specific operating platform like IBMi, or geographical sales and support, overshadow other considerations.

Visionaries

To be a Visionary, vendors must have a coherent, compelling and innovative strategy that seeks to deliver a robust and vibrant offering to the market. Visionaries are thought leaders in one or more WMS solution dimensions (for example, functionality, services, go-to-market or deployment strategies), and they tend to be on the leading edge of emerging concepts. However, these offerings have yet to demonstrate an ability to handle a broad range of complex user requirements without modifications. At a minimum, solutions in the Visionaries quadrant have next-generation WMS application architectures that support adaptability and can approach zero-modification deployment.

Visionaries fall into one of two categories: First, they can be established WMS offerings that have yet to mature into a leading position in the market. Additionally, these vendors must anticipate user requirements across all functional areas of WMS; demonstrate a commitment to an adaptive technology strategy, such as SOA and model-driven architectures; and articulate a strategy for pursuing SCE convergence. Second, Visionaries can be specialist vendors with unique and potentially disruptive views of where the market is going. They can exhibit innovation in WMS products, services, go-to-market or deployment strategies.

Niche Players

Although there's an assumption that vendors in the other quadrants are better choices for new WMS buyers, Niche Players are just as good or better choices for prospective users because they focus on a geographic or vertical component of the market that is meaningful to particular users. However, this focus is not a compelling enough differentiator for a vendor to ascend to a leadership position. Some offerings in the Niche Players quadrant, although often solid WMS solutions for a specific industry or geography, are not as broad as the WMS solutions in other quadrants, and these solutions won't likely evolve to broadly support SCE convergence. Other solutions are part of broad suite providers. Although their WMSs are solid, WMS is not a strategic product for these vendors, and investments in broadening and deepening functionality are limited. All these offerings meet modest warehousing requirements, but they cannot meet more complex requirements across the WMS market without modification.

The core WMS market is mature, dating back over 30 years to when commercially packaged WMS first emerged. From its inception, core WMS functionality has remained fundamentally the same — receiving, putaway, inventory management, physical inventory/cycle counting, rule-based locator, picking, replenishment, packing and shipping — although there have been and continue to be notable improvements in the depth, number of options and flexibility of these capabilities. When we say that the WMS market is mature, with near parity in basic core WMS capabilities across product offerings, this is analogous to saying all cars have four wheels, an engine, transmission and steering wheel. Indeed, most WMSs cover the most basic capabilities, but notable differences remain in core capabilities, just as there are differences in engines and transmissions between cars.

WMS innovation hasn't stopped, however. Leading WMS vendors continue to enhance and extend core capabilities, as well as expand the breadth of their application footprints. They now provide more value-added capabilities surrounding the core WMS, or what Gartner calls extended WMS (see "Consider These Critical Issues When Evaluating Warehouse Management Systems"). Furthermore, the recent focus has been on enhancing the technical architectures: Some vendors have upgraded to model-driven architectures that enable more user adaptability of the WMS during and after implementation. Additionally, cloud and SaaS delivery models have recently become more viable deployment options for all but the most complex and sophisticated warehouse environments.

Because WMS procurements are notoriously difficult to justify costs, it might be assumed that, during difficult economic conditions, WMSs would be low-priority investments. However, Gartner finds just the opposite. Given weak business cases, it would seem logical that businesses would allocate limited IT resources to higher-priority initiatives, such as upgrading business intelligence, CRM and ERP; improving SCP and sales and operations planning (S&OP); or implementing TMSs. However, WMS market demand remains higher than Gartner anticipated for the last several years. Talking with clients, Gartner finds that many organizations see that now is the time to invest in a stronger SCE foundation to position them better for a future return to growth, and that upgrading their warehousing and fulfillment capabilities is necessary.

Over the last 18 months, Gartner finds that WMS buyers place a particular emphasis on WMS product breadth and depth, vendor expertise, and customer service and support. Vendor and product viability and TCO continue to be very important criteria, but play less of a role in complex WMS engagements. However, they are becoming differentiating factors in less demanding transactions. TCO considerations are key factors driving the rapid increase in interest for SaaS WMS in low to moderately complex warehouses, where subscription pricing models reduce short-term costs. Improving efficiency and productivity slightly bypassed cost containment as a dominant objective for supply chain organizations (see "User Survey Analysis: Understanding Supply Chain Management Software Buyers, North America, 2011"), with improving customer service also a very important priority. The increased emphasis on efficiency and productivity is evident in WMS upgrades and replacement engagements, since we find customers now focusing more attention on the value-adding capabilities that surround core WMS (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions), such as labor management, task interleaving, slotting, yard management, dock scheduling and performance management. These have now become common requirements in all but the most simplistic WMS deals.

WMS Vendor Landscape

Vendor and product evaluations and rankings changed from 2010 for this year's Magic Quadrant, primarily in the area of Completeness of Vision. Although the high-level criteria weightings did not change, the subcriteria and scores did. Several vendors moved to the left, based on an increased emphasis on characteristics related to innovation and thought leadership, which are hallmarks of Visionaries. However, this change does not mean that vendor capabilities deteriorated from previous years — how we rated certain factors, such as innovation, caused scores to change. In fact, while several vendors moved to the left, they also moved up, indicating their Ability to Execute improved. Changes to scoring did not impact evaluation criteria for Ability to Execute, where the emphasis is more on a vendor's ability to successfully serve its customers with solid products, as well as strong service and support.

Leading WMS vendors continue to broaden and deepen their WMS and logistics offerings, as well as support architectural strategies that are better-suited to the demands of agile enterprises. In this Magic Quadrant, the WMS market was again led by Manhattan Associates' WMOS and RedPrairie's Warehouse Management. These offerings provide the broadest and deepest WMS functionality, and their technical architectures address many of the desires of new WMS buyers. These solutions have been implemented in some of the most complex warehouse environments. Moreover, the vendors have extensive experience in SCE, as well as compelling visions for how WMSs and, more broadly, SCE will evolve over the next five years.

ERP vendor WMSs continue to evolve, with vendors adding depth to their core WMS capabilities and adding some extended WMS capabilities. Although these solutions have yet to match the overall depth and breadth of the Leaders, they are becoming viable alternatives for increasingly complex environments.

Oracle is a new entrant in the Challengers quadrant, based on its continued enhancements in functionality, customer growth and global deployment capabilities. The vendor has demonstrated its ability to work in some Level 4 warehouse environments (see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions), but it has yet to prove that it is on the forefront of WMS innovation in both functionality and delivery model. SAP SCM EWM remains in the Visionaries quadrant, but with an improved execution position, since it continues to make progress growing its WMS capabilities and customer implementation. It has improved customer sales and implementations over the last 18 months. SAP also has strong global sales and support, as well as intriguing strategies for SCE convergence, but it is not yet a WMS Leader.

The Visionaries quadrant was the most populated this year, with multiple vendors exhibiting innovative solutions or go-to-market strategies. This demonstrates that, although the WMS market is mature overall, innovation continues. HighJump Software continues to have a unique vision for simplifying the WMS experience, from customization, application administration and implementation to end-user ease of use for midsize warehouse environments, in particular. It is also pioneering emerging concepts, such as cloud computing, and what it calls App Station, its new approach for delivering small bits of functionality through a capability analogous to Apple's App Store. Although it's small, Softeon is an innovator, leveraging a strong SOA platform to challenge the traditional WMS vendors. Accellos demonstrates consistent success in selling and implementing in the SMB WMS environment, where TCO is a key evaluation criterion for buyers. Tecsys continues to exploit its expertise in healthcare and other industry-specific warehouse environments. eBizNET Solutions and Synergy Logistics' Snapfulfil prove that innovation in business model, go-to-market strategy and delivery method are potential sources of untapped innovation.

Several vendors are positioned in the Niche Players and Challengers quadrants. Niche vendors, although potentially suitable for certain buyers, exhibit one or more of the following characteristics:

• There is a lack of comparable WMS depth or breadth to the Leaders or Visionaries.
• The primary focus is on one industry or geography.
• Solutions operate on a single proprietary hardware platform, such as the IBM iSeries.
• The vendor has yet to establish a solid position in the market, and has not exhibited a compelling strategic vision beyond WMS.
• The size of the vendor and small number of current customers increase near-term business risk.

Niche solutions are often functionally sufficient or, in some cases, good choices for many companies. However, these offerings lack the full depth, breadth or robustness of functionality demanded by the most complex and sophisticated users. Plus, these vendors might not have a broad vision for next-generation WMS. They might also lack the experience, numbers of clients, customer references or business viability of the leading vendors in the market. This is not to say they are not viable or preferable for many WMS buyers. In cases such as Europe-centric warehouse operations, vendors such as Consafe Logistics, @logistics Reply and Generix Group could be acceptable — if not preferable — choices, primarily because of the strong local presence.

Solutions in the Challengers quadrant are mature, functionally solid and proven solutions with strong track records of customer adoption and successful deployment. These solutions typically support Level 3 or higher warehouse operations, and they have strong core WMS capabilities and some extended WMS extended capabilities. Although offerings in the Challengers quadrant are normally functionally robust, the vendor or the specific solution is not on the forefront of innovation. The vendor is not typically a thought leader in WMS, or this is not the platform where they first exploit their thought leadership.

Vendors like Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie offer multiple WMS solutions. Although their main offerings are in the Leaders quadrant, they each have solutions in the Challengers quadrant, where product maturity, vendor track record and product track record are favored by buyers more so than breadth and vision. Also, for the vendors with multiple WMS offerings assessed in this Magic Quadrant, the solutions in the Challengers quadrant are not the vendors' strategic WMSs, or they lack the adaptable technical architectures required by the most demanding and innovative WMS buyers.

The core WMS market is mature and dates back over 30 years, when commercially packaged WMS applications first emerged. From its inception, core WMS functionality (that is, basic functionality) has remained fundamentally the same — receiving, put-away, inventory management, cycle counting, rule-based locator, picking, replenishment, packing and shipping — although there have been and continue to be notable improvements in the depth of core WMS capabilities.

WMS innovation has not stopped. Leading WMS vendors continue to expand the breadth of their WMS footprints, providing more value-added capabilities that surround the core WMS, or what Gartner calls extended WMS: the portfolio of capabilities that augments core WMS with capabilities important to improving warehouse performance, governance and control, such as slotting, labor/resource management, advanced task interleaving, dock scheduling, yard management, visibility/BAM and performance management. Furthermore, over the last five years, leading WMS vendors have focused more attention on improving the technical architectures of their solutions to enable more user adaptability of the WMS during and after implementation. By providing more adaptable architectures, vendors reduce the need for high levels of customization, allowing customers to more readily take advantage of ongoing upgrades.

As a mature market, most warehouses in North America and Western Europe have some form of WMS supporting their operations. Consequently, WMS market growth comes from several areas. In established mature markets, new WMS sales are replacements of outdated applications or license purchases for additional sites and users. Furthermore, new WMS purchases will grow in two emerging markets: (1) SMBs in North America and Western Europe, and (2) international market expansion into geographies such as Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific.

Today, the WMS market is heavily weighted toward midsize to large warehouse operators in North America and Western Europe, with these regions representing 79% of WMS licenses and maintenance revenue, and 54% and 25% of market revenue, respectively. However, projected new license growth rates through 2015 are expected to be higher for emerging markets than for established markets, with nearly 60% of WMS revenue from maintenance.

Given the state of the WMS marketplace, a few themes dominate when evaluating vendors (see "Consider These Critical Issues When Evaluating Warehouse Management Systems"). Although functionality remains important, there's near functional parity for core WMS capabilities across providers. However, significant differences remain in the following areas:

• The overall depth of core WMS packaged functionality
• The overall breadth of value-added WMS capabilities, or what Gartner refers to as extended WMS, offered by the vendors
• The vendors' vision for next-generation WMS and SCE
• The adaptability of the WMS technical architecture
• Deployment model options, such as traditional on-premises licensed software, private or public cloud, or multitenant SaaS
• Vendor and/or ecosystem domain expertise in translating business goals and objectives into specific WMS functional requirements
• The ability of new investments to deliver enhanced business value through the use of innovative capabilities
• The abilities of vendors to support the most complex and high-throughput warehouse environments
• SCE as a platform, or what Gartner refers to as SCE convergence (see "Supply Chain Execution Convergence: Delivering on the End-to-End Process Promise"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions)

Technical architecture is now a critical evaluation criterion for buyers, second only to functionality. User needs for business agility, and thus application adaptability, require architectures that enable zero- or low-modification implementations, allowing users to adapt their WMSs as business changes occur. Because there's near functional parity for core WMS capabilities, vendor domain expertise and customer experience (with relevant and referenceable customers) are important considerations. Lastly, given the growing demand in emerging markets, such as Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, vendors' abilities to provide WMS sales, implementations and customer support beyond North America and Western Europe are rising in importance.

Vendor innovation and thought leadership are increasingly important considerations as the overall WMS market evolves. As a mature market, differentiation will depend on a vendor's ability to stay ahead of market trends and be on the forefront of introducing new capabilities. As WMS solutions approach parity in core functionality, vendors that lack vision will suffer the consequences of the commoditization of basic requirements. ERP suite providers will increasingly dominate in this environment, especially in emerging markets, where their existing presence and less demanding customer requirements will help them establish a foothold in the market. However, at the same time the market for core capabilities approaches parity, we see continued innovation this year, especially in deployment models such as cloud and SaaS. Four new entrants to this year's Magic Quadrant — Deposco, eBizNET Solutions, LogFire and Snapfulfil — are cloud/SaaS WMS providers. Several other vendors, such as HighJump Software, Softeon and @logistics Reply, are now offering cloud as a deployment option.

While new deployment models, such as cloud and SaaS, have become strong in some application markets, they remain emergent in WMS. When SaaS WMS first emerged, it had limited functionality and was best-suited to low-complexity, low-sophistication warehouse environments (what Gartner calls Level 1 or Level 2 warehouses— see "Stratifying WMS: A Multilevel View"; note: this document has been archived; some of its content may not reflect current conditions). However, over the last couple years, SaaS WMS vendors have emerged that offer more functional solutions. However, although these vendors do not cover the breadth and depth of WMS market leaders, they are beginning to offer enough functionality to support the core WMS requirements of moderately complex warehouses. Gartner still hasn't seen strong customer demand for SaaS WMS at the medium to high end of the WMS market, but as these offerings mature, with buyers becoming more convinced of their viability, this will change. Furthermore, we do see private multitenancy in deployments running multiple warehouses from a single instance of WMS, which is a strong candidate for cloud infrastructure. This can be particularly useful for 3PL outsourcing. Today, most of these private cloud deployments are operated by the user organization, not a vendor. However, we now find companies considering having the vendor or a third party host and operate the WMS in the cloud on their behalf.

In talking with customer references for this research, Gartner found that many users have difficulty translating their business goals and objectives into specific WMS process requirements, which is a barrier to exploiting advanced functionality. We found that users often have specific WMS project goals, yet they are unclear on the functionality that would be best-suited to helping them achieve their objectives. To compound the problem, WMS vendor consultants were typically focused on and best-equipped to help with configuring the application to address specific functional needs. Likewise, there is minimal availability of third-party consultants that might help with this translation process. We often found an unfulfilled gap between translating business goals and objectives into feature configurations, which led us to make vendor service and support a more important consideration.