Friday, December 10, 2004

JDA employees sent packing

JDA Software group is laying off 167 employees, or 13% of its workforce. Although the cutback might be interpreted as a sign of trouble, it appears that JDA is simply taking the next logical step in consolidating its multiple product lines into its integrated offering (its PortfolioEnabled suite). The cutback hits the development group and consulting services.

JDA is one of the leading application software vendors focused on retail applications. It's been around since the 1970s, and has been acquiring a number of smaller firms in the retail space over the past six years, including Timera (workforce management), Engage and Zapotec(advertising, marketing, and promotions), Vista (collaborative commerce), J-Commerce (point-of-sale), E3 (inventory optimization), Neovista (data mining), Intactix (retail space management), and Arthur Retail (advanced planning and allocation). With so many disparate products, the company no doubt needs to continue to harmonize its offerings.

JDA partners with PeopleSoft to fill out its retail offerings with a complete set of ERP applications, such as financials and HR. The company is expected to finish the year at about $210M in revenue, and 0.22 per share earnings. JDA trades on Nasdaq under the ticker JDAS.

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