Assessing Infor's new Coleman AI applications and platform

Artificial intelligence has reached the once-stodgy world of ERP, with SAP and Oracle announcing AI applications just in the past year. When Infor joined the fray this month with Coleman, a new platform for AI applications, observers wondered how the vendor, which has a huge portfolio of legacy on-premises ERP brands, can make such a radical leap forward. The short answer: Require users to upgrade to the CloudSuite SaaS ERP package. "I thought Infor offered a coherent explanation as to how AI fits into the other layers of their software," said Jon Reed, an industry analyst and co-founder of Diginomica.com. "Duncan Angove, the president, did a nice job of talking about how we need enterprise apps to be more conversational."