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J.D. Edwards World Solution Company or JD Edwards, abbreviated JDE, was an
enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a sui ...
(ERP)
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...
company, whose namesake ERP system is still sold under ownership by Oracle Corporation. JDE's products included World for IBM
AS/400 The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-cos ...
minicomputers (the users using a
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or
terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote term ...
), OneWorld for CNC architecture (a client–server
fat client In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...
), and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (a
web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...
). The company was founded March 1977 in
Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, by Jack Thompson, C.T.P. "Chuck" Hintze, Dan Gregory, and C. Edward "Ed" McVaney. In June 2003, JD Edwards agreed to sell itself to PeopleSoft, Inc. for $1.8 billion. Within days, Oracle launched a hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft sans JD Edwards. PeopleSoft went ahead with the JD Edwards acquisition anyway, and in 2005, Oracle Corporation finally took ownership of the combined JD Edwards-PeopleSoft organization. As of 2020, Oracle continues to sell and actively support both ERP packages, branded now as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World.


History


Formation

Ed McVaney originally trained as an
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
at the
University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
, and in 1964 was employed by Western Electric, then by
Peat Marwick KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a netw ...
, and moved to
Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, in 1968, and later became a partner at Alexander Grant where he hired Jack Thompson and Dan Gregory. Around that time he was realizing that, in his words, "The culture of a public accounting firm is the antithesis of developing software. The idea of spending time on something that you’re not getting paid for—software development—they just could not stomach that." McVaney felt that accounting clients did not understand what was required for software development, and decided to start his own firm. "JD Edwards" was founded in 1977 by Jack Thompson, Dan Gregory, and Ed McVaney; the company's name is drawn from the initials "J" for Jack, "D" for Dan, and "Edwards" for Ed. McVaney took a salary cut from $44,000 to $36,000 to ensure initial funding. Start-up clients included McCoy Sales, a wholesale distribution company in Denver, and Cincinnati Milacron, a maker of machine tools. The business received a $75,000 contract to develop wholesale distribution system software and a $50,000 contract with the Colorado Highway Department to develop governmental and construction cost accounting systems. The first international client was
Shell Oil Company Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,0 ...
. Shell Oil implemented JD Edwards in Canada and then in
Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
. Gregory flew to Shell Oil in
Douala Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region. Home to Central Africa's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport (DLA), it is the com ...
, Cameroon to install the company's first international, multi-national, multi-currency client software system.


Enterprise Resource Planning concept developed

As the majority of JD Edwards's customers were medium-sized companies, clients did not have large-scale software implementations. There was a basic business need for all accounting to be tightly integrated. As McVaney would explain in 2002, integrated systems were created precisely because "you can’t go into a moderate-sized company and just put in a payroll. You have to put in a payroll and job cost, general ledger, inventory, fixed assets and the whole thing.
SAP Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...
had the same advantage that JD Edwards had because we worked on smaller companies, we were forced to see the whole broad picture." This requirement was relevant to both JDE clients in the US and Europe and their European competitor SAP, whose typical clients were much smaller than the American Fortune 500 firms. McVaney and his company developed what would be called
Enterprise Resource Planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a sui ...
(ERP) software in response to that business requirement.


World ERP System launched

The software ultimately sold was named JD Edwards WorldSoftware, popularly called World. Development began using System/34 and /36 minicomputers, changing course in the mid-1980s to the
System/38 The System/38 is a discontinued minicomputer and midrange computer manufactured and sold by IBM. The system was announced in 1978. The System/38 has 48-bit addressing, which was unique for the time, and a novel integrated database system. It w ...
, later switching to the
AS/400 The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-cos ...
platform when it became available. The company's initial focus was on developing the accounting software needed for their clients. World was server-centric as well as multi-user; the users would access the system using one of several IBM computer terminals or "green-screens". (Later on, users would run
terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote term ...
software on their personal computers). As an ERP system, World comprised the three basic areas of expertise: functional/business analyst, programmer/ software developer, and
CNC Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a p ...
/ system administration.


OneWorld ERP System launched

By late 1996, JD Edwards delivered to its customers the result of a major corporate initiative: the software was now ported to platform-independent client–server systems. It was branded JD Edwards OneWorld, an entirely new product with a
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
and a
distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...
model replacing the old server-centric model. The architecture JD Edwards had developed for this newer technology, called Configurable Network Computing or CNC, transparently shielded business applications from the servers that ran those same applications, the databases in which the data were stored, and the underlying operating system and hardware. By first quarter 1998, JD Edwards had 26 OneWorld customers and was moving its medium-sized customers to the new client–server flavor of ERP. By second quarter 1998, JDE had 48 customers, and by 2001, the company had more than 600 customers using OneWorld, a fourfold increase over 2000. The company became publicly listed on September 24, 1997, with vice-president Doug Massingill being promoted to
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...
, at an initial price of $23 per share, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol JDEC. By 1998, JD Edwards' revenue was more than $934 million and McVaney decided to retire.


Quality control issues with OneWorld

Within a year of the release of OneWorld, customers and industry analysts were discussing serious reliability, unpredictability and other bug-related issues. In user group meetings, these issues were raised with JDE management. So serious were these major quality issues with OneWorld that customers began to raise the possibility of class-action lawsuits, leading to McVaney's return from retirement as CEO. At an internal meeting in 2000, McVaney said he had decided to "wait however long it took to have OneWorld 100% reliable" and had thus delayed the release of a new version of OneWorld because he "wasn't going to let it go out on the street until it was ready for prime time." McVaney also encouraged customer feedback by supporting an independent JD Edwards user group called
Quest International Quest International was a major producer of flavors, fragrances and food ingredients with sales of £560 million in 2005 before its acquisition by rival Givaudan. Quest created and marketed flavours and fragrance concepts and solutions for the f ...
. After delaying the upgrade for one year and refusing all requests by marketing for what he felt was a premature release, in the fall of 2000 JD Edwards released version B7333, now rebranded as OneWorld Xe. Despite press skepticism, Xe proved to be the most stable release to date and went a long way toward restoring customer confidence. McVaney retired again in January 2002, although remaining a director, and Robert Dutkowsky from
Teradyne Teradyne, Inc. is an American automatic test equipment (ATE) designer and manufacturer based in North Reading, Massachusetts. Teradyne's high-profile customers include Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and IBM. Histo ...
was appointed as the new president and CEO.


Web-based client, continued product evolution

After the release of Xe, the product began to go through more broad change and several new versions. A new web-based client, in which the user accesses the JD Edwards software through their web browser, was introduced in 2001. This web-based client was robust enough for customer use and was given application version number 8.10 in 2005. Initial issues with release 8.11 in 2005 lead to a quick service pack to version 8.11 SP1, salvaging the reputation of that product. By 2006, version 8.12 was announced. Throughout the application releases, new releases of system/foundation code called Tools Releases were announced, moving from Tools Release versions 8.94 to 8.95. Tools Release 8.96, along with the application's upgrade to version 8.12, saw the replacement of the older, often unstable proprietary object specifications (also called "specs") with a new XML-based system, proving to be much more reliable. Tools Release 8.97 shipped a new web service layer allowing the JD Edwards software to communicate with third-party systems.


Acquisition by PeopleSoft and Oracle

In June 2003, the JD Edwards board agreed to an offer in which
PeopleSoft PeopleSoft, Inc. is a company that provides human resource management systems (HRMS), Financial Management Solutions (FMS), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise performance management (EPM) software ...
, a former competitor of JD Edwards, would acquire JD Edwards. The takeover was completed in July. OneWorld was added to PeopleSoft's software line, along with PeopleSoft's flagship product Enterprise, and was renamed JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Within days of the PeopleSoft announcement, Oracle Corporation mounted a hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft. Although the first attempts to purchase the company were rebuffed by the PeopleSoft board of directors, by December 2004 the board decided to accept Oracle's offer. The final purchase went through in January 2005; Oracle now owned both PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. Most JD Edwards customers, employees, and industry analysts predicted Oracle would kill the JD Edwards products. However, Oracle saw a position for JDE in the medium-sized company space that was not filled with either its e-Business Suite or its newly acquired PeopleSoft Enterprise product.


EnterpriseOne and World software in Oracle portfolio

Oracle's JD Edwards products are known as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World. Oracle announced that JD Edwards support would continue until at least 2033. Support for the older releases such as the Xe product were to expire by 2013, spurring the acceptance of upgrades to newer application releases. By 2015, the latest offering of EnterpriseOne was application version 9.2, released October 2015. The latest version of World (now with a web-based interface) was version A9.4, released in April 2015. Shortly after Oracle acquired PeopleSoft and JD Edwards in 2005, Oracle announced the development of a new product called
Oracle Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Applications (OFA) are a suite of applications built on Oracle Cloud that include cloud-based applications for enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management and manufacturing ( ...
. Fusion was designed to co-exist or replace JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World, as well as Oracle E-Business Applications Suite and other products acquired by Oracle, and was finally released in September 2010. Despite the release of Fusion apps, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World is still sold and supported by Oracle and runs numerous businesses worldwide.


See also

* Oracle Corporation – The parent corporation that acquired JD Edwards and PeopleSoft in 2004 *
Oracle Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Applications (OFA) are a suite of applications built on Oracle Cloud that include cloud-based applications for enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management and manufacturing ( ...
– envisioned and pitched as an Enterprise resource planning suite: a combination of features and functionalities taken from Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel product lines * Configurable Network Computing – JD Edwards' CNC architecture allows heterogeneous systems combining mixed hardware, operating systems and back-end databases to work together seamlessly. *
C. Edward McVaney C. Edward McVaney (December 29, 1940 – June 4, 2020) In 1977, he was a co-founder and became the CEO of JD Edwards Corporation, a pioneering Enterprise Resource Planning company. In June 2003, JD Edwards arranged to be purchased by Peopl ...


Notes


Further reading

* Allen Jacot, Joseph Miller, Michael Jacot and John Stern. ''JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: The Complete Reference'' (2009) McGraw-Hill. .


External links


JD Edwards on the Oracle WebsiteJDEList
- JD Edwards' longest-running free discussion forum and mailing list
JDE Source
- Blog, Whitepapers and active forum for the JD Edwards community
E1 Tips
- Website dedicated to those that have the responsibility of a CNC Administrator for Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP
JDEdwardsERP.com
- JD Edwards' knowledge sharing initiative by Partners of JD Edwards System
JD Edwards Blog
- Blog for the JD Edwards community
JD Edwards Resources
at Quest Oracle Community *Case Study:
Jungles and Gardens: The Evolution of Knowledge Management at J.D. Edwards
" '' MIS Quarterly Executive'', Vol 3 No. 1 / March 2004. PDF. {{Authority control Defunct software companies of the United States ERP software companies Oracle software Software companies based in Colorado Companies based in Denver Software companies established in 1977 Software companies disestablished in 2003 1977 establishments in Colorado 2000s disestablishments in Colorado Defunct companies based in Colorado 2003 mergers and acquisitions Oracle acquisitions