Mr. Jan Baan, one of Europe's top IT entrepreneurs will addressed ISB students on November 11, 2005. Mr. Baan, a name synonymous with one of the great ERP success stories in the 1990s, the Baan Co., believes that “without IT, you can't do business”. The Baan Co. was once a Wall Street favourite that competed closely with the likes of SAP and PeopleSoft, but was sold to Invensys for $708 million in May 2000, and in July 2003 was bought for $135 million by SSA Global, where it continues to operate as a business unit.

Cordys Inc. offers a new Web services platform that optimizes the benefits of new Internet technology and enables companies to smartly combine existing systems with new technologies to meet evolving business needs. By implementing Cordys’ solution, companies can more efficiently manage information and introduce new business processes at the enterprise-level, which positions them to adapt to change more effectively and take quicker advantage of new business opportunities.

The unified architecture approach is what marks Cordys out from other Web services companies. Rather than offer individual Web services products for portal applications, application servers or integration brokers, the company sells a framework to meld all of those technologies. Cordys may face stiff competition from larger rivals, such as IBM's WebSphere, Microsoft's .Net and SAP's NetWeaver. But these Web services integration products are tied to each company's enterprise software lineup, unlike Cordys.