Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lawson Software

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. v/r - T P 20:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lawson Software

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Not notable nor makes any rational claim to notability. Fails WP:CORP Refs are either dead-links or directory type listings or a regurgitated press release. Back office software house. Velella ^{Velella Talk} 09:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:B2B: the only reliable source in the article in InformationWeek's article, which speculates the future events basing off the press release. The Forbes references are not related to the software house, so they don't count. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 14:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, several reliable sources from New York Times (about an antitrust testimony), Wall Street Journal (about a leaked sale), Star Tribune (about a layoff), an interesting blog post about the business Lawson and others are involved in, and others. It's a company in a fairly wide-encompassing industry (up there with Oracle and PeopleSoft). Most business news is from press releases and reactions to them by journalists/bloggers anyway. Also, WP:B2B is an essay, not a Wikipedia policy. Sure, the references on Lawson Software need some work but at least it has references, unlike most pages about obscure footballers, music groupss, and organisms... —Eekerz ^(t) 21:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - you may be right about obscure articles, and there may be some considerable merit in your arguments about footballers and music groups, but the poor old organisms have been around for millennia and most will survive for millennia more unless humans destroy them, so let them have their little piece of Wikipedia space!. Velella ^{Velella Talk} 22:45, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- As I get the WP:CORPDEPTH, the references you suggest are exactly those supposed to be discarded while establishing notability. BTW, I'm pretty sure that the most obscure footballer is much more known that this allegedly notable company. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I'll be the first to admit that WP:B2B is an essay. I made it to avoid repeating myself in deletion discussions about businesses such as this. And this article is full of reminders why.

Notability shouldn't be an issue given this text; not yet. Does the text of the article contain a meaningful description of what this business or its products make or do? It's software of some kind, and has something to do with serving various businesses -- an international software company with 4,000 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and services industries -- but that's about all it says. (In most cases, calling a software business "international" is inherently misleading. You don't become "international" just because your product can be downloaded or emailed.) So what does it do? They aren't telling. They're just repeating slogans somebody in marketing made up:

Applications in the S3 product line are designed to help customers “staff, source and serve.”
Applications in the M3 product line provide solutions for customers that “make, move and maintain” goods or equipment.
Lawson also provides pre-configured functionality that addresses the specific business needs of certain industries....
Lawson Smart Office is built using .NET Framework and Windows Presentation Foundation. It gives the user the advantage of a native Microsoft Windows application and aims to deliver a superior user experience.

Other parts of the article are equally as vague as to what the products actually are. Lawson provides open, standards-based software. Lawson’s technology platform – Lawson System Foundation 9 – combines Lawson's technology with middleware from IBM. Whether this business is notable or not, this uninformative and nonsensical article needs a complete do-over. This text has no value. It is not neutral, not informative, and intended only to advertise. It can't be rewritten for neutral style from the information presented; there isn't anything to work with. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 21:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there are enough sources in the web to build an encyclopedic article about Lawson software as notable subject. A simple search can demonstrate that this company is an important application software veteran^[1], a subject of independent technology interest^[2], a company strategy attracts attention for a long time^[3]. The company has been acquired^[4], so if we delete this article now (which, probably, not conforms notability guidelines right now), we would wait for a very long time for a new one about Lawson, Bezik (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- All these sources are just the company's press releases re-formatted to look like articles. The Cnet's and eWeek's articles also feature the Lawson staff's quotes, which indicates that no one else found this business notable enough to say anything about it. Actually these sources and this rationale make me amend my prior delete vote with a plea for salting the name. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - These four articles (The Register's, Cnet's and eWeek's) written by staff authors under editorial control, so could not be considered as press release. Also I am sure that there are many non-news sources, for example, just see this book (published by Cambridge University Press): [5] and you will find at least 5 mentions of Lawson Software (as important ERP vendor). In this independent market research you will find (at p.60) quite significant information about Lawson as a public sector vendor (between Hyperion, Microsoft and Oracle corporation) and a company overview. Of course, these sources still not exists in article, however, they could be added (if article will be kept), Bezik (talk) 19:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - The new sources are just as convincing as those before:
      1. The book list primary ERP vendors (BAAN, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and J.D. Edwards, and continues: "Other ERP firms include (but are not limited to) Great Plains, Lawson, Platinum, QAD and Ross and Solomon" [sic] with QAD Inc article being just as much spam as this one. You might note, that even not all the primary vendors are notable enough for Wikipedia, so again we have a proof of the fact that this article should be deleted.
      2. The market study on the market of this company... Are you kidding? Sure a market report would list the companies on the market. Unless all of them are necessarily notable (evidently not), this source doesn't help.
      And you are pretty wrong in comparing this vendor to Microsoft, Oracle corporation and Oracle's subsidiary. Does this statement need explanation? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      I do not comparing Lawson with Oracle, MS and Hyperion, it Government Finance Officers Association does (in context of public sector packaged applications). Of course, Lawson corp. was sufficiently less than Oracle and MS, but it is important player of ERP market (recognized as tier II ERP vendor^[6]), Bezik (talk) 21:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      
      ...also mentioned as a "strong performer" at ERP market for large enterprises in Forrester wave, Bezik (talk) 21:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.