NAPA -- Wine business software developer Elypsis merged with Admiral IT of Denmark, effective Oct. 1.
Harvey Grant created Elypsis (707-257-8912, elypsis.com) in 1987 and had been chief executive officer. He now will be focusing on growing the vertical integration business for the wine industry globally.
Jeremy Grant and Ryan Grant, Elypsis vice presidents of enterprise resource planning and retail solutions, respectively, will take over day-to-day management at the downtown Napa office.
Elypsis released winery software in 2000 and developed solutions for consumer-direct sales, distribution, ERP and customer relationship management.
"We introduced and pioneered Microsoft Dynamics NAV for wineries, where it has become the standard accounting--ERP solution," Mr. Grant said.
A goal of the merger is to accelerate innovation, he said.
"Technology advancements are accelerating at a much faster rate than previously seen and wineries are finding creative new ways to build their customer relationships, increase sales revenue and control costs," Mr. Grant said. "We need to deliver technology advances in a way that will allow wineries to get their hands on the pulse of their business to enable fast and smart decision making."
For example, Elypsis will add software as a service (SAAS) sold as a monthly service, rather software installed at the winery. The company will continue to make user-installed software.
"We will take advantage of recent shifts to SAAS demand, which can eliminate a winery's need to invest in server infrastructure," Mr. Grant said. "Microsoft has also recently committed to a yearly release cycle of NAV and it is important to keep pace with that delivery of innovation and provide a defined roadmap that customers can depend on. This move will enable us to provide all of this at an early-adopter pace."
Admiral IT (com.admiral.dk) started in 1981 and has eight offices serving 3,500 customer installations in four countries. It has developed multiple retail, accounts, ERP and CRM vertical software for various industries throughout the world, including fashion, electronics, retail, banking, payroll, golf, automotive repair and manufacturing.
