The problem with taking a random walk at 3:00 AM is that you pay for it the next day, especially if you follow it with a 5-hour plane ride home.

While I was in Phoenix moderating a panel at Transplace’s Shipper Symposium, Steve Banker was in Orlando attending RedPrairie’s RedShift 2010 User Conference. The big news from RedPrairie (validated by the number of inquiry emails and calls we received) was its acquisition of SmartTurn, a software-as-a-service WMS provider. Steve will write more about this deal next week, but this is what he had to say today:

“RedPrairie’s traditional customers are Tier 1 companies that need a very feature-rich solution. The SmartTurn solution has been largely sold to very small companies. In the short term, the biggest opportunity for RedPrairie is to sell SmartTurn to its installed client base. Many of RedPrairie’s big clients have many small storage locations—e.g., depots, storage in backrooms at stores, pop up facilities designed to handle seasonal storage—where implementing a traditional WMS does not make economic sense. SamrtTurn’s solution is very low cost: $1,200 per facility per month for unlimited users with only $4,000 in implementation fees. In the longer term, RedPrairie hopes to leverage this solution to increase its revenues from SaaS and from international markets where companies will not pay for higher priced solutions.”

SAP’s acquisition of Sybase does not have a direct link to supply chain and logistics, but it underscores the growing strategic importance of mobility in enterprise applications, a topic we’ve written about many times (see what I wrote yesterday about Sense Networks, recent news from Manhattan Associates and Sterling Commerce, and “Do You Have A Mobile Commerce Strategy in Place?” and “Mobile Internet and Supply Chain: Bigger Than Most Think” and “Software for the Masses: The iPhone, Crowdsourcing, and Logistics”).

Below are some comments from SAP executives about the driving force for this acquisition:

“With this transaction, SAP will dramatically expand its addressable market by making available its market-leading solutions to hundreds of millions of mobile users, combining the world’s best business software with the world’s most powerful mobile infrastructure platform,” said Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP and member of the SAP Executive Board.

“Mobile devices are becoming the preferred interaction point with business applications, whether the user is a factory supervisor, a retail manager or an entrepreneur in a developing nation,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEO of SAP and member of the SAP Executive Board. “The combination of SAP and Sybase will give users the option of running their operations from leading mobile devices and will unleash the full power of mobility, including messaging interoperability, content delivery and mobile commerce services, across all companies and roles and in any location. In addition, innovation around Sybase’s established database business will pave the way for ‘real’ real-time analytics and finally remove the decade-old barrier between business applications and business intelligence.”

The increase in the Freight Transportation Services Index adds weight to what I’ve been hearing from many shippers the past few weeks: capacity is beginning to tighten up in certain markets and equipment types. According to the press release, “the Freight TSI index has risen 4.5 percent over the last 10 months, starting in June, after declining 15.3 percent in the previous 10 months beginning in August 2008. The index has increased in eight of the last 10 months. The index started 2010 with an increase of 1.6 percent in the first three months.”

Well, my mental and physical batteries are running low. It’s time for a recharge. Have a great weekend!

(Note: RedPrairie, SAP, Transplace, Manhattan Associates, and Sterling Commerce are ARC clients).

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