SAP’s new Cloud Strategy

| May 18, 2010 | Comments (0)

From ZDnet:

SAP on Tuesday will demonstrate the latest portion of its on-demand strategy: A focus on “orchestration” and additional capabilities added as a service to its core systems such as Business Suite.

Think of it as “on-premise on demand.” In addition, SAP plans to launch “starter packs” for Business ByDesign and lower the minimum seats to get more customer volume.

In a nutshell, John Wookey, executive vice president of large enterprise on demand at SAP, will demonstrate on-demand software designed for line-of-business needs. The conundrum outlined by Wookey goes like this:

Customers got frustrated and went out and got software as a service to get that functionality.

Wookey, speaking at the SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando, said he doesn’t blame these customers for going out and getting SaaS, but he does see an opportunity to “bring cohesion to the model.”

In some respects, Wookey’s plan could be a cure for SaaS sprawl. The rub: Customers that already have gone with SaaS in addition to an on-premise suite may not swap out for on-demand orchestration.

Customers have come to SAP and “said it would sure be nice if you could provide these things on-demand so we wouldn’t have to go to all of these other vendors,” said Wookey.

SAP is trying to adapt to the changing state of IT spending. Simply put, the CIO isn’t necessarily making the purchases. The chief marketing officer may be buying Salesforce.com and the HR head is going for SuccessFactors.

Since the upfront spending is low for these on-demand apps, the CIO has been cut out.

Wookey, who is in charge of on-demand strategy at SAP, said the company plans to weave in collaboration throughout these on-demand add-ons. SAP’s game is to sell on-demand software that maps well to a company’s existing on-premise application.

Tuesday’s demo will revolve around a product dubbed Sales on Demand, which is designed to improve on communication in the sales process.

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Category: Competition, New Products, Resources, SAP, Strategy, Tools

About Onuora Amobi: Onuora Amobi is the founder and CEO of Nnigma, a leading online marketing firm headquartered in Pasadena, California. A Microsoft MVP with close to two decades of IT experience, he is also the co-author of the Windows 7 Deployment Guide for small businesses and IT Professionals(http://www.windows7deploymentguide.com). View author profile.