SAP executive vice president John Wookey knows he's got a mountain to climb when it comes to taking on the likes of Salesforce.com in the Cloud Computing applications market. “We're going to have to build up our customer brand and our own credibility. Then we'll start to get people to take us more seriously,” he admitted this week, but added: “We are very serious about on-demand. Innovation in ondemand is still largely in front of us.”
While most of the attention around SAP's Cloud ambitions has been focused on its Business ByDesign low-end offering, Wookey has been managing the building a series of on-demand products with a Java-based platform SAP acquired through the purchase of Frictionless Commerce in 2006. The on demand push was heart and centre at the SAP Influencers Summit in Boston where the firm outlined its five year enteprise software plans.
With Platform as a Service (PaaS) a frequent topic of discussion for established Cloud vendors such as NetSuite and Salesforce.com, SAP is likely to follow suit by allowing third parties to develop on the Frictionless platform although Wookey wants to avoid any accusations of lock-in. "Our intent is not to go out and be a tools provider,” he said. “We want to build good tools to build great applications and we want to open those up to third parties to use, but we're not going to actually prescribe that you have to use those tools.
"People may choose to build on [Frictionless] which would be great," he continued. "But they may also decide they want to use Python or Ruby or anything else. We still want them to connect to our system in a standard way. So packaging up those services to get access to Business Suite, our data and our services is really what we're focused on in terms of when we talk about a platform."
But all that will be in the future. For now Wookey has the more immediate challenge of getting SAP's own Cloud offerings out the door and into the mainstream. As well as BBD, the initial release will focus on expense management and human capital management (HCM). "We want to focus on getting our own applications out before supporting other people," he said. "The first thing we have to do is win over our installed base and then use that as the right launching pad to go more aggressively into the open marketplace. These products should be profitable by the end of next year.”
BBD's next big push will come mid-2010 with feature pack 2.5 which will include multi-tenant support, in-memory analytics, support for mobile devices, a user interface based on Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, and a Microsoft Visual Studio-based software development kit for third-party application developers. The BBD roadmap is built around what SAP is calling “reliable six-month cycle” for upgrades. In 2011, SAP plans to release feature pack 3.0, which will include industry-specific versions of the product. “Next year, we are ready to rumble,” declared Peter Lorenz, senior vice president of SME solutions at SAP.
There's also a public recognition that if SAP is to succeed in the on demand market, it will to revisit its own business and sales models. “In the Cloud, the line-of-business buyer has an increasingly strong voice,” conceded John Schwarz, a member of SAP’s executive board. “We are beginning to be much more attuned to that.”
Away from the Cloud focus, there are other elements within SAP's five year enterprise software roadmap that will be getting much attention. In-memory computing and analytics, increasing numbers of mobile workers and the need for rapid deployment were all cited as priorities by Vishal Sikka, chief technology officer at SAP. "Limitless amounts of data can be analysed, with the ability for users to ask any questions," said Sikka.
But it was the Cloud ambitions that lingered as the Influencers Summit drew to a close. SAP has been accused of dragging its feet over Cloud Computing and Software as a Service, allowing the likes of NetSuite to set the agenda. It's a mistake that Siebel made when it allowed Salesforce.com to become the tail that wagged the CRM market dog.
Wookey is clear about what's at stake. “If we're going to maintain leadership in this industry, we have to become the leader in on demand services," he admtted. “We think we can disrupt the current market for on-demand applications here. “
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