September 25, 2007

SAP ByDemand could work a lot better than critics think

As I explained in another post, it’s credible that SAP is very serious about its new ByDemand SaaS (Software as a Service) offering. While I haven’t been briefed on the product (er, service), I’m guessing ByDemand is pretty good, or soon will be. I have three major reasons for this opinion.

  1. SAP sure has a lot of resources to bring to bear – and as previously noted, I think the company is dead serious about this initiative.

  2. On the back end, the business-service granularity SAP has been implementing is well-suited to deal with the unique challenges of SaaS, both the very real (e.g., short upgrade cycles) and the largely imaginary (e.g., multi-tenancy).

  3. SAP recently hired Dan Rosenberg away from Oracle to head its UI efforts, and Release 1 of a Dan Rosenberg user interface is likely to be very good. I know Dennis Howlett has a contrary view, and he’s actually seen the product. Even so, I’m optimistic about SAP’s claims to have designed the UI with an open mind, for maximum ease and simplicity, and validated by many rounds of testing.

Read more

Categories: Enterprise applications, SAP, Software as a service 5 Comments 
September 25, 2007

The unprofitability of the SaaS business is an illusion caused by growth

There’s a fallacy going around to the general effect:

Salesforce.com is the biggest SaaS company. Salesforce.com is making next to no profit. Therefore, SaaS is currently not a profitable business.

But that’s nonsense. Here’s why. Read more

Categories: Enterprise applications, SAP, Software as a service Leave a Comment 
September 20, 2007

Software Auf Probe

We all know insulting wordplay such as “Windoze,” deserved or otherwise. (Personally, I prefer the more subtle “Intel giveth and Microsoft taketh away.”) I just learned one in German, however, that I’m guessing is less familiar to English-speaking readers. “Software auf Probe” translates, roughly, as “Software in test.” Any resemblances to long SAP adoption cycles are purely intentional. 🙂

Categories: Enterprise applications, Fun stuff, SAP Leave a Comment 

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