Intellicorp Inc, a lifecycle management software developer, has unveiled two products which it says will enable SAP customers to upgrade their enterprise resource planning systems without expensive code rewrites. MigratorPlus brings hand-coded interfaces into a packaged environment so that when SAP systems are altered, for example for conversion to the euro, the changes are communicated throughout the whole system. Custom coding is the bit that comes back and bites you, says Tanya Candia, Intellicorp’s VP marketing. The majority of interfaces have to be rewritten at upgrades, she claims.
Intellicorp software monitors the interfaces in a SAP system, checking for errors and correcting them automatically. This is the high value benefit for customers, says Candia. She maintains that companies which use Intellicorp software may save as much as 70% of the costs of upgrading.
LiveCompass involves reverse engineering, allowing customers to see what their ERP application does and distilling it into a blue-print, so that customers can see the potential effects of any proposed changes. It is intended, the Mountain View, California-based firm claims, to make the customer self-sufficient. Candia sweeps aside the question of cannibalizing Intellicorp’s revenue. We’ll find something else to sell them, she jokes, before explaining that SAP’s installed base numbers around 18,000 systems and that most of these will benefit from understanding that system before upgrading it.
MigratorPlus’s price of $70,000 pays for the conversion of five interfaces. LiveCompass prices are $140,000. Candia said that the company expects the two products to provide between 35% and 45% of total revenue in the next two years.
